To end my series on the Universal Monsters, I find myself contemplating the meaning behind Jack Arnold’s 1954 classic The Creature from the Black Lagoon. While the film was the last of the Universal Monsters to appear on the silver screen, the creature design is unforgettable and has become iconic over the years. Coinciding with its late release, the Gill-Man combines themes of nature, science, morality, and human behavior in a conglomeration of all previous entities in the series.
Under the Sea
The discovery of the Gill-Man, a previously unestablished creature, in the darkness of the water mirrors the Freudian concept of the subconscious. By breaching the lagoon’s surface, marine biologists discover a humanoid creature whose consciousness equates to that of mankind. In doing so, the film explores the consequences of delving past the conscious mind—or the parts we are aware of—and discovering the animalistic nature of the subconscious. This concept becomes clearer when the Gill-Man expresses his infatuation with Kay Lawrence. By crossing the societal bounds of human-animal relations, the Gill-Man symbolizes the prehistoric nature of humanity and its baser animalistic origins.
Human Nature
The relationship between humanity and nature, or the human drive toward scientific advancement, closely relates to the themes found in Frankenstein. Where Frankenstein faces the realities of playing God and the overreaches of science regarding the nature of death, The Creature from the Black Lagoon emphasizes the vast unknowing of the world around us. Further, the acknowledgment of the Gill-Man’s existence culminates in the scientists’ attempting to capture and kill him, rather than attempting to coexist. This xenophobic worldview is also explored in The Mummy, swapping the religious and ethereal for an epistemic approach.
The major inconsistency in The Creature from the Black Lagoon is its unwavering portrayal of the Gill-Man as inhuman. The creature never surpasses its representation of animalistic instinct, which ultimately leaves the brutally aggressive behavior of the humans arguably justified. While Love can be seen, at least primitively, as a human emotion, Kay objects to his attempts to abduct her, which places his drive more clearly in the category of infatuation by animalistic instinct.
Specular Reflection
Branching from the xenophobic ideologies examined through the human reaction to the Gill-Man comes the reflective view of good and evil. While the Human characters initially attribute the creature’s behavior as diametrically opposed to their own, we are subjected to disturbing behavior on the part of the human characters under these same principles and presuppositions. This is more clearly illustrated in Guillermo Del Toro’s unofficial re-imagining, The Shape of Water, which emphasizes the humanity of the Amphibian Man (a de facto placeholder for the Gill-Man), portrayed by the talented Doug Jones, and the cruel inhumanity of Strickland, excellently portrayed by Michael Shannon.
Del Toro’s film further explores the othering of individuals through the use of Elisa, portrayed by the wonderful Sally Hawkins. Where the original film’s Kay Lawrence stands as little more than an object to be desired by both man and animal, for her status as Other consisting solely of her being a woman, Del Toro introduces nuance through the mute Elisa, whose existence is as both an Other and a bridge. Elisa’s disability places her outside of the 1960s societal norm while also providing an impetus for communication with the Amphibian Man. Because she cannot speak, she doesn’t rely on the presupposition of spoken language as a sole means of communicating with the captured creature. Through this inclusion, Del Toro allows for the representation of xenophobia in contrast with acceptance, and proposes the possibility for a world open to heterogeneous existences.
