The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, November 2, 2022 — 5
The scariest TV episode is not
one of monsters or horror, it’s
one of fallen heroes and hilarious
sitcoms: Season 3, Episode 6 of
“New Girl,” “Keaton.”
In
“Keaton,”
loveable
egomaniac
Schmidt
(Max
Greenfield,
“Veronica
Mars”)
grapples with the loss of two
girlfriends by finding solace in
cold cuts and mayo straight from
the jar, as his roommates tiptoe
around him to prepare for a
Halloween party.
Schmidt faced his first loss of
love after his father left him at a
fragile 10 years old. To combat
his
subsequent
tear-ridden,
chocolate-covered hopelessness,
his mother (Nora Dunn, “The
Nanny”) wrote him a letter and
masked as his childhood idol:
Michael
Keaton
(“Batman”).
Schmidt wrote Keaton to get
through
every
embarrassing,
traumatic pitfall of his childhood
and his mother, as Keaton, wrote
back. The pen pal empowered
Schmidt,
providing
fatherly
advice to face his worst traumas
and humiliations. When Schmidt
left for college, his roommate Nick
(Jake Johnson, “Let’s Be Cops”)
took over as Keaton, this time with
a fake email. Schmidt adhered to
every word of guidance.
As 29-year-old Schmidt falls
back into a deep deli-meat-feast
depression, quirky roommate Jess
(Zooey Deschanel, “500 Days of
Summer”) attempts to take over
the
Keaton
persona/email
to
expel a faltering Schmidt from the
apartment Halloween party. The
ploy quickly unravels, and Keaton
is unmasked.
When Schmidt (in a tie and
lizard suit, dressed as a “public
serpent”) realizes that he told his
mother about his public erections
(thinking he was telling Keaton),
we might laugh until we cry.
Looking inward, we might start
crying, too — this time from
sadness. Schmidt’s hilarious fall
from grace (if grace here is adult
male delusion) reminds us of the
loss of our childhood.
Heroes are monsters’ foils.
Batman fights all evil in the city
and, with it, all the fears that
stand in our way. Our favorite
heroes fight monsters alongside
us, inspiring us every step of the
way. Without knowing our idols’
real past, we can imagine them
facing growing pains, persevering
and reaching success. We can
choose to be brave and ignore the
scary things that hide in the dark
because that is what heroes do. We
can make up improbable storylines
and frame our mortifying issues in
fictional contexts (an ill-fated high
school homecoming, for example,
can be Cinderella’s ball). Heroes
keep us hopeful, excited and
wide-eyed to the wonders of our
potential hero-like future. They
provide a necessary constant.
As kids, our list of role models
is expansive: favorite artists of
every modality, superheroes, silly
cartoon characters and even local
fire and rescue squads. As scared
little kids, heroes are the antidote
to the monsters of reality. It is no
wonder that we are bravest on
Halloween. We don a hero’s mask
and run into haunted houses. We
become perfect symbols of our
dreams.
As we grow up, our Keatons,
real or fictional, lose their magic.
We discover Taylor Swift has a
Yeti-like carbon footprint, the
Marvel Multiverse is not real (at
least in this universe) and Barbie
is just a doll. Spider-Man is Peter
Parker is Tom Holland. Batman is
Bruce Wayne is Michael Keaton is
Schmidt’s mom.
Keaton
was
the
perfect
childhood idol because he was
only a symbol, a distant pen-
pal and television hero with
a perfectly-crafted brave and
relatable false identity. When we
realize our idol is fictional (or
merely human), having one feels
childish. We no longer dress up
as heroes for Halloween, instead
choosing whatever looks cutest.
We pick a parent, sibling or
teacher as a role model. As Nick
puts it, real heroes “are never who
we want them to be.”
But we do not expel our fears
or monsters with age; instead,
we internalize them. Our skewed
self-image, cynicism, malaise and
general
disappointment
make
the world seem scary and like
it’s out to get us. We fear that
after one failed relationship, our
love life will be a horror story.
We fear that one failed test is
the end of our academic careers.
Monsters appear not just in the
dark of our childhood bedroom,
but in the hidden corners of our
anxious minds. Like Schmidt,
we often curl up in our chosen
(occasionally
toxic)
comforts,
rather than confront our fears
with a headstrong confidence.
Maintaining
a
fictional
or
fictionalized idol may stop us from
dwelling on our daily monsters:
deadlines,
injuries,
failures,
setbacks, humiliating hits to our
self-image and pressures from
those closest to us.
Imperfect and familiar role
models — parents, siblings and
professors — can disappoint us
or crush our self-image. If their
standards are unattainable, we
fall into hopelessness. If we
watch our role models with their
monsters up close, we can no
longer view them as a pillar of
strength, and we fear that similar
(or worse) monsters may befall us.
It is impossible to idolize those we
truly know, even if we love them.
