Ostium (Jun 2018)
L’HOMME ET L’INSECTE : DE LA TERREUR À L’APPROPRIATION (The Man and the Insect: from Terror to Appropriation)
Abstract
Why do insects elicit such repulsion? From a corpus of 150 insect films, this paper proposes several ways for capturing this aversion. From an anthropological point of view, the insect recalls the past epidemics, refers to the infernal spaces and by its power, inspires excess. Also, in the Fifties, it was a hero of the fantastic movies. This moment of golden age has technological causes related to the transformations of occidental society in the aftermath of the Second World War. However, the approach of insect was also more empathic through its hybridization. He is then the symbol of the pitiful marginal or, on the contrary, the transhumanistic future of the augmented body.
