Arthropods in Film
Encyclopedia
Arthropods are creatures of phylum arthropoda; they are invertebrates, and they have an exoskeleton, jointed appendages, and a segmented body. Some common examples of arthropods are arachnids and insects. Arthropods are used in film either to create fear and disgust in horror/thriller movies, or they are anthropomorphized and used as the characters in animated children's movies.
and crabs in the sea, bees in the park; all are arthropods. This huge array of diversity is vital to the animal kingdom; almost every organism on the earth interacts in some way with arthropods.
The first ancestor of the arthropods was alive some 555 million years ago. It was likely a sediment feeder, with armored plates and biramous limbs
. Over the course of 555 million years, this creature evolved into several different subphyla. One of these subphyla is Trilobitomorpha, which contains trilobites, an extinct race. Chelicerata
, another subphyla, contains arachnids and scorpions. Myriapoda
contains millipedes and centipedes, Hexapoda
contains insects, and Crustacea includes lobsters, crabs, and shrimp
.
In order for an animal to be classified as an arthropod, it must have several distinct characteristics. It must be an invertebrate
, which means it does not have a backbone or notochord
. It must have an exoskeleton
, usually made of chitin, a tough material formed from sugars that is also found in the cell walls of fungi. It must have jointed appendages, with a definite separation of tissue in the joints, rather than a continuous tentacle. It must have a segmented body, although the precise number of segments varies from arthropod to arthropod—insects have three segments, head, thorax, and abdomen, while an arachnid has just two, the cephalothorax and abdomen.
Insects are some of the most diverse animals on the planet, with an estimated six to ten million species. Insects come in all shapes and sizes, from the sizable Goliath Beetle to the microscopic fairyfly
. Some insects, like beetles, are scavengers. Some, such as bees, get their sustenance from the nectar of plants Some insects, like mosquitoes, ticks, and fleas, suck the blood of humans and other mammals. Insects live in almost every climate, all over the world.
Arachnids are slightly less diverse than insects, coming in at just over 100,000 named species. All arachnids have 8 legs, although for some arachnids one pair of legs serves a sensory function rather than a locomotive one. The most common types of arachnids are spiders and scorpions. Arachnids, too, are found all over the world.
and thriller movies; human beings are basically conditioned to be disgusted and even frightened by arthropods, so arthropods made enormous, given special abilities, or in huge numbers are ideal constructs to frighten and scare. Some examples of arthropods used in this way are Them!, in which a nest of ants becomes gigantic after exposure to nuclear radiation
; King Kong, where the protagonists encounter a ravine filled with giant insects and arachnids while on an island of giant things; and Starship Troopers, in which the human race is embattled against an alien
race resembling gargantuan insects.
Arthropods are effective tools to instill horror because fear of arthropods may be conditioned into the minds of human beings. Indeed, Jamie Whitten
quoted in his book “That We May Live,” (talking about insects): "The enemy is already here-in the skies, in the fields, and waterways. It is dug into every square foot of our earth; it has invaded homes, schoolhouses, public buildings; it has poisoned food and water; it brings sickness and death by germ warfare to countless millions of people every year.... The enemy within-these walking, crawling, jumping, flying pests-destroy more crops than drought and floods. They destroy more buildings than fire. They are responsible for many of the most dreaded diseases of man and his domestic animals.... Some of them eat or attack everything man owns or produces-including man himself ." Thus, insects and other arthropods are dangerous to humans in both obvious and less obvious ways. Undoubtedly, arthropods are dangerous for their potential to carry disease
. Somewhat less apparently, arthropods cause damage to buildings, crops, and animals. Since arthropods can be harmful in so many ways, using insects and other arthropods to frighten people in movies was a logical step.
Aside from a natural fear or aversion to arthropods, reasons for using such creatures in movies could be metaphorical. Many of the most famous “Big Bug Movies” were made in the 1950s in the aftermath of World War II
, when the world was introduced to the cataclysmic destruction inflicted by nuclear bombs. The bomb was unapproachable, remote, and terrifying; spiders and ants mutated by nuclear radiation to become huge were terrifying, but thanks to the competent government officials, soldiers, policemen, and detectives, the bugs were stopped and safety was restored. Nuclear terror was conquered without expressly facing a nuclear bomb. In this way, big bug movies could be cathartic and liberating to the general public.
It has also been mentioned that big bug films could be symbolic of sexual desire. Margaret Tarrat says in her article “Monsters of the id,” “[Big bug movies] arrive at social comment through a dramatization of the individual's anxiety about his or her own repressed sexual desires, which are incompatible with the morals of civilized life.” By this theory, gigantic swarming insects could represent the huge, torrential—but repressed due to the demands of society—sexual desires possessed by the creator and viewer of the Big Bug movie.
