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Ep. 22.5: Follow Up on 'Frankenstein': Everything is Gothic since 1764
12 Plays4 months ago
In this episode of 'Lighting Round,' Nate and Chris discuss gothic storytelling, its origins and how that led to popular stories from 2025 such as Guillermo del Toro's 'Frankenstein' and Ryan Coogler's 'Sinners.'
UP NEXT: 'The Running Man' and Stephen King's 2025.
Follow us on social media:
Nate's Letterboxd (@professor_n8)
Chris's Letterboxd (@cjanderson878)
Hosts: Nate Day, Chris Anderson
Producer: Nate Day
"Adaptation Theme"
- Written by: Chris Anderson, Jem Zornow
- Performed by: Chris Anderson, Jem Zornow, Nate Day
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Transcript
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Introduction to Gothic Literature Mini-Episode
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I
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Welcome to Lightning Round, an adaptation mini episode.
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Today we're talking about gothic literature, gothic fiction, gothic film, expanding a little bit on Frankenstein, which we talked about very recently on the main pod.
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So if you haven't caught up with that one, be sure to listen to that one first.
00:01:39
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Chris has some interesting stuff to tell us about gothic fiction and gothic literature.
00:01:44
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But before that, how are you, Chris, Mr. New York, since the last time I talked to you like two days ago?
Hosts' Personal Updates
00:01:52
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I'm I am concerned.
00:01:53
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I'm a little sick.
00:01:54
Speaker
I am pounding vitamin C. And I think I was asleep at 842pm last night.
00:02:02
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Oh, tough, tough break for a teacher on his third day at work.
00:02:07
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Exactly.
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I was like, I don't get to call in on my third day.
00:02:10
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I can't be sick yet.
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How have you been doing, Nate?
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I'm good.
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Things are are
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stabilizing at my work a little bit.
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Good.
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No, I'm fine.
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I just need some frigging, we need some moisture out here before I get sick and shrivel up and die.
Inspiration to Explore Gothic Literature
00:02:29
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Oh, yeah, I bet.
00:02:30
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I bet.
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I think we could use the same.
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I can't imagine it's as bad as there, though.
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But why don't you tell me a little bit about what the heck are we doing here today, Chris?
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Yeah, so this was kind of a culmination idea that bubbled in my mind.
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This might have been one of the ideas that sparked our discussion of
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many episodes.
Origins and Features of Gothic Literature
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I cannot remember now.
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We just had enough books on the slate that we'll kind of mention later that were real specific about Gothic literature.
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And for me, it was pretty similar to that idea of antiheroes that we talked about and some of these themes that are like, I don't know if anyone else is like me, but I've heard the word a thousand times and
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I don't actually know what it means, right?
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Gothic lit.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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We've all heard about it, but what the heck
Victorian Influence and Evolution of Gothic Literature
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does that actually mean?
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And so I thought, if I'm wondering this, because this is what I tell my students all the time, if you have the question, someone else does too, just ask it.
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Yep.
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So here I am answering my own question and hopefully at least one person out there.
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Probably for me at least.
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I mean, it was actually really interesting to dig into.
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So I hope everyone agrees.
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So this is like brief, brief, kind of how we always do.
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Not a full history.
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Very many.
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And then some of the authors that it applies to that we've discussed for any fans of the pod that'll recognize them all.
Examples and Themes in Gothic Literature
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And then some really cool news that kind of tipped it into, okay, we have to have this talk now.
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Yeah.
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Okay, great.
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Yeah, so super fast.
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Pretty widely considered the first gothic book ever was 1764 publication, The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole.
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I've never heard of that in my life.
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No, me neither.
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So that's cool.
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I mean, I definitely want to read it now, but had never heard of it.
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The genre, what it means, really what I was looking for, it's built around tenets of an unsettling setting.
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As a genre, it's named after the crumbling Gothic castles.
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I think everyone probably has a picture in their head immediately, right?
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Totally.
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Yeah.
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In modernity, like initially it was kind of stringent to an extent it seemed, and it's spread into disturbing any content that makes the reader in some
Female Protagonists and Modern Interpretations
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fashion uncomfortable.
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Okay.
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Okay.
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The theme has shifted a bit over time and now typically will include supernatural forces of some kind occurring, and there's really a wide range.
