The Coronavirus is a modern contemporary monster that we are currently facing at this point in time. It is a “type of virus” that has resulted in a “pandemic of respiratory illness called Covid-19” and spreads through person to person air borne pathogens (John Hopkins Medicine). Pandemics like Covid are a “modern phenomenon” compared to disease in general that have been around for centuries (Groch).
Thesis 1: Covid-19 has been a cultural moment of time for individuals and communities beginning in December of 2019- to the current month of 2022 (January). “The monster quite literally incorporates fear, desire, anxiety, and fantasy” (Cohen). As many groups are creating “fears of the virus onto groups in society that they imagine are spreading it” such as lower income communities because they are more susceptible to sickness (Wynn, et.al.). Covid has an uncertain principle of when it will be to the point of everyone having natural immunity within their cells or they are vaccinated (Groch) “A genetic uncertainty principle, the essence of the monster’s vitality, the reason it always rises from the dissection table as its secrets are about to be revealed and vanished into the night” (Cohen). Essentially Covid-19 has gone through various phases and strains to the point where just when we think that it is gone a new strain has formed and is being spread across the world.
Thesis 2: “We see the damage that the monster wreaks, the material remains, but the monster itself turns immaterial and vanishes, to reappear someplace else” (Cohen). Ever since Covid began spreading across different nations two of the relatively consistent havocs that has been left in its path is death and health issues. Then once the fortunate individuals recover Covid is gone only to “reappear” in someone else’s immune system. However, when the new strains of Covid developed the “monster” returned again in a “bigger-than-ever sequel” (Cohen). As it spread faster through communities than the original strain or pandemics like the “Spanish flu a century ago” (Groch).
Thesis 5: “The monster stands as a warning against exploration of its uncertain demesnes…To step outside this official geography is to risk attack by some monstrous border patrol or to become monstrous oneself” (Cohen). In terms of Covid this is evident when individuals decide to step out of the CDC guidelines; essentially they don’t wear a mask, they would do whatever they wanted during “lockdown,” and hang out with whoever they wanted to regardless of the health of the involved individuals. This is also proven when even “long-isolated communities in remote corners of the world at last collide with modern civilisation” causing those to be infected with Covid because they “stepped out” of their geography (Groch). “The monster’s destructiveness is really a deconstructiveness” (Cohen). This applies to the natural environments that were able to replenish while most nations were on lockdown and a lack of human traffic resulted from Covid.
Thesis 6: The monster is continually linked to forbidden practices, in order to normalize and to enforce” (Cohen). Covid has created desires and forbidden practices that some did not oblige as they wanted to risk coming face to face with the monster if it meant meeting a desire. Some of those desires and forbidden practices include; leaving the house during lockdown, not wearing a mask in stores/restaurants, traveling to different states/countries, and partying. Essentially the forbidden practices were things that the CDC guidelines said individuals should not do as Covid takes its course through the US. Even though Covid has created limitations and hardships on the people alive these past couple of years there have been some “realms of happy fantasy, horizons of liberations” (Cohen). Many people found new hobbies (generally “creative activities”) and business endeavors because they actually had the time to try new things during the lockdown and the increase of unemployment from business closures (Morse, et. al.).
Sources:
Cohen, Jeffrey J. file:///home/chronos/u-e21622bed896dc199a148c25879b57a12f2f1562/MyFiles/Downloads/Cohen-Monster-Culture.pdf
John Hopkins Medicine. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus
Morse, K.F. et al. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.609967/full
Wynn, Lisa. et al. https://covid19research.ssrc.org/grantee/invisible-monsters-the-pandemic-imaginary-of-infectious-pathogens-and-infectious-bodies/