On gigantic arthropods, Charles Q. Choi stated that, if the atmosphere had a higher percentage of oxygen, arthropods would be able to grow quite a bit larger before their trachea became too large and could not grow any more. In fact, in the early years of the earth, when the atmosphere was more oxygen-rich, dragonflies the size of crows were not an uncommon sight.
The case for arthropods as protagonists, even cute and likeable characters, is not nearly as easily arrived at as the case for arthropods as instruments of horror. One reason insects are used successfully in this way could be that an insect or other arthropod's small size makes it seem heroic and sympathetic when faced against the big, big world. Another reason is counterpoint to the reason for using arthropods in horror films: whereas horror movies play upon the instinctive negative reaction humans have towards insects and arachnids, these animation films make something that is different and strange seem real, approachable, and sympathetic, thus making it comforting.
A vital characteristic of these films in the anthropomorphism of characters. Mirriam-Webster defines anthropomorphism as “to attribute human form or personality to things not human.” Thus, Jimeny Cricket looks nothing like a cricket, and instead resembles a kind grandfather figure who happens to be green and very small, and the ants in “Bug's Life” are reduced to 2 pairs of limbs. Also, all arthropods are given humanoid features—eyes, a mouth, a nose, even hair—as opposed to the actual features of an arthropod, such as compound eyes and mandibles. Arthropods are also given the socialization and emotions of human beings, all with the intent of making them more approachable.
Sometimes the arthropods used in these movies are animated, sculpted, or otherwise synthesized; however, in many cases these movies use actual creatures. As these creatures are not easily tamed or directed, a specialist known colloquially as a “Bug Wrangler” may be hired to control and direct these creatures. Some bug wranglers have become famous as a result of their expertise, such as Norman Gary, a champion bee-wrangler who is also a college professor, and Steven R. Kutcher, who wrangles a multitude of different types of bugs and who is the subject of over 100 print articles.
King Kong, 1933 and 2005. The original movie, in 1933, might have contained the first ever “big bug” scene. However, it was cut from the reel for unknown reasons. The 2005 remake by Peter Jackson features a scene in which the group of heroes is set upon by a multitude of large arthropods after falling down a chasm.
Them!, 1954. This is perhaps the most famous “big bug” film, about a colony of ants that is mutated by radiation from atomic testing and grows to horrific size. The ants rampage in the desert of New Mexico, a naval vessel of the Californian coast, and the sewers of Los Angeles. The ants are eventually destroyed by the United States Army.
“A Bug's Life,” 1998. A misunderstood tinkerer helps his hardworking colony of ants to fight off the evil grasshoppers with the help of a troupe of circus performers.
“Starship Troopers,” 1997. Soldiers in the fascist earth army fight against an alien race of “Arachnids,” bug-like creatures, to save the earth.
“James and the Giant Peach,” 1996. James, a young boy tyrannized by his evil aunts, escapes in a giant peach with a crew of friendly arthropods that, like the peach, have grown much larger than normal.
“Pinocchio,” 1940. A wooden puppet brought to life by magic is aided in his adventures by Jiminy Cricket, who claims to be his conscience.
Arthropods
There are over 1,000,000 species of arthropods, and arthropods are thought to be 80% of all life on this planet. Ants in your backyard, spiders in your basement, shrimpShrimp
Shrimp are swimming, decapod crustaceans classified in the infraorder Caridea, found widely around the world in both fresh and salt water. Adult shrimp are filter feeding benthic animals living close to the bottom. They can live in schools and can swim rapidly backwards. Shrimp are an important...
and crabs in the sea, bees in the park; all are arthropods. This huge array of diversity is vital to the animal kingdom; almost every organism on the earth interacts in some way with arthropods.
The first ancestor of the arthropods was alive some 555 million years ago. It was likely a sediment feeder, with armored plates and biramous limbs
Arthropod leg
The arthropod leg is a form of jointed appendage of arthropods, usually used for walking. Many of the terms used for arthropod leg segments are of Latin origin, and may be confused with terms for bones: coxa , trochanter , femur, tibia, tarsus, ischium, metatarsus, carpus, dactylus ,...
. Over the course of 555 million years, this creature evolved into several different subphyla. One of these subphyla is Trilobitomorpha, which contains trilobites, an extinct race. Chelicerata
Chelicerata
The subphylum Chelicerata constitutes one of the major subdivisions of the phylum Arthropoda, and includes horseshoe crabs, scorpions, spiders and mites...
