The Werewolf: Lycanthropy and HIV.

To my surprise, I discovered that I wrote the following on my own initial work on HIV/Aids as a metaphor of horror:

"I did my utmost to make the arguments relevant to literature, mainly by arguing that HIV/Aids provides a sustained metaphor in modern, popular “fairytale” fiction, e.g., the vampire, zombie and werewolf stories. All such monsters are “infected” humans that are transmogrified into a new identity. Indeed, modern film views vampirism as a virus, rather than a supernatural curse, and this ties in nicely with Derrida’s comment on the unrecognized ways in which HIV has permeated our deepest social fears. Even at this early stage, HIV interested me more as an addition to understanding modern horror, and recent horror flicks still inform me on social metaphors and HIV. So, for me, texts on diseases are very close to horror in a voyeuristic sense. As it turned out, my initial recognition of HIV metaphors in modern horror was far from co-incidental. A piece cited from 'Science Today' (vol. 68, 1998) claims that:

' Research carried out on HIV …. expands our knowledge on how viruses work. Work carried out by the Cryptozoological Society of London shows that a similar virus causes lycanthropy – the bizarre disease that turns humans into wolves.'

(Cited: Joel Levy: "Fabulous Creatures and Other Mythical Beings." Carrol and Brown, p. 146. 2004.)

Can anyone support those "Science Today" claims? What do they mean by "Lycanthropy?" Is it psychological or really physical?
Well they compare it to the monkey/ape virus (HIV), so I suppose they mean it physically? But then HIV does not make a monkey out of man. So what is meant here?
If it is a physical change....
That would be surprising!

Good post, very interesting thoughts and I tend to agree with the similarities. Horror film and literature tends to be at the cutting-edge for pushing ideas close to the public subconscious/psyche. Think of Night Of The Living Dead - a great metaphor for the troubled times it came out in with regard the race issue.

Perhaps, because people are somewhat flippant about horror films, often thinking of them as disposable entertainment the writers and directors can get away with saying more (with less).

Would you please post links to the cryptozoology-lyncanthropy disease article(s).

reply to post by jokei

Thanks for the interesting reply! Just as I posted this last week and planned to do some further searches, my pc froze and it's just come back from repair.
Unfortunately apart from the above book in my quote, with references to "Science Today" I haven't found much. It also appears one must pay to search specific volumes and articles of the journal via the web.
I think what they mean is that HIV has broadened our conceptual boundaries on how an animal virus can incorperate itself into our genetic make-up. So they are not saying Lycanthropy as shape-shifting is proven, but the physical possibility is not as remote as sceptics propose.

Particularly Stephen King's "Thinner" describes a curse that causes physical changes similar to Aids - skin rashes and physical wasting. It also came out in the 1980s, during the first wave of Aids hysteria. So on a metaphoric level Horror engages HIV/Aids all the time. Vampirism is treated as a virus (eg. the Blade) series rather than a supernatural curse. Even as a curse it was linked to disease - the Nosferatu who came from the "plague soaked earth". Some werewolf and vampire movies even mention ARV-like treatments for the infected!

reply to post by halfoldman


It's such a shame having to pay to learn, especially with this amazing learning machine at my hands - oh well, back to nudey ladies I guess.

Totally agree with your last points, being the sort of chap that can sit and watch films for hours on end, I've got a bit of a fascination for the horror genre and there's been a massive renaissance throughout the 70s and 80s, there's also been a marked decline in subject matter and the thought put into it over recent years, perhaps the days of metaphor are behind, but I hope not.

Some interesting things to ponder though:

www.porphyria.org.uk...
en.wikipedia.org...
books.google.co.uk... &hl=en&ei=Ku-XS52zEsuNjAfq24CyCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=porphyria%20prince%20philip&f=false

The similarities between Porphyria and Vampirism are quite striking and well documented, I agree with a lot of the things you mentioned having entered the public consciousness - there's been a fair few BSE-styled horror films and plenty about eating contaminated food - kind of as ye sow, so shall ye reap.

reply to post by jokei

The Porphyria material is indeed fascinating, especially the madness it seemed to provoke in royalty. I suppose madness mixed with absolute power is extremely terrifying. But, as we see from history terror actually helps to reinforce absolute power. Interesting how this imagery sifted into popular metaphor to describe the "royal" monster. Hard-core conspiracists like David Icke (beginning with his "The Biggest Secret" as far as I recall) argue that Bram Stoker based his Count Dracula on a composite figure of royal, "reptillian" blood-lust. Here the metaphor of the supernatural used to explain distaste and fear of royalty actually becomes reality. The royal shape-shifters are indeed vampires who inherit their "curse" genetically (not through the literary infectious bite). So for Icke the unspeakable truth is hidden behind horror fiction. He claims that werewolves exist, but doesn't really explain whether they are a virus or some energy shift from the lower dimensions, similar to reptillian shape-shifting. Perhaps in different words he would second the "Christian horror" or "spiritual warfare" books of Rebecca Brown (see "He Came to Set the Captives Free"). She claims werewolves are created by demonic powers gained by blood rituals, and are used for discipline within "satanic" coverns (or rather, to shred any rebels to pieces).

On a less esoteric level, it is interesting how diseases are culturally both reviled and idolized. Susan Sontag points out in her essays "Illness as Metophor" and "Aids and its Metaphors" that TB and Syphilis were both feared and associated with complex social judgements in the 19th century. Yet, before the cause of TB was understood it was associated with the TB-prone character - a sensitive, romantic, mysterious, poetic person. The pale, thin TB look became quite fashionable. Syphilis implied moral judgement, but also the forceful libertine and mad, creative genius.
Since the early 1980s Aids became a great fear (perhaps replacing the earlier horrors of underlying fears of soviet invasion, and threats posed by nuclear contamination and pollution). However, we also had "heroin-chic" with wasting models, and now the whole teen vampire craze of pale, hungover looking, romaticized vampires.
Perhaps in film we still have that syphylis (werewolf) and porphyria/TB (vampire) dichotomy of horror types based on romantic motifs going back over a century. Some films retain the horrific aspects of these tropes, but increasingly they are banalized into humane characters with a "condition". As in Victorian times the diseased condition serves to make people interesting as in "mysterious", rather than terrifying.

Of course to David Icke horror films simply serve to condition us to the bloodthirsty ways of our reptillian overlords, and for conspiracists who take things at such a degree of face value, investigating metaphor isn't necessary, perhaps only to the point of fitting the "truth" behind the fiction into a reptillian paradigm. For me Icke's books are themselves worthy of investigating how metaphor is reworked into fact to create a kind of meta-horror narrative.