Arthropods in film

Jiminy Cricket, a character in the 1940 Walt Disney animation Pinocchio, is a typical anthropomorphized insect in film.

Arthropods, mainly insects and arachnids, are used in film either to create fear and disgust in horror/thriller movies, or they are anthropomorphized and used as the characters in animated children's movies.

Arthropods

There are over 1,000,000 species of arthropods, and arthropods are thought to be 80% of all life on this planet. Ants, spiders, shrimp, crabs and bees are all arthropods.

In Film

Arthropods are used in film either to create horror or as sympathetic heroes.

Horror

The first and most notable part that arthropods play is in horror and thriller movies; human beings are basically conditioned to be disgusted and even frightened by arthropods, so arthropods made enormous, given special abilities, or in huge numbers are ideal constructs to frighten and scare. Some examples of arthropods used in this way are Them!, in which a nest of ants becomes gigantic after exposure to nuclear radiation; King Kong, where the protagonists encounter a ravine filled with giant insects and arachnids while on an island of giant things; and Starship Troopers, in which the human race is at war with an alien race resembling gargantuan insects.

Arthropods are effective tools to instill horror because fear of arthropods may be conditioned into the minds of human beings. Indeed, Jamie Whitten quoted in his book “That We May Live,” (talking about insects): "The enemy is already here-in the skies, in the fields, and waterways. It is dug into every square foot of our earth; it has invaded homes, schoolhouses, public buildings; it has poisoned food and water; it brings sickness and death by germ warfare to countless millions of people every year.... The enemy within-these walking, crawling, jumping, flying pests-destroy more crops than drought and floods. They destroy more buildings than fire. They are responsible for many of the most dreaded diseases of man and his domestic animals.... Some of them eat or attack everything man owns or produces-including man himself ."^[1] Thus, insects and other arthropods are dangerous to humans in both obvious and less obvious ways. Undoubtedly, arthropods are dangerous for their potential to carry disease. Somewhat less apparently, arthropods cause damage to buildings, crops, and animals. Since arthropods can be harmful in so many ways, using insects and other arthropods to frighten people in movies was a logical step.

Aside from a natural fear or aversion to arthropods, reasons for using such creatures in movies could be metaphorical. Many of the most famous “Big Bug Movies” were made in the 1950s in the aftermath of World War II, when the world was introduced to the cataclysmic destruction inflicted by nuclear bombs. The bomb was unapproachable, remote, and terrifying; spiders and ants mutated by nuclear radiation to become huge were terrifying, but thanks to the competent government officials, soldiers, policemen, and detectives, the bugs were stopped and safety was restored. Nuclear terror was conquered without expressly facing a nuclear bomb. In this way, big bug movies could be cathartic and liberating to the general public.^[2]

It has also been mentioned that big bug films could be symbolic of sexual desire. Margaret Tarrat says in her article “Monsters of the id,” “[Big bug movies] arrive at social comment through a dramatization of the individual's anxiety about his or her own repressed sexual desires, which are incompatible with the morals of civilized life.”^[3] By this theory, gigantic swarming insects could represent the huge, torrential—but repressed due to the demands of society—sexual desires possessed by the creator and viewer of the Big Bug movie.

On gigantic arthropods, Charles Q. Choi stated that, if the atmosphere had a higher percentage of oxygen, arthropods would be able to grow quite a bit larger before their trachea became too large and could not grow any more. In fact, in the early years of the earth, when the atmosphere was more oxygen-rich, dragonflies the size of crows were not an uncommon sight.^[4]

Animation

A second way that arthropods are used in film is in animated child's films, where the insect is anthropomorphized and becomes a hero in the story. Examples of movies that follow this pattern are Pinocchio (based on Carlo Collodi's story, with the wise and helpful Jiminy Cricket, who barely resembles a cricket; A Bug's Life, which depicts the dramatic workings of a colony of 4-legged ants; and James and the Giant Peach (based on Roald Dahl's novel), in which James, the protagonist, becomes friends with a number of insects and arachnids.

