Episode 192: The Invisible Man (Myth Movie Night)
/The Invisible Man has been scaring us since 1897, but invisibility has been used for nefarious purposes in myths and legends since way before that. Our survey of invisibility spans past centuries all the way to the modern day as we examine what exactly makes invisibility scary—and what might be next.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of mental institutions, gaslighting, abusive relationships, murder, physical and mental abuse, suicide, military industrail complex, stalking, human/medical testing, terrorism, grave robbing, racism, and gun violence.
Housekeeping
- Recommendation: This week, Amanda recommends the podcast Bad Queers. Check out our previous book recommendations, guests’ books, and more at spiritspodcast.com/books
- Merch: Our new pins, digital coloring book, and posters are all for sale at http://spiritspodcast.com/merch!
Sponsors
- Skillshare is an online learning community where you can learn—and teach—just about anything. Visit skillshare.com/spirits2 to get two months of Skillshare Premium for free! This week Julia recommends “ODD BODIES: Illustrating Expressive, Stylized People” by Tom Froese.
- Stitch Fix is an online personal styling service that finds and delivers clothes, shoes, and accessories to fit your body, budget, and lifestyle. Get started at stitchfix.com/spirits for 25% off when you keep your whole box!
- Calm is the #1 app to help you reduce your anxiety and stress and help you sleep better. Get 40% off a Calm Premium subscription at calm.com/spirits.
Find Us Online
If you like Spirits, help us grow by spreading the word! Follow us @SpiritsPodcast on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Goodreads. You can support us on Patreon (http://patreon.com/spiritspodcast) to unlock bonus Your Urban Legends episodes, director’s commentaries, custom recipe cards, and so much more. We also have lists of our book recommendations and previous guests’ books at http://spiritspodcast.com/books.
Transcript
Amanda: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore. Every week we pour ourselves a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I’m Amanda.
Julia: And I’m Julia.
Amanda: And this is Episode 192: The Invisible Man for Myth Movie Night.
Julia: Myth movie night! Amanda, I’m very excited to hear what you thought about this movie because I really like it.
Amanda: Totally. It is an absolutely devastating portrayal of abuse, gaslighting, and lots of horrible side effects that comes with that. So, knowing that, it was a great horror movie.
Julia: Yes.
Amanda: And we would definitely like to encourage--as every week, we include some content warnings and descriptions in the description of this episode--and if this is not something that would make your day or week better, then feel free to go ahead and skip it! We’ll have a new episode next week like we have for the last 192 weeks.
Julia: Oof. Ooh boy. So many weeks. We’ve been doing this for so long.
Amanda: And it’s a joy, Julia, every week to be able to connect with you--and sometimes Eric Schneider--and to do our thing and talk about ghosts, and it’s fabulous.
Julia: I love talking about ghosts and spooky things!
Amanda: I also love that we get to enjoy that with new people every week, and I want to thank, in particular, our newest Patrons: Christian, Thomas, Julia, Nicola, Timo, Sine, Andi, DanielleCalifornia, and Artimis.
Julia: What wonderful names. What good Patrons.
Amanda: They join the ranks of hundreds of people who give up a few dollars a month to help us make this our living and we are so grateful for each and every one of you.Particularly our Supporting Producer level Patrons: Philip, Alicia, Debra, Hannah, Jen, Jessica, Keegan, Landon, Megan Linger, Megan Moon, Molly, Mr. Folk, Neal, Niki, Phil Fresh, Polly, Sarah, and Skyla, [and our Legend level Patrons, who I get to select fun gifts for every single month: Philip, Alicia, Debra, Hannah, Jen, Jessica, Keegan, Landon, Megan Linger, Megan Moon, Molly, Mr. Folk, Neal, Niki, Phil Fresh, Polly, Sarah, and Skyla,] and our Legend level Patrons for whom I get to pick a wonderful gift--I almost said delicious. Sometimes they are delicious.--every month: Audra, Chelsea, Clara, Donald, Drew, Eden, Frances, Jack Marie, Josie, Lada, Mark, Morgan, Necrofancy, Sarah, and Bea Me Up Scotty.
Julia: It always makes me so happy to see those names week after week. Just being there, supportive, it’s like a big hug, just reading those names out.
