Two hundred years ago, Mary Shelley published the book that would end up on high school and university reading lists centuries later. Her famous novel, Frankenstein, is iconic and adaptations of it abound in film, theatre, and books. But Frankenstein’s monster also lurks in songs, news stories, and theories. Mark McCutcheon has written an entire book about Canadian adaptations of Frankenstein. The adaptations that McCutcheon draws on go beyond feature films to include the “allusive or ephemeral.” He uses the term “Frankenpheme” to capture these adaptations and we’re sharing our favourite Frankenphemes that we found in McCutcheon’s new book, The Medium Is the Monster.
1. Organ music has become synonymous with Frankenstein and you’ll find it in “Somebody’s Watching Me” by Rockwell. You’ll see a monster-like face that looks like Boris Karloff as Frankenstein’s creature in the 1931 adaptation. A more explicit reference to Frankenstein in this music video is Mary Shelley’s portrait.
2. Remember Frankenstorm? The monstrous Hurricane Sandy earned the nickname “Frankenstorm” as it threatened to merge with other weather systems in October 2012.
3. Videodrome, a film by David Cronenberg, draws on Frankenstein’s plot of experimental technology going out of control.
4. Teeming with musical mad scientists, robotic dance moves, and human-machine ambiguities, EDM’s fetishization of technology turns DJs into Dr. Frankensteins. “Ghosts N Stuff” by Deadmau5 even includes the characteristic organ music.
5. Matthew MacFadzean’s one-man play, richardthesecond, uses the familiar Frankephemes of cloning experimentation.
6. James Cameron has drawn on the idea of “Frankensteinian technological backfire” for films like The Terminator (1984) and Titanic (1997) but most notably, Avatar (2009).
7. Dr. Flowers in Larissa Lai’s Salt Fish Girl is a dystopian Victor Frankenstein who is creating an army of clones (the Sonias) for manual labour.
8. The human organ trafficking plot of Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson is reminiscent of Victor Frankenstein collecting parts for his monster.
In The Medium Is the Monster, Mark McCutcheon’s enthusiastic consumption of adaptations of Frankenstein takes the reader down a mind-bending rabbit hole of literature, film, music, and news stories. He writes: “If Frankenstein helps us to understand the modern transformation of the discourse of technology, then Canadian adaptations of Frankenstein help us to understand the globalized transfer of this discourse, a transfer effected largely by McLuhan’s media theory, together with its myriad adaptations.”
Save the date! The Medium Is the Monster will be launched on May 3 at the McLuhan House in Edmonton. Stay tuned for details.