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Some form of battle between good and evil, again, to different extents, and pretty much always evoking these emotions of fear and terror.
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Maybe some dark, hidden secrets and sort of sub-genres have evolved from
Modern Gothic Authors and Works
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there.
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But there's our
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There's our genesis.
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Many modern subgenres are seemingly attributed to when Gothic lit met the kind of Victorian romanticism.
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That seems to have been a big evolutionary turning point.
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Yeah.
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yeah i can see that it makes sense right yeah just because when you say that gothic lit is uh like or or goth gothicism i guess i don't know is supposed to make you feel uncomfortable i'm like what i don't know i mean i like i those line up frequently but it that doesn't seem like a genre defining one for me and i think it's because my mind sort of goes to that victorian romanticism yes
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Yes, I think, especially to a modern consumer of media, that's become the focal point, at least to an extent.
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Sure.
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And I think that's actually an interesting point.
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I hadn't thought about it from this perspective until you said it that way.
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Think about some of these tales that we're so familiar with, Beauty and the Beast,
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Like the moral and ending the conclusion is so well known that we kind of look past as a bare bones list of details.
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These would be unsettling details.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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You know, if you read a headline that was just those, those plot points, but happening in real life in Cincinnati in 2025, you'd be like, oh, that's kidnapping slash Stockholm syndrome, right?
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I don't know why that was the first city.
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Yeah.
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But no, I know what you mean.
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I know what you mean.
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So this was interesting because I knew we had touched on a couple and Frankenstein was just the final straw to say, let's kind of do a little
Linking 'Mexican Gothic' to Classic Works
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compendium.
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It included a lot of what we've done.
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Beloved by Toni Morrison.
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Southern Gothic.
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Yes, exactly.
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Exactly.
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And we can all picture that, right?
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The creepy plantation house.
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The supernatural but subtly influences.
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Yeah.
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very much a battle of good versus evil, right?
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From what I was reading, a lot of Southern Gothic, Gothic in particular, has developed in its own right because slavery in the American South is such an immediate, vivid, and pronounced example of that big, overarching battle, right?
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Yeah, yeah.
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Cool.
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There's some cool movies about that, too.
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Yeah, exactly, exactly.
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And I mean, reading it, I absolutely at no point thought,
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This is wonderful Gothic lit.
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Yeah.
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Right.
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But then you read all of those things and you go, yeah, it checks all the boxes.
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Check, check, check.
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Yeah.
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Oscar Wilde.
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Really?
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Not the importance of being earnest.
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Oh, okay.
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Famously the author of Dorian Gray.
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Yes, exactly.
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Arguably a more famous publication of his.
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Oh, I guess maybe depending on that.
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I don't even know if that's arguable.
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I think that's pretty definitive.
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Okay.
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I mean, it's comparing apples and oranges, right?
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But so funny.
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I really felt good about putting that in there and then waiting for people to go, the importance of being earnest?
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Well, yeah, just like I did.
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And then Frankenstein, obviously.
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Yep.
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So this was where the idea came from.
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Very old, sort of credited with a shift in the genre where instead of one clearly specific evil villain,
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Although, you know, based on our discussion, we both are clearly not fans of Victor Frankenstein.
Guillermo del Toro's Impact on Gothic Themes
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But what Mary Shelley did that really became canonized, it became a consistently used tool of the genre, was having the evil side as this moral quandary, where here, instead of just an individual villain, the idea of the folly of man and his hubris represents the evil, right?
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OK, yeah.
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So that was very cool.
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There's also this later drawing on of Gothic themes that's been interwoven into books that I think we otherwise would not consider the genre, right?
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OK.
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And a lot of these are going to come up.
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Two that I enjoyed and will end up covering are, of course, Wuthering Heights.
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Yeah, very soon, a couple of months, we'll be covering that.
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Uh-huh.
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And this will be, I'm very glad for the opportunity, this will be my first reread of that.
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And exactly as I suggested here, in no way was I reading that thinking, oh, this is
Film Influences by Gothic Elements
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Gothic literature.
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But as I read, you know, borrowing of themes.
00:10:05
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Yeah, I can see it.
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Yeah.
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And Jane Eyre also, which surprised me.
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Oh, OK.
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Yeah.
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And we'll talk about why those fit here.
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Also, Louisa May Alcott's Little Women.
00:10:23
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Really?
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No, I'm kidding.