Amanda: Absolutely. What a nice time.
Julia: Amanda, what’s treating you like a big hug lately? What is giving you comfort and joy?
Amanda: Julia, that would be the Bad Queers podcast. This is by HER, the dating app, and it’s actually a very good podcast by an app which there are not a ton of examples of. They say that it’s for people who feel like they came out of the closet and got placed in a box., and in terms of nuanced descriptions of queer identity and being a “bad queer” the hosts, Kris and Shauna do a really great job of talking about all of those one-level-more-advanced discussions, like what it’s like to be part of the queer community stereotypes, owning your identity, and “unpopular opinions.” So it’s wonderful, they do cover the news so it’s not totally removed from our current reality, but they also have stories and advice, it’s fluid, and it’s real, and I really appreciate that. So that is the Bad Queers podcast. Get it wherever your podcasts are captured.
Julia: And downloading now.
Amanda: I mean also all the Multitude shows, but you know. We’ve already talked about that. You know.
Julia: Yes, yes, yes. Of course. Speaking of all the Multitude shows, Amanda, I hear people can get merch from all the Multitude shows and for a little cheaper than usual.
Amanda: Absolutely! In terms of all the ways that podcasters can try to make a living--particularly in a year like this where ad revenue is down and when you can’t do things like live shows--merch is a really helpful way to get a gift for yourself or a loved one and support the podcast as you do so, and DFTBA, our merch distributor, is doing a big sale this week. So for both Spirits and all of the other Multitude shows, you can get a discount on our merch through August 8th. You can go to multitude.productions/merch to see all of the merch from all of our shows in one place, and there are also some new items for sale. Join the Party has a mug, Spirits--we have those wonderful copper pins in partnership with Shaker and Spoon and there’s all kinds of digital rewards, digital wallpapers, ringtones, PDFs and other fun things that you can download. Like our coloring book!
Julia: I love our coloring book.
Amanda: Which you can print out and color with your spooky nieces and nephews or on your own!
Julia: On your own! I’ve been taking up coloring before I go to bed lately and it’s really, really nice, and if you are a Patron for Spirits at any level, you can get an additional discount code. So if you sign up now, get that discount code, y’all.
Amanda: Absolutely. Both the discount code and the DFTBA sale are through August 8th, but our merch is there all the time, so if you’re listening to this in the future, check it out. We might even have amazing merch that we don’t know about yet because we’re here, stuck in the past.
Julia: We’re in the past, man. Right now. Past. Right now, past. Right now! Past!
Amanda: Oh my. Well, before any time passes us by Julia, why don’t we get into this. Welcome. It’s Spirits Episode 192: The Invisible Man for Myth Movie Night.
[Theme music]
Julia: Amanda, another myth movie night has come and gone. I have made you watch another creepy, creepy film, and here we are.
Amanda: Incredibly creepy. It was indeed. I also love seeing Elisabeth Moss in slightly scary circumstances. I really enjoyed her in Top of the Lake and a few of the other crime-y shows that she has done so this was a slight derivative of the theme.
Julia: Yeah, she was great in Us too. That was really, really a fantastic part for her. She does really well as a Scream Queen kind of person. Especially in the modern era and I just like her a whole lot.
Amanda: I also like horror movies that don’t feature teenagers.
Julia: Yes!
Amanda: As much as we’ve talked about teens in our previous myth movie night.
Julia: Nice to be an adult and get potentially murdered? That’s always fun.
Amanda: Listen. Just a change of pace, you know?
Julia: Just got to mix it up a little bit. So, Amanda, I believe it is my turn for the summary for this episode. Are you ready for me? Do you have a countdown for me?
Amanda: I do. I have the countdown ready and for those who are hoping to avoid spoilers, you can skip forward about two and a half minutes because that is when Julia will finish and we will be done recapping the particular spoil-y events. Though as always there may be kind of mild spoilers in the episode itself we’ll do our best to let you know if those are coming.
Julia: Yes, of course. All right. Tell me.
Amanda: All right, three, two, one, go.