The case for arthropods as protagonists, even cute and likeable characters, is not nearly as easily arrived at as the case for arthropods as instruments of horror. One reason insects are used successfully in this way could be that an insect or other arthropod's small size makes it seem heroic and sympathetic when faced against the big, big world. Another reason is counterpoint to the reason for using arthropods in horror films: whereas horror movies play upon the instinctive negative reaction humans have towards insects and arachnids, these animation films make something that is different and strange seem real, approachable, and sympathetic, thus making it comforting.^[5]

A vital characteristic of these films in the anthropomorphism of characters. Mirriam-Webster defines anthropomorphism as “to attribute human form or personality to things not human.”^[6] Thus, Jiminy Cricket looks nothing like a cricket, and instead resembles a kind grandfather figure who happens to be green and very small, and the ants in A Bug's Life are reduced to 2 pairs of limbs. Also, all arthropods are given humanoid features—eyes, a mouth, a nose, even hair—as opposed to the actual features of an arthropod, such as compound eyes and mandibles. Arthropods are also given the socialization and emotions of human beings, all with the intent of making them more approachable.

Other

A third way that arthropods are used in film is as incidental, non-essential elements of the film. Dozens of movies follow this pattern, mentioning or displaying insects, arachnids, scorpions, or some other arthropod only in passing. Sometimes arthropods are used in this context to frighten and repulse, and sometimes they are used to entertain.

Sometimes the arthropods used in these movies are animated, sculpted, or otherwise synthesized; however, in many cases these movies use actual creatures. As these creatures are not easily tamed or directed, a specialist known colloquially as a “Bug Wrangler” may be hired to control and direct these creatures. Some bug wranglers have become famous as a result of their expertise, such as Norman Gary, a champion bee-wrangler who is also a college professor, and Steven R. Kutcher, who wrangles a multitude of different types of bugs and who is the subject of over 100 print articles.^[7]

List

Some of the most notable movies involving arthropods are these: King Kong, both 1933 and 2005. The original movie, in 1933, might have contained the first ever “big bug” scene. However, it was cut from the reel for unknown reasons. The 2005 remake by Peter Jackson features a scene in which the group of heroes is set upon by a multitude of large arthropods after falling down a chasm.^[8]

Pinocchio, 1940. A wooden puppet brought to life by magic is aided in his adventures by Jiminy Cricket, who claims to be his conscience.^[9]

Arachnophobia, 1990. A South American spider mates with a California one and produces a race of superspiders.

Them!, 1954. This is perhaps the most famous “big bug” film, about a colony of ants that is mutated by radiation from atomic testing and grows to horrific size. The ants rampage in the desert of New Mexico, a naval vessel off the Californian coast, and the sewers of Los Angeles. The ants are eventually destroyed by the United States Army.^[10]

Beginning of the End 1957, like Them! but in Illinois.

James and the Giant Peach, 1996. James, a young boy tyrannized by his evil aunts, escapes in a giant peach with a crew of friendly arthropods that, like the peach, have grown much larger than normal.^[11]

Starship Troopers, 1997. Soldiers in the fascist earth army fight against an alien race of “Arachnids,” bug-like creatures, to save the earth.^[12]

A Bug's Life, 1998. A misunderstood tinkerer helps his hardworking colony of ants to fight off the evil grasshoppers with the help of a troupe of circus performers.^[13]

References

1. Belveal, Dee, Today's Health, Feb. 1996. Quoted in Whitten, Jamie L. That We May Live," D. Van Norstrand Company 1996. Print.
2. Tsutsui, William M., Environmental History, Apr. 2007, "", 8 Dec. 2010.
3. Margaret Tarratt, "Monsters from the Id" (1970), in Film Genre Reader, ed. Barry Keith Grant (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986), 259.
4. Choi, Charles Q., LiveScience, 11 Oct. 2006, "", 8 Dec. 2010.
5. Leskosky, R.J. and M.R. Berenbaum. "Insects in Animated Films: Not All 'Bugs' are Bunnies." Bulletin of the Entomological Society of America. 1988. 34: pp.55-63.
6. Mirriam-Webster, ""
7. The Crankshaft, "", 8 Dec. 2010.
8. IMDb, "" and "".
9. IMDb, ""
10. IMDb, ""
11. IMDb, ""
12. IMDb, ""
13. IMDb, "".

External links

• Insects In Movies.
• Big Bug Movies of the 1950s.