Typically, kids do not get
direct contact with their idols;
that is what makes them perfect.
Schmidt kept Keaton at a safe
distance from an email or letter,
allowing Keaton to remain a
superhuman pillar of strength. If
our distant idols are flawed, like
Taylor Swift, it is often part of an
inspiring or relatable story, not a
disappointment.
Celebrities
can
provide
a
perfect hero when we are young
and unaware, but when they are
exposed as real people (or as our
mom and roommates), all of the
magic fades away. Humans cannot
be vehicles for our anxieties,
hopes and dreams. Real people
are flawed and cannot be put on
a hero-like pedestal. But a song,
show or piece of art that inspires
us, or an origin story that makes us
feel understood, can still empower
us through adulthood.
My childhood dreams led me
to a long and strange list of living,
deceased and fictional media idols.
I saw a future of love, friendships
and hundreds of dream jobs.
I romanticized a childhood of
small heartbreaks and setbacks
and followed my idols’ footsteps
as I found my footing in the scary
world.
Even as Jess dons a child-size
Batman costume to meet Schmidt
and convince him to leave the
apartment, Schmidt holds that
his pen pal was Keaton all along.
“How dare you hack into the
email account of one of our
nation’s finest actors!” Schmidt
cries. Nick and Jess, dressed as
“paper mountain trash king”
and “Joey Ramone-a Quimby”
(respectively), sit Schmidt down
to reveal the painful truth like
parents revealing the Santa secret.
As Schmidt faces reality with a
falsely brave face, he moves out of
the loft and leaves his idols (and
friends) behind.
Childhood idols do not provide
“false hope.” They provide the
purest hope one can offer: one that
never disappoints, admonishes
us for failure or expects us to
be anything but ourselves. Call
it childish or delusional, but
choosing to hold onto childhood
heroes may be an antidote to a
sometimes monstrous reality.
Fighting off the monsters of adulthood
with ‘New Girl’
KAYA GINSKY
Daily Arts Writer
Monsters are borne out of
our deepest fears and anxieties;
they’re reflections of ourselves,
as individuals and as members
of society. From killer clowns
to vampires to poltergeists, we
all have a monster that scares
us more than most. At this
time of year — when, in myth,
the veil between our world and
the spirits’ is said to be thinner
than it usually is — monsters
are on our mind more than
ever. They haunt our Spirit
Halloweens, our dark closets,
our basement stairs and our
midnights. They remind us
that the sanity of the world we
live in is tenuous at best and
that the things lurking in the
shadows are never quite as far
away as we think. If I ask you to
picture a monster, what comes
to mind? A Victorian ghost, a
decrepit zombie, a purple thing
that lives under your bed? Or
maybe, like the writers for this
B-Side, you think of Coraline’s
other mother, Cookie Monster,
Mike and Sully, Carmilla or
even a house itself. Monsters
are not a monolith; neither are
our feelings about them. This
B-Side explores our monsters,
in all their scary, inspiring,
erotic, out-of-this world glory.
THE B-SIDE
The Monster
EMILIA FERRANTE
Senior Arts Editor
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
Design by Phoebe Unwin
There is probably no fear that
has plagued me as intensely
or for as long as my fear of the
“other mother” in “Coraline.”
This stop-motion animated
character
from
the
2009
children’s
film
has
hands
resembling metal spiders with
knitting-needle fingers and a face
that is, at first, loving (except for
its button eyes), but transforms
into
something
altogether
inhuman. She was the monster
I feared was sitting behind me
or just around the corner from
ages 10 to 12. If I wanted to test
my emotional stability, I would
type the movie’s title into my
iPod Touch. Just seeing Coraline
herself, who is not remotely
scary, sent a jolt of fear through
my body by association.
The “other mother” — also
called the beldam — begins as a
fulfillment of Coraline’s fantasy:
a doting parent in an alternate
reality who gives her all the
attention and gifts and, it seems,
love that she desires while her
real parents are distracted by
work and moving into their new
house. But the fantasy sours as
the mother reveals herself as a
monster bent on permanently
trapping Coraline and stealing
her soul. Not only was her love a
facade, but her humanness was
as well.
This evil mother figure did
something monsters from stories
rarely do: She crawled out of the
movie and became a monster
in my own life. I had once felt
safe walking home from my
neighbor’s house at night when
my parents and sister were with
me. “Coraline” erased this sense
of security. I stood next to my
mom and couldn’t shake the
image of spindly arms erupting
from her body as her skin slipped
off and she became a beldam. I
pictured this happening with
everyone around me. I thought I
was with other people, but what
if I was actually alone?