Julia: So, Elisabeth Moss is playing Cecilia, who is a woman at the beginning of the film who escapes an abusive relationship with her partner Adrian with the help of her sister. She ends up staying with her friend, James, and his teenage daughter, Sydney, but is left extremely nervous that Adrian is going to come after her. But eventually she gets news that Adrian has committed suicide and has been left a significant amount of money in his will by his lawyer/brother, Tom. Despite this news, Cecilia still thinks that someone is watching and following her. It becomes really clear to the audience pretty quickly that Cecilia isn’t imagining this and someone unseen is trying to destroy her life. An invisible figure attacks Sydney, who blames it on Cecilia. She eventually finds Adrian’s phone in the attic of James’ house, where she’s staying then covers a figure in paint to show that he is actually there.
So, she goes to Adrian’s house to find proof that he is not dead, and finds this invisibility suit but is attacked as she does. She escapes and reaches out to her sister, who the invisible man then kills in the restaurant in one of the most surprising kills I’ve seen in a movie in a really, really, long time, it was so, so good, and eventually frames Cecilia for that murder. She is institutionalized while waiting for trial and is told she is pregnant. Tom, which is Adrian’s brother/lawyer, reaches out and tells her that he can have the charges dropped on her if she “returns to him,” kind of implying Adrian is still alive and Tom is helping him to fake his own death. Cecilia tries to fake a suicide attempt in order to lure out the invisible man and manages to stab him with a pen that she stole, very Hanibal Lector style.
Amanda: 20 seconds left.
Julia: Oh. Okay. There’s a very cool fight scene where the security guards are fighting an invisible assailant, Cecilia escapes, she returns to James’ house, saves Sydney who is being targeted by the invisible man, she shoots him, she reveals that it’s Tom in the suit, not Adrian, who is found by the police tied up in his home. Cecilia doesn’t believe that Adrian was not involved, so she goes to his house to confront him while wearing a wire so that James can hear the confession. And Adrian does not outright admit to the abuse, he does allude to it and Cecilia leaves the room and the security camera appears to show Adrian committing suicide. Cecilia leaves the house and James questions her, only to find that Cecila has the suit in her bag.
Amanda: Yes. A tiny bit over time, but I had to give you that momentum.
Julia: Plus you had to have that final reveal that she has the suit and now she’s going to get her revenge. It’s wonderful, I love it.
Amanda: It really was many, many twists, you know? It’s not like a straightforward thing, where it’s like, “someone’s haunting the camp!” and then at the end of the movie, we’re done.
Julia: Yes. No, luckily this time it is full of twists and turns. It is really fascinating. I love the kind of slow momentum of the build up and the slow reveals that she’s not just seeing things and someone is actually there. Like the scene where you see the knife lift up off the counter is so fascinating. I love it so much.
Amanda: And I was reading a few different reviews, just to kind of see what other people were writing about it, and Thomras Laughlee on rogerebert.com made a really good point that this movie never makes us doubt Elisabeth Moss’ perspective. We are never in the position of other people who are denying her experience, it shows us what is happening to her and we kind of find out information at the same rate as her which I really appreciate. It wasn’t like, “Oh! It was happening all along!” We know. She knows. The work of the movie is proving to other people that that’s happening, while still letting us have a good twist! So I thought it was a really smart script in that way.
Julia: Absolutely, and I really want to talk about that kind of trope in horror later on towards the end. I want that to kind of be our discussion at the end of the episode, but I would love to talk about the background of The Invisible Man to start us off, does that sound good?
Amanda: Please do!
Julia: Okay. So I chose The Invisible Man because, as we’ve established before with the Shape of Water episode, I really like the Universal Monsters, and unfortunately The Invisible Man is a kind of underloved character of this squad--probably because he is difficult to pull off on film and obviously he doesn’t have the most recognizable appearance; or maybe he does because he is invisible--but I would love to do sort of a deep dive into the beginning of The Invisible Man and how we got to the 2020 film that is our movie for the week.
Amanda: I would love that.
