Rewind: Monsters

American Hysteria

W!ZARD Studios

Society & Culture, History

4.4 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 12 April 2021

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We need a little extra time for Horror Movies II, so here is a re-release of a very related and very important episode. Monsters come from the darkness, from the depth of lakes and swamps, from the shadows of forests and hills, and live too in the dark parts of all of us. However, this episode is less about Bigfoot and more about the idea of the monstrous, and how it has been used as a tool to demonize black folks since the first slave ships landed in America, both through folktales and famous works of fiction. We also explore how Darwin's theory of evolution affected white Americans and led to the actual creation of human zoos that displayed African people as both the missing link and blood-thirsty monsters. Become a Patron! Follow American Hysteria on social media: Twitter: @AmerHysteria Instagram: @AmericanHysteriaPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everybody, we need a little more time to work on our part 2 of horror movies.
0:06.4	So we hope in preparation you'll listen to or maybe re-listen to this episode on American
0:14.3	monsters or more accurately how we have used this quality of the monstrous to demonize those
0:23.3	we seek to oppress from the very beginning of colonization.
0:28.8	Just like horror movies can tell us brutal truths about our changing American fears,
0:35.8	the monsters we create either through popular culture or folklore tell us a truth too,
0:44.4	about fear and power and about how fear can be harnessed for power and about how we deal
0:53.2	with the fact that the monster may well live within us all.
1:00.1	So here it is, monsters, and join us next week for horror movies part 2.
1:08.6	As usual, this episode contains a lot of racism because it's US history.
1:13.8	I just wanted to give everyone a heads up that this one could be particularly painful.
1:18.0	Now here's the show.
1:30.6	On this season we'll be exploring our bizarre beliefs, unfounded fears, and fantastical thinking,
1:35.8	how they shape our psychology and culture and how much of our past we can find in the
1:40.4	present.
1:41.4	I'm your host, Chelsea Weber-Smith, and this is American hysteria.
1:47.0	He was moved to a larger cage that was now littered with bones to suggest that he was accountable.
2:16.5	Monsters come from the dark parts.
2:19.2	They rise up from the depths of mysterious lakes and seas, they haunt our swamps and forests
2:25.4	and live in the shadowy cruelty that we are all capable of.
2:29.9	I started out with the expectation of this being a more fun episode, a look at the local
2:34.8	monsters of different American regions and why they showed up when they did.
	...

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