00:10:25
Speaker
Nope, nope, nope.
00:10:25
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I'm kidding.
00:10:26
Speaker
I'm kidding.
00:10:26
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I'm kidding.
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Louisa May Alcott's A Long Fatal Love Chase.
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Okay.
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I don't know that one.
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Yeah.
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Never heard of it.
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We didn't talk about it.
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I once again thought that would be super funny.
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Yeah.
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Ha ha.
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But crazy, crazy that two authors we've already covered have a book that's, it's, it's, I guess I'm trying to illustrate how much more widespread it was
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And in this case, all three of these fall under what's considered female Gothic.
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Okay.
00:10:55
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Where it is a female protagonist as the theme of good fighting against each of their own versions of the evil, typically just absolutely unfair treatment of women historically in society, right?
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Yeah.
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You know, usually they're in these confined, almost claustrophobic settings.
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That's a big part of it, too.
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And this need to subvert culture to promote the good.
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Okay.
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Okay?
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Yeah.
00:11:26
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Some others, I thought this was also fascinating because I wasn't prepared for this long a list and never considering what would I call this genre.
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So some that I've read, Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson, Turn of the Screw, Henry James, Gothic Horror.
00:11:41
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So leaning into that side, very spooky.
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Mm-hmm.
00:11:45
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Apparently Great Expectations is considered a Gothic novel.
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Okay.
00:11:50
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I can kind of see it because of how, uh, what's her name is, is described and portrayed.
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Cause she's so fricking weird looking, you know, she's like a monster kind of physically.
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And that claustrophobic unsettling setting.
00:12:05
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Yeah, I can see it.
00:12:06
Speaker
Not my favorite book.
00:12:08
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I kind of would be okay if we never cover that, but don't tell David Anderson.
00:12:12
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:12:13
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Oh, he got so mad at me once when I said I didn't like that book.
00:12:17
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His far kinder way of essentially saying, you uncultured swine, take that back.
00:12:23
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A very good one.
00:12:24
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If anyone likes any of what I've presented so far and is thinking I should try and dabble in this series, Secret History is by Donna Tartt, the author of The Goldfinch.
00:12:35
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Incredible book.
00:12:37
Speaker
Phenomenal book.
00:12:38
Speaker
And some that we've also talked about that are leaning toward
00:12:43
Speaker
what is now considered modern Gothic, really gotten away from the tenets in their truest sense, as we've discussed them.
00:12:50
Speaker
But if you examined, kind of peeled back the layer of modernity, I think it would make sense.
00:12:55
Speaker
Neil Gaiman.
00:12:56
Speaker
Oh, we haven't discussed him yet.
00:12:58
Speaker
But Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, and Brett Easton Ellis.
00:13:05
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Oh, yeah, sure.
00:13:06
Speaker
Modern Gothic.
00:13:07
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Yeah, that does track for American Psycho.
00:13:10
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:13:11
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Exactly.
00:13:12
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And now this was the crazy part.
00:13:15
Speaker
This is why this came up right now.
00:13:18
Speaker
Mexican Gothic is obviously a Gothic novel, which any keen listener, actually, you probably don't even have to be that keen a listener to recall.
00:13:29
Speaker
In our Frankenstein episode, I recommended if you like Frankenstein, you might like this.
00:13:35
Speaker
So crazy, the day after we recorded the Frankenstein episode, a New York Times article came out by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, the author of Mexican Gothic, talking about Frankenstein.
00:13:48
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Yeah, kind of an op-ed.
00:13:50
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It was actually like hours later.
00:13:51
Speaker
It was not the day after that you texted me.
00:13:54
Speaker
And yeah, she wrote like an op-ed.
00:13:57
Speaker
Yeah, so cool.
00:13:58
Speaker
And first of all, brilliant article.
00:14:00
Speaker
So if you haven't read it, go find it.
00:14:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:02
Speaker
Very well written article.
00:14:04
Speaker
Very interesting also, and I mentioned this to you just briefly, she really seemed fond of Guillermo del Toro's treatment of the monster.
00:14:14
Speaker
And I was very, very curious to hear your thoughts on her thoughts.
00:14:19
Speaker
It was a really interesting piece.
00:14:21
Speaker
Super validating.
00:14:22
Speaker
You know, we make a lot of jokes on this podcast about my inability to read.