Julia: So, where do we start? The easiest place to start, obviously, would the source material, and our boy, H. G. Wells. The Father of Science Fiction! Daddy Sci-Fi himself. I regret that title a little bit, but anyway. He kind of shares that title with Jules Verne, but both of them were putting out some really prominent science fiction books in that period, with Wells being quite focused on futurism in his novels. His first major work was The Time Machine in 1895, which saw quite a bit of acclaim, and then The Invisible Man followed soon after in 1897. Hey, also, fun fact, Wells coined the term Time Machine. The reason we use Time Machine is because of H. G. Wells.
Amanda: It does sound like a very kind of late Victorian thing to be like, “A machine to move through time!”
Julia: There you go. Wells was also known in his writing for “Wells’s Law.” Basically the idea that in a science fiction story, in order to bring the audience along with you, there should only be one single extraordinary assumption. Here’s his quote on how the law works in his works: “As soon as the magic trick has been done, the whole business of the fantasy writer is to keep everything else human and real. Touches of prosaic detail are imperative and a rigorous adherence to the hypothesis. Any extra fantasy outside the cardinal assumption immediately gives a touch of irresponsible silliness to the invention.” Which I genuinely do think is an interesting way to go about creating science fiction. It creates a world that is more frighteningly real to the audience because it resembles their reality, and it’s put to great effect in The Invisible Man.
Amanda: Totally. I have always felt that with movies that I have kind of inelegantly called “future-adjacent”--like almost the future or almost the right now--where one thing is changed enough that it’s uncanny.
Julia: Yeah. Exactly, and I think that really makes it so much easier to believe that that world can exist. Which I think is why H. G. Wells’ stories are still very prominently thought of in the canon. So I want to dive into Wells’ version of The Invisible Man because I actually re-read it after doing this because it’s been awhile since I revisited it. So I am just going to give a pretty detailed summary because I think it’s interesting how it compares to the movie version that we saw. In Wells’ version of The Invisible Man, our Invisible Man is named Griffin, who appears as a man in a long-sleeved thick coat and has his face wrapped up entirely with bandages except for a fake nose and he wears a large hat to cover up the upper half of his face.
Amanda: I feel like I know this image well from book covers.
Julia: Yes. Yeah, and you’ve seen it in movies and stuff like that, but at the beginning of the novel, he takes up a room at an inn in West Sussex in England and kind of keeps to himself, he’s working with chemicals and laboratory equipment during the day, and he only leaves at night because he’s a man just wrapped in bandages..He eventually reveals that he is in a constant state of invisibility to the landlady of the inn because she knocks on his door and is like, “Hey, you’ve got to pay your rent” and he’s like, “No!” and then just tries to get away. He is pursued by some townspeople who obviously don’t want him there because he's not really a pleasant dude and they suspect him of being a burglar because a bunch of houses are robbed while he’s there and he ends up killing a man with a pipe as he invisibly flees but is followed. He eventually recruits a man named Thomas Marvel--which is a great name. Solid name.
Amanda: It is.
Julia: Who acts as his assistant and asks him to help recover these notebooks he had to abandon when he fled the inn, which basically outline his experiments in invisibility. However, Marvel quickly turns on him because, again, not a good dude and Marvel goes to the police and asks that they lock him in a high-security jail as to protect him from Griffin, which is a smart move. Good job, Marvel. Solid choice. Griffin is shot trying to get to Marvel in his prison cell and enact his revenge, and then seeks shelter only to be discovered by a Dr. Kemp, who Griffin went to medical school with. It is revealed by Kemp that Griffin was a former medical student who abandoned schooling in order to study optics, and I always love when the “mad scientist” archetype just doesn’t have a medical degree. Frankenstein was just a chemistry student! He didn’t have a degree, he was not a doctor.
Amanda: No, in no way was he.
Julia: It’s so great, just all of these grad students being like, “What if I did a very dangerous experiment and then created a horror movie out of it? Excellent.” Right? Solid choice.
Amanda: I know. I feel that way listening to sawbones all the time. Like, “Oh yes, this person made important discoveries” or had wild confidence that was not matched up to his actual experimentation--because mostly it is he--and there was less to know about those subjects or no sense of certainty or the canon, so you do a couple of experiments at home and it’s like,“I am a geologist because of my rock garden,” like that really is the level that we were at for a time.
