Monsters, Zombies and Goons: Oh My! Is a collection of fifteen films addressing these topics and the role of science and the white man's buffoonery in how these creatures are brought into fruition and become a threat to humanity. The role of science in each of these movies is linked to the very existence of most of these creatures, and this is a reflection of the message and theme that is a precursor of the fate and future of humanity as we know it. The fact of the matter is that the white man is going to keep on seeking and being awarded grant money to wage his experiments in secret, all being done in the name of humanity. If it gets out of control or if some ethical rule is violated, all of this information is kept secret, away from the knowledge of the American public. These are the issues that reviewers and other writers seem to have missed, opting instead to rank the movies based on special effects, photography, location and other irrelevant bullshit. The fact is that art imitates life, and how much proof is needed to show that those in power are literally insane with their quest for power and will do whatever it takes to turn over a rock, work toward creating life, or dig up anything in the name of "discovery." And that is the real point of this book. You can read a review anywhere. What I do is take a component of popular culture - in this case, the movies - and view it as an extension of the white man's mentality. I ask questions, what was on this writer's mind? What is the point of the screenplay that laid out the tenets of this flick? How does this movie benefit the white race because all movies have that as a goal through "mass appeal"? If more of our scholars were critical instead of descriptive, Black folks and other people of color wouldn't be so prone to fall for this system's manipulated manifestations of reality. The book consists of fifteen (15) randomly selected movies (the methodology is explained). These movies run the range of flicks from 1958 through 2013 and each has its own creature feature to deal with, from zombies to giant blobs of jelly; from men with monster-like qualities to monsters who are morphed into humanoids. Where possible, the variable of "race" is interjected so as to more realistically place the creatures/monsters into a more realistic perspective. After all, none of these creatures (except for the Frankenstein monster) has white skin. He's in the science lab screwing around and comes up with something that gets out of is control. He's playing with a virus and loses it. He's got a machine and something goes wrong and now he's got some kind of maniacal creature on the prowl or he's morphed into a fly. He's looking around for a place to colonize and he comes across a creature that is minding its own business and then that creature becomes "the enemy." Just like in the movie "Frankenstein" I offer that Frankenstein was the name of the creator of the monster in that movie. And this is the way it is in all of these movies: the real monster lies in the mind of the individual who wrote it, the people who put it on the screen and the white people in the final product who use every weapon at their disposal to kill that creature while ignoring the social problems in their own world. Read and learn. The real monster is not what is put on the screen. The real monster is the person who created the culture and the weapon.
About the Author: Matthew C. Stelly is a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee working on a degree in Urban Education and Community Policy. He holds three Master's degrees: Urban Studies (1982), Urban Education (1983) and Political Science (2000). He is working toward his doctorate in Community Policy/Urban Education at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is the former editor of the Milwaukee Courier newspaper, former director of the Great Plains Black Museum and the Plano (TX) African American Museum, and lead archivist for The Black Academy of Arts and Letters (TBAAL) in Dallas, Texas. Stelly has more than 2,500 articles in print and has won two national essay competitions. He is the founding director of the largest African-American neighborhood group in Nebraska, the Triple One Neighborhood Association and Parents Union. He is publisher and editor of the Triple One News, a two-time nationally recognized newsletter. He is the father of five children - Mandla, Malik, Clariece, Charisse and Shannon -- and remains actively involved in community organizing and neighborhood development in several cities, including Milwaukee and Omaha.