An open letter to Guillermo del Toro
Dear Guillermo,
My partner and I went to see your Frankenstein last Halloween and very much enjoyed it. We’ve been fans ever since we had the good luck to catch Cronos at the Sundance Film Festival shortly after we started dating, when we had no idea who you were or how high your star would rise. Cinematically speaking, we’ve known you as long as we’ve known each other.
One thing we’ve always admired about your films—which has been widely pointed out—is their sympathy for the monster: the outcast, the Other, the victim of an intolerant, repressive society. Given Shelley’s focus on the Monster’s travails in the novel, making Frankenstein must have felt natural for you. My partner and I were particularly taken by your re-envisioning and deepening of the character of Elizabeth. In the film she seems to represent a more truly enlightened approach to the natural world, one where the desire to understand its inner workings is tempered by wonder, aesthetic appreciation, and sympathy. This contrasts strongly with Victor’s rapacious intelligence and myopia, aptly symbolized by his willingness to use the profits of the arms trade to complete his labor.
But if the treatment of the Monster is sympathetic, and other aspects of the narrative feel modern, the portrayal of the wolves in the film is positively medieval: nightmares straight out of folk and fairy tales. Their bodies are strangely burly, like athletes on steroids; they act less like a hunting pack than a band of terrorists attacking a village with no other motive than to inflict violence. Nor do the Monster’s scant words about wolves being hated “for what they are” (if I remember correctly) help, since “what they are” in the film is monstrous in the most traditional sense. They seem to exist solely to imperil the film’s most saintly character, and as something for not just the xenophobic farming family, but the Monster himself, to kill on-screen in a particularly graphic way.
Considered in the context of the film and of your oeuvre as a whole, this is disappointing, to say the least. Considered in the context of twenty-first century America, it is nothing short of tragic. Like the (M)onster, wolves have long been used as a scapegoat for everything about human nature we refuse to countenance. The extent to and manner in which wolves (and other wild canids, such as coyotes) have been demonized, persecuted, and extirpated in acts of state-directed violence—and countless individual acts of cruelty—make the bloodiest moments in Frankenstein look like Barbie. Your film had the opportunity to make a difference in how we perceive these animals. Instead, it lends its considerable megaphone to the reactionary and ignorant; it panders to the worst in us rather than challenging us to reflect and better ourselves.
In your Frankenstein, even Victor is allowed his redemption. But not the wolf.
With the above in mind, I would like to present you with a two-part challenge.
The first is to educate yourself about the plight of wild carnivores. Groups like Project Coyote (https://projectcoyote.org) have excellent resources available on their websites, both about the animals themselves and the extent to which they have been victims of human ignorance and cruelty. Authors like Barry Lopez, Rick Bass, Dan Flores, Hope Ryden, Erica Berry, and many, many others have written powerfully and sympathetically about wolves and other wild carnivores: their social and emotional lives, their cultural meaning, their role in maintaining healthy ecosystems, and their ongoing persecution at the hands of humans.
The second is the bigger ask, but the more important one: to use your amazing talents as a filmmaker to help set the record straight. Make a short film about wolves supported by the latest biological and environmental scholarship, one that busts centuries-long myths and misinformation. And then make it available on a widely-watched platform like Netflix.
If the above seems excessive, then you might simply consider making a donation to an organization that advocates for wild carnivores and for safe and humane coexistence. Donations help support and expand the work these groups do to foster sympathy, admiration, curiosity, and wonder—all those values that Elizabeth embodies so beautifully in your film.
Sincerely,
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