Title: Celebrity Frankenstein
Author: Stephen Volk
Date of First Publication: July 2012
Place of Publication: Exotic Gothic 4
Type: Short story
Characters: No Character
Themes: MAD SCIENTIST/MONSTER; ANDROID; RACE/POLITICS; SYMPATHETIC MONSTER; POSTHUMAN
Critical Summary: “Celebrity Frankenstein” reinvents Mary Shelley’s classic story as a reality TV show, with the first-person narrator assembled from assorted body parts and going on to have a celebrity career. But of course, the stitches will show, in an existence as randomly stitched together as the bodily form of its protagonist, and soon the narrator’s life falls apart. With corrupt doctors prescribing the wrong drugs in the wrong amounts, accusations of murder and child endangerment, Stephen Volk taps into the zeitgeist of our celebrity obsessed culture, incorporating elements from the end games of O. J. Simpson, Elvis, Michael Jackson and others into his story. It is a cutting satire regarding the emptiness of a society in which to be famous has become an end in itself, and where everything has to be acted out in the glare of the media and for an insatiable public, as if to be unobserved is to not exist.
The amalgam of body parts from different people serves as a metaphor for how life is lived today; if one simply takes bits and pieces from famous celebrities and personalities, how can they be sure if they are their own person? Are the decisions they make their own, or is the person just following in the footsteps of someone on Twitter?
Though the protagonist is not the same monster from Shelley’s novel, both creatures face similar questions regarding their existence; the protagonist of “Celebrity Frankenstein” explains seeing with someone else’s eyes and looking at his own hand, which is not his own, turning his arm with muscles that are simultaneously his and not his. A stark difference between the creatures is that the protagonist in “Celebrity Frankenstein” does not deal with the feeling of loss and betrayal that Victor Frankenstein’s creature experiences. Instead, the short story’s protagonist deals with the emptiness and pain that comes from simultaneously being six people, and the longing of each to become their own person again.
Administrative Notes: Ryan Peters, CSUF; Alexis Shanley, CSUF (editing)