00:14:25
Speaker
I studied
00:14:26
Speaker
literature theory in college.
00:14:29
Speaker
So super validating to hear that she had the same, at least core ideas as me.
00:14:33
Speaker
I don't know that it changed my opinion at all, but knowing that somebody who's operating in the space of Gothic storytelling at
00:14:44
Speaker
the capacity that she is.
00:14:45
Speaker
That book, Mexican Gothic, was a huge hit, if I'm not mistaken.
00:14:49
Speaker
Massive.
00:14:49
Speaker
Massive.
00:14:50
Speaker
Yes, contender on lots of lifts when it came out.
00:14:53
Speaker
So knowing that she has such an appreciation for what Guillermo del Toro did with his version of Frankenstein, I think even though it doesn't make me like the movie anymore, it does provide sort of another pathway to
00:15:07
Speaker
into the movie and the way that it allows me to sort of hold an appreciation for maybe this evolution of Gothic storytelling.
00:15:15
Speaker
And I mentioned in that episode that GDT had been working on that movie for roughly 20 years, and I think that that maybe fried some of the ideas that he was putting forward.
00:15:26
Speaker
Maybe that comes from the fact that this idea, this theme of gothicism, that sounds like a stupid word.
00:15:32
Speaker
Is that really the word?
00:15:34
Speaker
You know what, let me double check now.
00:15:35
Speaker
I'm not convinced one way or the other.
00:15:39
Speaker
Yes, it is.
00:15:40
Speaker
Wow.
00:15:41
Speaker
Anyway, maybe that comes from, because it's evolved so much over history, you know, so what felt wrought in this product that came out in 2025 might have, or does have, decades and decades of evolution and lineage informing it.
00:15:58
Speaker
Yes, yes.
00:15:59
Speaker
Her quote here from the article that is essentially what you just said, the mutations are inevitable, for we are human.
00:16:06
Speaker
Yep.
00:16:07
Speaker
Yeah, I was, I mean, obviously, as your friend here to toot your horn, was very shocked to read this, you know, figurehead of gothic writing, essentially giving in different words, the same thoughts that you had on the movie.
00:16:21
Speaker
So that was cool.
00:16:22
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Yeah.
00:16:23
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And I'm glad she enjoyed it.
00:16:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:24
Speaker
And I mean, again, if you did, if you needed a bigger push.
00:16:29
Speaker
Absolutely, you should read Mexican Gothic.
00:16:31
Speaker
Incredible book.
00:16:32
Speaker
I know she has others.
00:16:33
Speaker
Unfortunately, that's the only one of hers I've read.
00:16:35
Speaker
But I really liked her take on essentially not that any of the movies that you talked about far more in depth had a right or wrong interpretation.
00:16:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:48
Speaker
But the very realistic interpretation that this was exactly what I alluded to, not a strict, you know, if you walked away from that movie and think the monster is the villain, you, you yourself are a villain.
00:17:01
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You are a bad person.
00:17:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:03
Speaker
Right.
00:17:05
Speaker
Which again is juxtaposed with the fact that yes, Frankenstein's monster did like murder two children with his bare hands.
00:17:13
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Yeah.
00:17:14
Speaker
But it's such a,
00:17:15
Speaker
that's ignoring so much.
00:17:17
Speaker
And she kind of alludes to how each film did not incorrectly interpret that, but did it their own way.
00:17:25
Speaker
So that was so cool.
00:17:26
Speaker
Go read the article, read some Gothic lit.
00:17:29
Speaker
I think maybe you've got some other ideas of Gothic movies along those same veins.
00:17:34
Speaker
Yeah, I just wanted to give a shout out because it's kind of similar in nature to Gothic literature.
00:17:41
Speaker
There is no definitive Gothic genre.
00:17:44
Speaker
And often, in fact, something is considered Gothic because it's an adaptation or inspired by some sort of Gothic quote unquote parent, be that a book or some other form of media that came beforehand.
00:17:55
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Yes.
00:17:55
Speaker
But like you said, it's been spun out into a lot of sort of sub-genres.
00:17:59
Speaker
The most prominent gothic movies these days come from Guillermo del Toro.
00:18:04
Speaker
Obviously, he's got Frankenstein.
00:18:05
Speaker
Crimson Peak, I think, is maybe a comic book series or something like that.
