Saturday, June 16, 2012

Mothman Vs. Mothra



Late last night I watched, for the first time in years, the Japanese "monster movie" Mothra.

And, on doing so, a few things occurred to me that suggested uncanny parallels between Japan's famous, flying, mothy monster and John Keel's acclaimed title, The Mothman Prophecies:

1. Mothra was released in Japan on July 30, 1961. Although Mothman is perceived as being very much a beast of the mid-1960s, John Keel's book tells of a summer 1961 encounter with a winged humanoid on Route 2 along the Ohio River that involved "a woman prominent in civic affairs in Point Pleasant, West Virginia."

2. In the movie, Mothra - after breaking through a dam - causes the collapse of a bridge. And no-one with a sound knowledge of the Mothman affair, surely, needs to be told that a collapsing bridge is a key and integral part of The Mothman Prophecies.

3. The film focuses on Mothra rescuing and acting as protector to a pair of foot-tall, fairy-like girls who are played in the movie by The Peanuts, a Japanese girl-group of that era. John Keel's classic book includes several notable references to fairies, including the way in which centuries-old encounters with such entities clearly parallel more modern day incidents with enigmatic creatures of a fantastic nature.

Fiction anticipating fact? The strange work of a cosmic trickster? Or just a case of coincidence and me seeing something significant that isn't quite so significant, after all?

Whatever the answers to those questions, in pondering on all this, I am reminded of the words of author Colin Bennett, who told me, when I interviewed him for my book, The Real Men in Black: "When we imagine, we create a form of life.”

Is that what happened here? Did a famous monster movie provoke such fascination that a real-life equivalent stepped out of the collective unconscious and imagination and into the heart of the real world?

8 comments:

  1. Mothra, one of my favorites! Nick what a neat little twist, bringing in a cult pop classic like Mothra and comparing some Mothy history.

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  2. There's been also some references that the famous 'Battle of LA' incident involved a giant 'butterfly-like' object with flapping wings and all, yet Micah Hanks did a research on the original newspaper articles, and could find no such mentioning of the strange object described in such a manner.

    There WAS however, the mention of the sighting of a giant luminescent 'butterfly-like' UFO (flapping wings and all) in Keel's Mothman Prophecies, and I made a suggestion to Micah that perhaps the LA Battle rumors originated by some sloppy references to Keel's book.

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  3. Hey, have you been paying attention to all the 'Baltic Sea UFO' brouhaha?

    Well, it seems they didn't find the Millennium Falcon after all *Chewie's cry* but they found some sort of weird rocky dome of stone circle at the bottom of the ocean.

    So yep, I'm thinking: Mothra's egg, baybeh!! :P

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  4. Except none of the witnesses (as I understand it) described the creature as moth-like, but rather more as bird-like.

    In fact, if you read the eyewitness descriptions it sounds like a giant humanoid owl more than anything.

    The moth connection wasn't made until a reporter dubbed the creature "mothman" after a villain in the Batman comics at the time.

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    1. True, but if we analyze Mothman & Mothra as cultural constructs —leaving aside for a minute the fact that Mothman's origin was real-life sightings— then we can see how Mothman slowly progressed from a 'bird-like' entity into a sort of humanoid Moth.

      Frazetta's iconic illustration on the cover of the 1st edition of Keel's book finished Mothman's MEMEtomorphosis, with even the Point Pleasant folks semi-officially endorsing it when they unveiled that weird shiny statue ;)

      Same thing happened with flying saucers, thanks to the liberal misquoting of Kenneth Arnold's account.

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    2. "Mothra" was one of the few Toho monsters that is actually a "god" and not just an overgrown dinosaur living in the neighborhood. Nice article!
      -Peter H. Brothers, author of "Mushroom Clouds and Mushroom Men - The Fantastic Cinema of Ishiro Honda."

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  5. Many thanks for the comments, Peter, much appreciated!!

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    1. The two Japanese girls who sang to Mothra showed up in at least two movies both with Mothra as well. A new Japanese Godzilla movie is supposed to come out either this year or in 2015. No cheesy Matthew Broderick Godzilla in it either. I have one Godzilla item that everyone loves. A small plush of Godzilla playing a rock guitar. :)

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