There are some things that
are (at least supposed to be)
universally “safe.” Mothers are
one. Blankets are another. They
are not just safe by default but
are often the safety we turn
to when scared. When a story
questions the safety of these
things, it strips away a viewer
or reader’s sense of security in
a way monsters with only dark
associations cannot. A few years
after watching “Coraline,” when
my fear had finally faded, my dad
read me a story by M. R. James
in which the protagonist’s sheets
and blankets become a monster
that attacks him in the night.
I couldn’t even look at my bed
for the next hour, my rumpled
comforter (ironic name for it in
this context) sending bolts of
fear down my spine. I paced up
and down my hall, unsure where
to go to feel safe from the story.
My fear of my blanket didn’t
last, though. I fell asleep that
night without issue. Something
else had kept my fear of the
beldam alive and well years
after the details of her face and
the plot of the movie had begun
to atrophy in my memory. The
fear
persisted.
The
thought
of someone I relied on — of
everyone around me — turning
into a non-human and leaving me
alone was insurmountable. I had
no plan of action in this scenario
— not like I did in other imagined
face-offs with monsters and dire
circumstances. If the people
around me were not human,
there was nothing I could do to
face them.
We question other people’s
humanness often. I’ve had many
“I have no way of knowing
that everyone around me isn’t
a simulation and I’m the only
real person” conversations with
friends and family members
growing up, as I’m sure most
of us have. It was always a
frustrating
conversation
as
we tried to assure each other
that we were real, but it wasn’t
scary. We were safe from the
consequences of being the only
real human because we had no
way of knowing. As long as it
seemed like we were surrounded
by other people, we might as well
have been.
Coraline’s other mother
holds isolation in those
spidery fingers
ERIN EVANS
Senior Arts Editor
Design by Evelyn Lee
I reimagined the Five Nights
at Freddy’s (FNaF) franchise
as a Muppets movie — skipping
dinner to do so — and half of
my friends are worried about
me. Starving and spiraling after
staring at Microsoft (MS) Paint
for hours, all I had to show for my
effort was a madman’s monstrous
PNG. How did I get here?
It started as a typo and evolved
into a tirade. On a Monday night in
January meant for productivity, I
sent a nonsensical series of images
to one of my closest friends from
high school. It was a series of
parodying
representations
of
Freddy Fazbear, the mascot of the
Chuck E. Cheese-esque horror
series, and he responded with a
Spoonerism. “Fozzy fredbear,”
the message said, and I felt a chill
run down my spine. I pulled up
Google Images, not for the last
time that night, and grabbed an
image of Fozzie Bear from The
Muppets for my reply.
“FOZZY,” I announce. “fnaf
muppets remake where fnaf is
freddy,” I continue, not realizing
my typo before I received his
reply, which had a mistake of its
own: “what if fnaf was freddt”
(sic). “hold on,” I shoot back while
pulling up MS Paint, “i need to set
this up.” The crucial part of that
message was “need.” Looking
back, that chill was something
I’d felt countless times over, some
cold hand of Creation that would
grip my psyche and not let go until
I’d brought it into reality. Every
creation I’ve ever conceived came
from this same feeling.
That night I began cobbling
together my connections board.
The Living Tombstone blared
in the background as I pulled
up game models and character
collages
—
cropping
and
cutting and pasting as needed,
casting the beloved Muppets
as the characters of children,
animatronics and serial killers.
When the work was finally
done, it needed to be shared
— distributed among some of
my friends who I knew would
appreciate the magnitude of what
I’d made.
That’s not exactly how the
night went, as much like the
horror franchise I had created
a fan retelling of, there’s quite
a bit more beneath the surface.
The Five Nights at Freddy’s
series is infamous for a host of
reasons: its noisy jump scares, its
quietly horrifying premise and
its deeply convoluted backstory,
among others. This article is
not meant to inform you about
that backstory either, but the
bare minimum of context might
be needed. You could learn as I
did, watching Markiplier play
through the games and Game
Theory’s MatPat theorize about
them, but a saner option would
be to find a summary. I was
never actually able to play the
games, as I was too broke to buy
them in middle school, then too
anxious in high school. However,
there’s a certain entertainment
factor to watching these content
creators’ descents into insanity
as the games and their lore twist
themselves further and further.
The franchise is split into its
original series and its succeeding
storyline
(and
eventually
an
actual
movie
adaptation
by
Blumhouse?). The original series
— containing “Five Nights at
Freddy’s” one through five —
was developed primarily by the
creator Scott Cawthon, while the
sequel series was developed by
Cawthon and Steel Wool Studios.
The original games follow the
story of a pizzeria entertainment
franchise
being
haunted
by
both its murderous possessed
animatronics
and
the
dark
history of child serial killings
that took place there. While
being enraptured by such a dark
premise might make my therapist
worry, my real obsession is with
how the story is uncovered.
My monstrous Muppets-inspired prediction
for the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie
SAARTHAK JOHRI
Daily Arts Writer
Design by Arunika Shee
Design by Evelyn Lee
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
Read more at MichiganDaily.com