00:18:10
Speaker
Here, I'll pull it up.
00:18:12
Speaker
Okay, thanks.
00:18:13
Speaker
I think you're even more correct than you thought.
00:18:15
Speaker
It says it is not only not an adaptation.
00:18:18
Speaker
This is the one you just referred to, Crimson Peak.
00:18:21
Speaker
Del Toro intentionally crafted the film as his own take on the Gothic genre itself.
00:18:27
Speaker
Oh, it's not an adaptation?
00:18:30
Speaker
No, that's what it says.
00:18:32
Speaker
Oh, I really thought it was.
00:18:33
Speaker
Wow.
00:18:33
Speaker
That's crazy.
00:18:36
Speaker
Nightmare Alley is another novel that he's adapted that I think maybe we'll get to someday.
00:18:42
Speaker
Very gothic.
00:18:43
Speaker
Even his adaptation of Pacific Rim.
00:18:45
Speaker
His movies about monster fighting military men.
00:18:48
Speaker
Like Hellboy, too.
00:18:49
Speaker
He does the Hellboy movies.
00:18:51
Speaker
I totally forgot about that.
00:18:53
Speaker
Yeah, those are all very gothic as well.
00:18:55
Speaker
So he's definitely the most prominent guy operating in that space in cinema.
00:19:00
Speaker
But a few other names I wanted to throw out there.
00:19:03
Speaker
One that I think a lot of people will...
00:19:06
Speaker
feel comfortable identifying is Tim Burton.
00:19:10
Speaker
He's got a little bit more of like a cartoony family twist, which is where that subgenre comes in.
00:19:15
Speaker
Sweeney Todd is a musical, sort of a horror musical.
00:19:20
Speaker
Sleepy Hollow, very much a gothic movie.
00:19:22
Speaker
Edward Scissorhands sort of has that comedy element and is a movie that we actually discussed super briefly in the Frankenstein episode because it plays on that
00:19:33
Speaker
you know, creating life trope.
00:19:35
Speaker
Frankenweenie, obviously a spin on Frankenstein, is an animated gothic movie from Tim Burton.
00:19:43
Speaker
So he's played into that a lot.
00:19:46
Speaker
Robert Eggers is a big name in this genre as well.
00:19:49
Speaker
He just had Nosferatu last year.
00:19:51
Speaker
Dracula, of course, is another story that we referenced in that episode.
00:19:55
Speaker
And he also did that movie, The Northmen, that I made you watch, which I think will come up in a later episode when we discuss Hamlet.
00:20:04
Speaker
But then I wanted to diversify the list a little bit here and think of some people that don't necessarily fit the standard Gothic mold.
00:20:13
Speaker
The first name that kept coming to mind was Sofia Coppola, who's sort of known for this modern Gothic feel to all of her movies.
00:20:20
Speaker
The Beguiled is a movie that she...
00:20:23
Speaker
remade actually and is very quite literally a southern gothic movie and that brought me to Francis Ford Coppola who has actually adapted Bram Stoker's Dracula to film but a lot like Sofia Coppola I think this family just because they are such a grandiose family that has existed
00:20:41
Speaker
For generations, you know, in like American history, they've been significant forever.
00:20:46
Speaker
They have a lot of these Gothic sensibilities in their work.
00:20:49
Speaker
It's sort of just that sort of like overbearing weight that's on their shoulders and pressure to create and be incredible.
00:20:56
Speaker
I think that comes out through their work.
00:20:58
Speaker
I mean, even the Godfather films are very Gothic-like.
00:21:01
Speaker
visually speaking.
00:21:03
Speaker
They're known for shadows and imposing figures and things like that.
00:21:07
Speaker
So really interesting how it comes out that way in those movies as well.
00:21:10
Speaker
Speaking of Southern Gothic, Casey Lemons, Eve's Bayou.
00:21:13
Speaker
Fantastic.
00:21:14
Speaker
I wish it was an adaptation so that we could talk about it, but it's amazing.
00:21:18
Speaker
I believe it's just an original movie and Casey Lemons does a great job directing it.
00:21:22
Speaker
And then I think the most recent example in modern cinema is probably Sinners from Ryan Coogler earlier this year, which of course we talked about being
00:21:31
Speaker
the sort of relative of beloved.
00:21:33
Speaker
So interesting how all of these are so tied together.