Misunderstood Monsters: The Good, the Bad, and the Radioactive Ugly of Godzilla
By Matt Konopka
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Welcome fellow monster kids to Misunderstood Monsters. This is where I, Matt Konopka, sink my fangs into all sorts of beasts, ghouls, and creatures from above while I search for the humanity behind their frightening exteriors. From monster favorites such as The Wolf Man to obscure monsters like the whistling Shadmock, there is more to these fiends than bad hair days and gooey tentacles. Within them all is a piece of ourselves.
When it comes to monsters, I’m not sure there’s one that at once represents the awesome potential of humanity and our proclivity for destruction better than Godzilla. The atomic lizard has stomped his way through the decades, from Ishirô Honda’s original 1954 film to the recent, critically acclaimed Godzilla Minus One by writer/director Takashi Yamazaki. Over that time, Big G has been both an arbiter of terror and a hero. A symbol of Japan’s grief spawned by the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during WWII, and a sympathetic savior, as much a victim of the war as the country he calls home. He is a reminder of what we can be…and what we too often choose to be instead.
Known for more whimsical adventures with actors in rubber suits, many moviegoers have forgotten where Godzilla came from. Released in Japan less than a decade after the war, Honda’s Godzilla is a far cry (roar?) from the sequels that followed. In the groundbreaking film, he is less a creature and more a force of nature hell-bent on demolishing everything in his path. As a result of American nuclear weapons testing, he rises from the sea, bringing death and terror. There are no silly fights with other monsters. No characters with psychic abilities or androids from alien planets. Instead, we’re witness to crumbling homes. Displaced families. Sobbing children. The lives of innocent civilians shattered to pieces. A grief unfathomable to most of us.
Honda’s film expressed the pain of Japan in a way that the world had not yet begun to comprehend. Those who saw the bombings as a victory could observe through a fictional lens the devastation of an entire country left in shambles. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer gave us an idea of how the average American cheered upon hearing the news of the bombings, unaware of what a nuclear bomb actually meant. Godzilla showed them. He is the terror that those poor souls saw bearing down on them. His roar a blend of Earth-shattering destruction and screams; a monster embodying the unfathomable evil that humanity is capable of towards one another.
Yet, as it is with people, Godzilla would turn out to be…complicated.
The giant lizard would remain the villain for nearly a decade through Godzilla’s Showa Era, battling Anguirus, King Kong, and Mothra along the way, before taking on a grey character role that began with Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964). In the film (once again directed by Honda), Japan is threatened by Ghidorah, a massive, three-headed dragon. Unable to defeat the beast by herself, Mothra enlists Godzilla and Rodan to take on the space hydra and save the country. By that point, Godzilla had become Japan’s filmic ambassador, a world-renowned icon. What began with Honda evolved with him ten years later. Godzilla was no longer merely the face of Japan’s horror. The country took ownership of him, as we sometimes do with the things we fear, and transformed him into something else, neither good, nor bad, but a source of power that could swing either way on any given day.
At the beginning of the franchise, no one could’ve expected the love that fans would have for Godzilla or the tears that would be shed for him. Take Godzilla vs Destoroyah (1995), for instance. Forced to fight Destoroyah, the monstrous result of the Oxygen Destroyer — the device that defeated Godzilla in the original — Godzilla also finds himself on the verge of an internal nuclear meltdown. In the end, the poor kaiju suffers an atomic implosion, brought down by the very elements that created him. Grief. Rage. Terror. All of these things are a part of what spawned Godzilla, and they are what destroys him in the end. A titanic sadness overwhelms me each time I revisit this moment. And it’s not just because I adore the King of Monsters. Melancholic choir swelling as the military unleashes a barrage of cryo-lasers, Godzilla’s death isn’t a triumph. We watch as the fire of his soul burns hot. Flesh melts. Sparkling mist emphasizes the wonder of this life. It is horrific, yet beautiful. The best and worst of humanity in one image. We have the power to make miracles, to defeat disease, to feed the hungry, to love and to cherish and to persevere in the snarling face of adversity…yet, we so often choose to annihilate instead, to crush civilizations to dust with our mighty tail, to burn this planet, our home, with the blue flame of our hatred.
It isn’t a coincidence that Godzilla Minus One returns the great kaiju back to a visage of apocalyptic destruction. He has never been as terrifying as he is in Yamazaki’s film, not even in Honda’s original. That’s because Minus One’s Godzilla reflects the horror of our present. War. Genocide. The threat of global annihilation. Turn on the news, and I hear Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pleading with the world to help stop Russia from murdering his people. Log onto social media, and I see pictures of Palestinian children brutalized by Israel’s war against Hamas. My own country, the one I was raised to believe was a “good guy” in the world, has provided help for the former while aiding in the nightmare of the other. That’s humanity in a nutshell. Neither good, nor evil, but a constant contradiction of each.
Why? Why are we like this? The answer is no more obtainable than it is when discussing why Godzilla can be a mighty unleashing of horror or hope. He simply is. We simply are. We are Godzilla tearing down skyscrapers. We are Godzilla vanquishing Ghidorah. We are Godzilla in all of his forms, and he is us in all of ours. The good. The bad. The radioactive ugly. He has always risen when we need him as a reminder of what we’re capable of, for better or worse. And right now, he has returned to remind us of where he came from in the first place.
Who knows what new monster will emerge from the sea of time if we choose not to listen? 🩸
About
Matt is a writer and wannabe werewolf who began his love of horror at the ripe old age of 3 with Carpenter’s Christine. He has a horror podcast called Killer Horror Critic which he does with his wonderful wife and has previously been published on Bloody Disgusting, Shudder’s The Bite, and Daily Grindhouse. You can also find more of his reviews and ramblings at his blog, KillerHorrorCritic.com.
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