The main aspect of the werewolf, man by day, wolf monstrosity by night. When taking that aspect of the werewolf the first thing that came to mind was the movie, "Me, Myself, and Irene". Truly one of my favorite movies, the basic premise is that there is a very kind officer by the name of, Charlie Baileygates who essentially has a nervous breakdown after his girlfriend leaves him for the mailman (no joke). Anyway this nervous breakdown results in him having a dissociative identity disorder. Usually whenever upset or angry Mr. Nice Guy Charlie Baileygates just oppresses the feelings and moves on with his life. Well after the nervous breakdown whenever he becomes rather upset he becomes, "Hank". Now "Hank" is quite the opposite of Charlie, you see Hank is, pardon my french, an asshole. There is no other way of explaining it, he doesn't take crap from anyone, he does whatever he wants, and he doesn't care what anyone thinks. One of the first things Hank is shown doing is taking a little girl who disrespects Charlie on a daily basis, and dunks her head in a fountain repeatedly before letting her go.
The most difficult part for Charlie is, whenever he stops being "Hank" he can't remember anything that happened. So he later in the film Hank gets in fights with all sorts of people and Charlie has to deal with the pain with an unknown origin. Clearly the parallel here is that Charlie is the human aspect of the werewolf and Hanks is the monstrous wolfman. The difference is, that Hank doesn't come out only during the night, Hank can come out at any moment Charlie becomes too upset. Unlike the werewolf though, Charlie doesn't shift physically, only mentally. So those fights Hank starts in the movie, he gets his butt handed to him. He thinks much more of himself than Charlie does, but they still are the same.
Interestingly enough towards the end of the movie, Charlie and "Hank" come out at the same time, it happens in a hilarious scene that shows Jim Carrey essentially beating himself up as bystanders look on with great confusion. So while Charlie and Hank have a lot of similarities to the werewolf, this modern use of the transformation dynamic is not completely the same.
I think this overall light movie brings to light the idea that our emotions can have a great control over us. We don't all transform into werewolves when we see the moon, but when we get stressed out about exams or deadlines or become angry and short tempered, we turn into monsters ourselves that act out in ways that we normally wouldn't. We truly all have things that "transform" us into other versions of ourselves.
The most difficult part for Charlie is, whenever he stops being "Hank" he can't remember anything that happened. So he later in the film Hank gets in fights with all sorts of people and Charlie has to deal with the pain with an unknown origin. Clearly the parallel here is that Charlie is the human aspect of the werewolf and Hanks is the monstrous wolfman. The difference is, that Hank doesn't come out only during the night, Hank can come out at any moment Charlie becomes too upset. Unlike the werewolf though, Charlie doesn't shift physically, only mentally. So those fights Hank starts in the movie, he gets his butt handed to him. He thinks much more of himself than Charlie does, but they still are the same.
Interestingly enough towards the end of the movie, Charlie and "Hank" come out at the same time, it happens in a hilarious scene that shows Jim Carrey essentially beating himself up as bystanders look on with great confusion. So while Charlie and Hank have a lot of similarities to the werewolf, this modern use of the transformation dynamic is not completely the same.
I think this overall light movie brings to light the idea that our emotions can have a great control over us. We don't all transform into werewolves when we see the moon, but when we get stressed out about exams or deadlines or become angry and short tempered, we turn into monsters ourselves that act out in ways that we normally wouldn't. We truly all have things that "transform" us into other versions of ourselves.
"Me, Myself, and Irene" is a great example of a more modern day werewolf. Bennett does a great job describing the various parts of the movie where Charlie "transforms" into Hank, and also brings up a good point about how Hank can't fight because he's still actually Charlie. When Sidky talks about supposed werewolves and their uses of drugs and salves, he points out how the supposed werewolf would rub themselves down, and then go into a coma. After they awoke they would swear they had just been a wolf in a far away place, killing and eating. The similarities are there, in that in both cases Charlie and the supposed werewolf had thought they had transformed into something else, while in reality they were still just themselves.
ReplyDeleteI great part in the movie is when Irene has sex with Charlie, only to find out it was actually "Hank" she had slept with. Charlie confronts her about a dildo he found and why his butt hurts so much, to which she responds "You stuck it up your own ass". Besides being humorous, I think this is another great similarity. Many people believed werewolves were witches who put on a wolf pelt given to them from the devil. Palmer goes in great length to describe how witches were often accused of sexual abnormality. So along with being a werewolf because of his "transformations", Charlie could also be considered a witch for shoving a dildo up his own butt.