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An open letter to the ‘well, actually, Frankenstein is the doctor’ crowd

Dear everyone that gets fussy about a book written by a teenager 200 years ago,

Stop. Just stop. It’s annoying and the only thing you’re really accomplishing is giving honest English majors such as myself a bad name.

First of all, you’re not even correct. Victor Frankenstein is not a doctor. Is he a gifted but morally bankrupt scientist? Yes. But a doctor? Not even close. He never finishes his degree because he’s too busy falling ill for months on end after facing the consequences of defying all known laws of nature. 

If he had finished his degree, he would have known that making a person is not a great idea. Failing that, he would have, at the very least, known how to put his Build-A-Man together correctly. Seriously, the creature is eight feet tall. If Victor Frankenstein actually wanted his creature to be beautiful, he wouldn’t have made him two feet taller than everyone else.

Secondly, this debate wouldn’t exist if Victor Frankenstein had given his creation a name outside of hurling insults at him like “abhorred monster.” I doubt “vile insect” is going to be topping the charts on baby-name Pinterest boards any time soon.

Other than deep-seated emotional trauma and a fear of abandonment, what’s the most common thing a father gives his son? His name. Since the creature views Victor Frankenstein as his father, it would be logical to assume that the creature would be named “Vile Insect Frankenstein,” “Abhorred Monster Frankenstein” or something like that to honor the family legacy.

That’s right. The two centuries of confusion were directly caused because Victor Frankenstein, whom I will remind you was not a doctor, was a bad dad.

If anything, the real monster is the film studios that have been marketing “Frankenstein” movies starring a grunting, lumbering beast, thereby depriving us of the intelligent goth prince the original novel depicts. In the book, the creature has passages of “Paradise Lost” memorized and ready to throw in his father’s face. Is that so hard to include, Universal?

To be completely honest, an intelligent 8-foot-tall murderous patchwork of dead flesh brought back to life with electricity would be a whole lot scarier than what we’ve been getting. The creature shown in the novel knows exactly what he’s doing, and more importantly, why it’s wrong.

To correct Hollywood’s perpetual mischaracterization, my dream “Frankenstein” movie is directly adapted from the novel, but it’s directed by Wes Anderson. Owen Wilson would play Victor Frankenstein and the creature would be played by Timothée Chalamet,Jeff Goldblum or Danny DeVito. There are no other options. The only departure from the novel would be the inclusion of Igor the hunchbacked assistant, who would naturally be played by Jason Schwartzman.

You gotta admit, watching Owen Wilson say “Oh yeah, wow it’s alive” would make for a pretty satisfying cinematic experience.

So next time you’re about to say “well, actually …” to the originator of science fiction, just know that you’re the real monster.

Signed,

A fed-up English major

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