From the Vault: Monstrosity/Cuteness Spectrum
Stuff To Blow Your Mind
iHeartPodcasts
4.4 • 5.9K Ratings
🗓️ 19 October 2019
⏱️ 83 minutes
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Summary
It seems the unavoidable fate of all terrifying monsters, doesn’t it? We reduce the most horrifying creatures of myth, legend and folklore to an adorable kids costume or a mega-cute illustration. Why can’t we help ourselves? In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe explore the battle between cuteness and monstrosity, with examples drawn from Japanese traditions. (Originally published Oct 31, 2017)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name is Robert Lam. |
| 0:08.6 | And I'm Joe McCormick and it's Saturday, time to go into the old vault. This time we're |
| 0:12.6 | doing an episode from October of 2017, right? |
| 0:15.8 | Yeah, this one is the monstrosity cuteness spectrum. And this is a lot of fun. We get into |
| 0:21.8 | some Japanese traditions, Japanese monsters, and especially Japanese monsters that have |
| 0:27.1 | been transformed from from from hideous murderous creatures into cute mascots and what |
| 0:34.7 | that transformation means. |
| 0:36.8 | All right, well let's jump right in. |
| 0:38.6 | Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from howstuffworks.com. |
| 0:45.6 | Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name is Robert Lam. |
| 0:54.6 | And I'm Joe McCormick. Hey, Robert, have you seen all these cute Jason Voorhees dolls |
| 1:01.9 | and cartoons fan art all over the internet? Of course you have. |
| 1:06.4 | I've at least seen some of it, but I know you shared with me an image of a Jason plush |
| 1:11.0 | doll and I had not encountered that specific cute horror before. |
| 1:15.3 | Yeah, so he's got the machete and there's blood on the machete, but he's adorable. |
| 1:20.9 | But he has blood on it like you know murder weapons. I mean, even if we didn't know who |
| 1:24.5 | he is, the context here is that this is a killer. |
| 1:27.9 | Yeah, he's got a huge head, huge low set eyes. He just looks so sweet, a little stumpy |
| 1:32.8 | limbs. He's like a little cute baby Jason. And there are cute, Freddie Krueger's in the |
| 1:37.8 | same way, cute, Freddie Krueger cartoons, dolls, toys, things all over the internet. |
| 1:44.2 | And you've seen the cute vampires, the cute werewolves, cute versions of the girl from |
| 1:48.5 | the ring. I looked it up. That exists. Cute predators from the movie predator. I saw |
... |
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