Gina's College Collection

One of the final monster films of the 20^th century, “The Mummy” of 1999, resurrected one of humanity’s oldest myths after the titular creature had already made its mark in culture in previous horror movies.  The story begins when a high priest of ancient Egypt named Imhotep sleeps with the pharaoh’s mistress and then kills the pharaoh himself.  The mistress commits suicide while the priest escapes, knowing he will try to bring her back.  But during that ritual the pharaoh’s guards capture him, bandage him, and trap him in a sarcophagus with flesh-eating beetles, instilling a curse upon him.  He is hidden away along with the book that can reawaken him, for if he is freed, he will rise as a mummy, devouring the bodies of those who freed him to regenerate his decomposing body before setting out to spread his curse.  And 3000 years later, that feared awakening occurs, though the mummy ultimately fails in his goal.  Yet, it may be more than the fear generated at the thought of an enraged piece of decay shambling towards you inspired this monster.  According to one Jeffrey Cohen, there are seven principle concepts that can generate a monster, and Imhotep particularly embodies the fourth: a monster is created when real differences among people are witnessed.

It is well known that throughout history, conflict arose among ethnic groups as each thought the other to be wrong in their strange practices, with Europeans especially known for referring to natives discovered in their colonization efforts as “savages”.  And there was clear disrespect for Egypt, as people who attended Victorian mummy unwrapping parties can attest.  Undertones of such a cultural clash certainly occur in the film, as the British and American archaeologists who accidentally bring back Imhotep learn that taking an interest in Egyptian religious practices only results in trouble.  The dangers of strange peoples are accentuated by conflicts between the Westerners and the normal Egyptian locals along with the depiction of the locals, who for the most part are shown as disgusting, greedy tricksters.  And as awe-inspiring as ancient Egypt is depicted, Imhotep committing his own crimes hints at that perceived savagery in the supposed “Golden Age” of this civilization.  Furthermore, as a mummy and something different he is shown to be not quite human, often speaking in roars and growls, not reacting to pain, and summoning mummified minions that in one scene crawl along walls like spiders.  One American provides his view on the people and events and sums up Cohen’s statement that difference causes fear by remarking “This is a messed-up country.” 

Notably, disparities were feared because they had potential to spread, as Cohen notes with his example of Queen Elizabeth I of England fearing that African peoples were “a threat to ‘the increase of people of our own nation’” (p.10).  This is depicted in the movie with the mention that Imhotep’s curse will spread until it covers the world, and the knowledge that “he will never eat, he will never sleep, he will never stop.”  The beginnings of this are shown when he acquires the help of one greedy Egyptian with promises of riches, like the empty promises believed to come with interest in foreign cultures, and later with his literal enslavement of a number of locals.  This truly matches the description of him as “a plague,” similar to how cultures tend to view new ideas, according to Cohen.

Difference is so clearly established as part of the mummy’s character.  And what is the significance of this? Our society is becoming progressively more sensitive to differences and seeing other groups as exotic creatures is now frowned upon.  Could monsters formed by earlier ideas of the foreign like the mummy disappear completely then as their stereotypical aspects become more hated?  Will this cause conflict between the horror industry and minorities in the US? Or will Imhotep be allowed to continue to stalk the big screen and other media? Only time and the people’s whim will tell.

Cohen, Jeffrey James. Monster Theory. Reading Culture. University of Minnesota Press. 1996.

The following images show some of my notes on the above text, which was written by Abigail Lee Six and Hannah Thompson and incorporated into The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous. This selection concerns how the representation of monsters in fiction changed during the Gothic era. In summary, such beings went from being solely outwardly deformed but originally good and rejected by society, like in Frankenstein, to appearing normal but being morally wrong due to internal and/or external factors, as with Jekyll and Hyde and Dorian Gray, respectively. Such figures and the changes this type of literature experienced during that period may have been a result of a fear of loss of civilization as political, social, and sexual norms were challenged at the time, as suggested by the text.

From Hideous to Hedonist: The Changing Face of the Nineteenth-century Monster. Six, Abigail Lee & Thompson, Hannah. The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous, Mittman, Asa Simon & Dendle, Peter J. Ashgate Publishing Ltd. 2013.