, another subphyla, contains arachnids and scorpions. Myriapoda
Myriapoda
Myriapoda is a subphylum of arthropods containing millipedes, centipedes, and others. The group contains 13,000 species, all of which are terrestrial...
contains millipedes and centipedes, Hexapoda
Hexapoda
The subphylum Hexapoda constitutes the largest grouping of arthropods and includes the insects as well as three much smaller groups of wingless arthropods: Collembola, Protura, and Diplura . The Collembola are very abundant in terrestrial environments...
contains insects, and Crustacea includes lobsters, crabs, and shrimp
Shrimp
Shrimp are swimming, decapod crustaceans classified in the infraorder Caridea, found widely around the world in both fresh and salt water. Adult shrimp are filter feeding benthic animals living close to the bottom. They can live in schools and can swim rapidly backwards. Shrimp are an important...
.
In order for an animal to be classified as an arthropod, it must have several distinct characteristics. It must be an invertebrate
Invertebrate
An invertebrate is an animal without a backbone. The group includes 97% of all animal species – all animals except those in the chordate subphylum Vertebrata .Invertebrates form a paraphyletic group...
, which means it does not have a backbone or notochord
Notochord
The notochord is a flexible, rod-shaped body found in embryos of all chordates. It is composed of cells derived from the mesoderm and defines the primitive axis of the embryo. In some chordates, it persists throughout life as the main axial support of the body, while in most vertebrates it becomes...
. It must have an exoskeleton
Exoskeleton
An exoskeleton is the external skeleton that supports and protects an animal's body, in contrast to the internal skeleton of, for example, a human. In popular usage, some of the larger kinds of exoskeletons are known as "shells". Examples of exoskeleton animals include insects such as grasshoppers...
, usually made of chitin, a tough material formed from sugars that is also found in the cell walls of fungi. It must have jointed appendages, with a definite separation of tissue in the joints, rather than a continuous tentacle. It must have a segmented body, although the precise number of segments varies from arthropod to arthropod—insects have three segments, head, thorax, and abdomen, while an arachnid has just two, the cephalothorax and abdomen.
Insects are some of the most diverse animals on the planet, with an estimated six to ten million species. Insects come in all shapes and sizes, from the sizable Goliath Beetle to the microscopic fairyfly
Fairyfly
Mymaridae, commonly known as fairyflies or fairy wasps, is a family of chalcid wasps found in temperate and tropical regions throughout the world. It contains around 100 genera and 1424 species. All of them are parasitoids of the eggs of other insects...
. Some insects, like beetles, are scavengers. Some, such as bees, get their sustenance from the nectar of plants Some insects, like mosquitoes, ticks, and fleas, suck the blood of humans and other mammals. Insects live in almost every climate, all over the world.
Arachnids are slightly less diverse than insects, coming in at just over 100,000 named species. All arachnids have 8 legs, although for some arachnids one pair of legs serves a sensory function rather than a locomotive one. The most common types of arachnids are spiders and scorpions. Arachnids, too, are found all over the world.
Horror
The first and most notable part that arthropods play is in horrorHorror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
and thriller movies; human beings are basically conditioned to be disgusted and even frightened by arthropods, so arthropods made enormous, given special abilities, or in huge numbers are ideal constructs to frighten and scare. Some examples of arthropods used in this way are Them!, in which a nest of ants becomes gigantic after exposure to nuclear radiation
Radioactive decay
Radioactive decay is the process by which an atomic nucleus of an unstable atom loses energy by emitting ionizing particles . The emission is spontaneous, in that the atom decays without any physical interaction with another particle from outside the atom...
; King Kong, where the protagonists encounter a ravine filled with giant insects and arachnids while on an island of giant things; and Starship Troopers, in which the human race is embattled against an alien
Extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
race resembling gargantuan insects.
Arthropods are effective tools to instill horror because fear of arthropods may be conditioned into the minds of human beings. Indeed, Jamie Whitten
Jamie L. Whitten
Jamie Lloyd Whitten was a United States Representative from Mississippi, who was of English and Swedish descent. He is the second-longest serving U.S. Representative ever and the fourth longest serving U.S. member of Congress ever.-Early life:Jamie Whitten was born in Cascilla, Mississippi...
quoted in his book “That We May Live,” (talking about insects): "The enemy is already here-in the skies, in the fields, and waterways. It is dug into every square foot of our earth; it has invaded homes, schoolhouses, public buildings; it has poisoned food and water; it brings sickness and death by germ warfare to countless millions of people every year.... The enemy within-these walking, crawling, jumping, flying pests-destroy more crops than drought and floods. They destroy more buildings than fire. They are responsible for many of the most dreaded diseases of man and his domestic animals.... Some of them eat or attack everything man owns or produces-including man himself ." Thus, insects and other arthropods are dangerous to humans in both obvious and less obvious ways. Undoubtedly, arthropods are dangerous for their potential to carry disease
Infectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
. Somewhat less apparently, arthropods cause damage to buildings, crops, and animals. Since arthropods can be harmful in so many ways, using insects and other arthropods to frighten people in movies was a logical step.
