Classic monster typology persists in Hollywood only under genealogical disguise

Evidence

Coppola’s meditation on Dracula is one of many films that present Islam as a danger to the West. Hollywood productions tend to focus on Muslim characters that stand in direct opposition to the West—oppressed women, abusive men, and pan-Islamic backwardness. Muslim monsters are a bit more rare in the movies. When they are featured, a bit of genealogical work is required to reveal their identity. Such is the case of 300, Zach Snyder’s 2007 film adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel. To create a movie that visually represents the text, actors performed “against blank screens on which backgrounds [were] drawn to represent the panels Miller created.” The computer-generated terrors include a nine-foot-tall King Xerxes, an army of Persians, including giant elephants and rhinos, and a hunchback with filed teeth—monsters that are made larger and more frightening through the use of this technology. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 666

Categorization

• XREF: Directly hands the reader their core inquiry figure (monster/demon/giant) as carried by the nine-foot Xerxes and giant elephants.
• DEFINE: The reader’s historical monster figures resurface here as the giant — one of the recurring figures their thesis tracks.