fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #4049 ]

[ SECRET POST #4049 ]

⌈ Secret Post #4049 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 44 secrets from Secret Submission Post #580.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

So, I learned today that I know someone who is into monsters and stuff, and when I mentioned "The Wolfman Lawrence Talbot" they looked at me blank.

Turns out they know about werewolves and junk, but not the wolfman. Like not even just that they don't know the name Talbot, they don't know about THE WOLFMAN.

That's odd, right?

Like, not as bad as being:
"I like vampires"
"Oh, cool, like count dracula?"
"Fucking who?"
but pretty close to that level of "HOW?!", right?

but pretty close to that level of "HOW?!", right?

I don't think so at all. There's a big difference between Dracula as a pop culture figure, and the Wolfman. Dracula exists in so many different forms - best-selling, genre-defining book, and then approximately a million different adaptations - and its narrative and general notes are really powerful and formative and well done. In contrast, the Wolfman is something that's really pretty specific to the 1930s/1940s monster movie ethos. Which is something that's obviously influential but at the same time, much more niche, and much more limited by the time period in which it was produced. It's just not a particular interesting iteration on the genre tropes in the way that Dracula still is.

Also, just personally, I would have recognized a Lon Chaney reference but I definitely wouldn't know the actual character's name. So there's also that.

Maybe, but you would have recognised me talking about "The Wolfman", right? Talbot, I get, but it's the freaking WOLFMAN. Like, he's up there with all the people Scooby Doo has unmasked, for example. It's Frankenstein. Dracula, the Mummy, and the Wolfman.

How do you not know of the existence of the Wolfman?

Ehhh. I would recognize it, but I can see how someone wouldn't.

I mean, you're kind of making my point with the Scooby Doo reference, in a way. Those specific monster movies are really only notable anymore for the influence that they've had on subsequent culture through things like parodies and references and tropes and remakes. And, really, at this point, it's mostly influencing things at a significant remove. I mean, the original Scooby Doo series itself ended 40 years ago - people today know Scooby Doo itself from remakes and parodies, and the Universal monster movies are another degree removed beyond that. Of course, the Wolfman is hardest hit by this, because people are familiar with the other franchises through other means - Frankenstein and Dracula through the books, The Mummy because there was an actual successful remake - whereas people are mostly familiar with werewolf stories through more recent werewolf movies, which were influenced by The Wolfman but were not actually part of that franchise.

This is also probably why that whole Universal Dark Universe thing completely bombed, by the way.

Those specific monster movies are really only notable anymore for the influence that they've had

Agreed, and while the Wolfman hasn't had the same impace as dracula, he'd had more impact than the mummy at least before the Brendan Fraiser films. And even before the Brendan Fraiser films, it would have been weird if somone said "What the fuck is the mummy?" You'd point to scooby Doo and go "Seriously?"

People would know about mummies through diffuse pop-cultural sources, but that's not the same as knowing about the original Universal movie

Oh, I see, no, I'm not talking about knowing about the movie the wolfman. I'm talking about knowing about the CHARACTER of the Wolfman.

But how would you know about the character of The Wolfman without knowing about the movie?

You can't know about the character just by knowing about werewolves, because werewolves are a general kind of horror monster that aren't specifically connected to The Wolfman (and also are called by a different name). So I don't see how you'd make the connection without knowing about the actual specific movie.

how many black and white movies from the 1930s and 40s do you think most people are generally familiar with? I would be surprised if it was more than a handful

Well, ok, so you only new about the mummy because of the Brendan Fraiser films? Or had you at least heard of the mummy prior to that?

I knew about The Mummy before that, but I'm also an exceptionally huge nerd

I don't think you need to be a nerd, tho. I think you just need to have seen more than 5 episodes of Sccoby Doo as a child. Chances are you'd have encountered most of the Hammer Horror crew.

I agree that people are familiar with werewolves, but I don't think that automatically makes them familiar with The Wolfman.

And, I mean, not to reiterate the point too much, but the Hammer Horror version of the werewolf is Curse Of The Werewolf - which is a werewolf, and not a wolfman. Similarly, as far as I can tell, the only episode of Scooby Doo that has The Wolfman in it (as opposed to a werewolf) is episode 7 of season 1 of The New Scooby-Doo Movies, "Sandy Duncan's Jekyll and Hide", where classic movie monsters interrupt filming of a new movie, guest starring Sandy Duncan, original air date October 21 1972, never released on DVD. Which I kind of doubt that many kids today have actually watched.

This is kind of my point: people are familiar with all kinds of diffuse ideas about werewolves. They're not familiar with the specific monster movie called The Wolfman (or its remake).

That does seem odd. But how into it are they?

I guess not a super-fan, but she writes her own supernatural fiction.

Plus Talbots are all over the place.

Huh. Weird. I wouldn't say I'm super into werewolves, but I know who you're talking about and I've seen the Lon Chaney Jr. film. I think maybe Bela Lugosi as Dracula is a bit more iconic to most people, but for someone who's into monsters I'd be surprised they weren't familiar with the character or the movie.

Yeah, obviously Dracula is more well known. but the wolfman has been around a bit as well.

Okay, I'll chime in, original fiction werewolf writer here. I'll admit before I really started delving into my research for my novel/series, I didn't know anything about Talbot the Wolfman outside of the three second thing for the Universal movie collection in front of the Mummy movies and that honestly, was about it. I mean, I knew he existed because of Bruce Coville's Monster of the Year Book (a must read for monster lovers.) But it wasn't until I started going "how do I make my werewolves different" and delving more into werewolf lore that I found out more about the actual character.

I eventually watched the remake of the movie. Love Van Hellsing (also part of Universal's stuff) and there are several other Univeral made werewolf movies I've enjoyed. (Universal seems to have most the rights.)

The thing I found about werewolves is that they aren't as culturally popular and focused as vampires! There are too many diverse iterations of how they exist, what their curse/disease is like and how it all goes terribly wrong. (You've got werewolves, lycanthropes, the loup garou and dogmen at the least in folk lore.) Nothing really gelled together like Dracula did for vampires to push them into public consciousness.

So, even if you are into monster stuff, I wouldn't expect them to know about the character of that particular werewolf movie, or the movie that actually came before it from Universal that was a science gone wrong werewolf movie. The lore and the media is just too scattered for that.

Okay, I was vaguely aware there was a character called "The Wolfman," but I've never seen the movie and I wouldn't have recognized the name Lawrence Talbot.

Maybe instead of making a big deal of being shocked that they don't know it, just recommend that they watch the movie because they might like it?

(I wish more people in fandom had that attitude. Personally, I like being able to recommend things that people might like. But it seems like more people are into making a fuss about how many things people have already seen)

Not to me? I mean admittedly I don't like werewolves or classic monster films, but... Lots of people might be way into something but also kind of hyper-specialized in their knowledge of that thing. Like I know a lot about retrowave and vaporwave stuff but I don't know shit about the 80s and 90s music that inspired it, you know?

Sad to say, The Wolfman has been pretty much overshadowed by just about every werewolf story that came after, including Teen Wolf and American Werewolf in London.

Frankenstein's monster, Dracula, and Wolfman are the big three! I don't know how your friend missed that one...

Does every day here have to be the You show?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #4049 ]

Help me get a sense of perspective on this

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I mean, really

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