Aside from a natural fear or aversion to arthropods, reasons for using such creatures in movies could be metaphorical. Many of the most famous “Big Bug Movies” were made in the 1950s in the aftermath of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, when the world was introduced to the cataclysmic destruction inflicted by nuclear bombs. The bomb was unapproachable, remote, and terrifying; spiders and ants mutated by nuclear radiation to become huge were terrifying, but thanks to the competent government officials, soldiers, policemen, and detectives, the bugs were stopped and safety was restored. Nuclear terror was conquered without expressly facing a nuclear bomb. In this way, big bug movies could be cathartic and liberating to the general public.
It has also been mentioned that big bug films could be symbolic of sexual desire. Margaret Tarrat says in her article “Monsters of the id,” “[Big bug movies] arrive at social comment through a dramatization of the individual's anxiety about his or her own repressed sexual desires, which are incompatible with the morals of civilized life.” By this theory, gigantic swarming insects could represent the huge, torrential—but repressed due to the demands of society—sexual desires possessed by the creator and viewer of the Big Bug movie.
On gigantic arthropods, Charles Q. Choi stated that, if the atmosphere had a higher percentage of oxygen, arthropods would be able to grow quite a bit larger before their trachea became too large and could not grow any more. In fact, in the early years of the earth, when the atmosphere was more oxygen-rich, dragonflies the size of crows were not an uncommon sight.
Animation
A second way that arthropods are used in film is in animated child's films, where the insect is anthropomorphized and becomes a hero in the story. Examples of movies that follow this pattern are “Pinocchio,” with the wise and helpful Jiminy Cricket, who barely resembles a cricket; “A Bug's Life,” which depicts the dramatic workings of a colony of 4-legged ants; and “James and the Giant Peach,” in which James, the protagonist, becomes friends with a number of insects and arachnids.The case for arthropods as protagonists, even cute and likeable characters, is not nearly as easily arrived at as the case for arthropods as instruments of horror. One reason insects are used successfully in this way could be that an insect or other arthropod's small size makes it seem heroic and sympathetic when faced against the big, big world. Another reason is counterpoint to the reason for using arthropods in horror films: whereas horror movies play upon the instinctive negative reaction humans have towards insects and arachnids, these animation films make something that is different and strange seem real, approachable, and sympathetic, thus making it comforting.
A vital characteristic of these films in the anthropomorphism of characters. Mirriam-Webster defines anthropomorphism as “to attribute human form or personality to things not human.” Thus, Jimeny Cricket looks nothing like a cricket, and instead resembles a kind grandfather figure who happens to be green and very small, and the ants in “Bug's Life” are reduced to 2 pairs of limbs. Also, all arthropods are given humanoid features—eyes, a mouth, a nose, even hair—as opposed to the actual features of an arthropod, such as compound eyes and mandibles. Arthropods are also given the socialization and emotions of human beings, all with the intent of making them more approachable.
Other
A third way that arthropods are used in film is as incidental, non-essential elements of the film. Dozens of movies follow this pattern, mentioning or displaying insects, arachnids, scorpions, or some other arthropod only in passing. Sometimes arthropods are used in this context to frighten and repulse, and sometimes they are used to entertain.Sometimes the arthropods used in these movies are animated, sculpted, or otherwise synthesized; however, in many cases these movies use actual creatures. As these creatures are not easily tamed or directed, a specialist known colloquially as a “Bug Wrangler” may be hired to control and direct these creatures. Some bug wranglers have become famous as a result of their expertise, such as Norman Gary, a champion bee-wrangler who is also a college professor, and Steven R. Kutcher, who wrangles a multitude of different types of bugs and who is the subject of over 100 print articles.
List
Some of the most notable movies involving arthropods are these:King Kong, 1933 and 2005. The original movie, in 1933, might have contained the first ever “big bug” scene. However, it was cut from the reel for unknown reasons. The 2005 remake by Peter Jackson features a scene in which the group of heroes is set upon by a multitude of large arthropods after falling down a chasm.
Them!, 1954. This is perhaps the most famous “big bug” film, about a colony of ants that is mutated by radiation from atomic testing and grows to horrific size. The ants rampage in the desert of New Mexico, a naval vessel of the Californian coast, and the sewers of Los Angeles. The ants are eventually destroyed by the United States Army.
“A Bug's Life,” 1998. A misunderstood tinkerer helps his hardworking colony of ants to fight off the evil grasshoppers with the help of a troupe of circus performers.
“Starship Troopers,” 1997. Soldiers in the fascist earth army fight against an alien race of “Arachnids,” bug-like creatures, to save the earth.
“James and the Giant Peach,” 1996. James, a young boy tyrannized by his evil aunts, escapes in a giant peach with a crew of friendly arthropods that, like the peach, have grown much larger than normal.
“Pinocchio,” 1940. A wooden puppet brought to life by magic is aided in his adventures by Jiminy Cricket, who claims to be his conscience.