Julia: Well, as we’ll see, Griffin is also at that same level because he reveals that he invented chemicals that could turn the body invisible, and he first tested it on a cat and then himself, which I feel like there should be more planning in between those stages. Like, cat and then human testing on yourself? Not great, personally. The ethics there are not fantastic. Don’t experiment on yourself, I guess is kind of my point.
Amanda: I know. There are many examples of an important vaccine researcher succumbed to the disease that they were trying to eradicate. I get it, I get the necessity of it, but still when you see it played out in fiction you think, “No!”
Julia: It’s real bad and it is real bad for Griffin, because it’s basically revealed that the procedure and experiments have driven him mad and he plans to use his invisibility to terrorize the country for his own purposes. So he’s like, “I can be invisible so I’m going to be a terrorist!” Bold choice, sir. Genuinely bold choice.
Amanda: I mean, I feel like I would sneak into rooftop pools or something. That wouldn’t be my first choice.
Julia: Yes, exactly, but this is also England during the late 1800s, so they didn’t have rooftop pools back then. I’m sure that would have been his choice if they had.
Amanda: I mean, I’m sure it would have been equally scintillating to stand on a corner of a neighborhood that your social class is not permitted in.
Julia: Yeah. Yeah, that’s true. That’s valid. But again, he’s a chemistry student! He’s probably of decent standing before all of this. He probably wasn’t like--not super well off, but anyway. The final climax of the book has Kemp reporting Griffin to the police because obviously, and though Griffin fights he is eventually overwhelmed and beaten to death by a mob of villagers. In death, Griffin’s body reappears and is covered by a sheet by the police. And in the epilogue, Amanda, the epilogue because the epilogue is always the best part, Marvel is revealed to have kept Griffin’s notes and money, but Griffin’s work is too complicated and also written in like Latin and code and Marvel can’t really do anything with the notes, so it’s just kind of sitting there being wasted away because this man is not intelligent enough to understand the true meaning behind the work he holds.
Amanda: It feels like we’re really getting set up for a sort of Jumanji reboot situation.
Julia: Okay.
Amanda: Where The Rock discovers these journals in a storage unit that he purchased at auction.
Julia: A bold choice. The Rock, who just recently bought the XFL for $15 million as of this recording.
Amanda: Yes.
Julia: Yeah, I can see that. I don’t know if I’d want The Rock to be invisible though. He’s just such a gift to our world that his invisibility would be a detriment.
Amanda: Totally. That was just the first person that comes to mind when I think of reboot of classic movie.
Julia: Gotcha. Okay, cool.
Amanda: Much in the future sequel.
Julia: Fair enough. So obviously the original novel of The Invisible Man is very different from the film that we watched, but the fundamentals are still very much there. Adrian also specializes in optics, much like Griffin however, it is not chemicals that transform him into an invisible person, but rather a camera covered suit. Adrian also has the ability to be both visible and invisible, whereas Griffin seemingly cannot control his invisibility. That’s why he’s got to be wrapped up in bandages and whatnot, and while Wells tries his best to keep his science pretty realistic for the time period that they’re in, the Russian writer, Yakov Perelman refuted in his 1913 book “Physics Can Be Fun” which is a great title for a book in 1913--
Amanda: It sure is.
Julia: He says that if Griffin’s method was actually put to the test, that person made invisible would be blind because “a human eye works by absorbing incoming light, not letting it through completely”. Wells sort of acknowledges this problem when he describes in a flashback the retinas of the cat that Griffin tested his chemicals on and basically says that they were still visible because they flashed, but because the retina remains it would be flooded with light and at best would see only extremely blurred images. Which I think is really cool, that we know the science behind if this would work or not.
Amanda: Totally.
Julia: But of course, Amanda, it’s not as though H.G. Wells invented the concept of invisibility, and being able to pass through this world unseen is something that we’ve seen across many mythologies and in many cultures. So we’ll dive into that a bit when we return from the refill.
Amanda: All right, let’s go.
[Theme music]
Julia: Amanda, I am constantly trying to learn new things. I miss being a student in a lot of ways. Especially now that even if I wanted to go back to school I wouldn’t be learning physically in a classroom. It’s really, really nice to be able to pick up a class with Skillshare. Skillshare is all about exploring new skills, deepening existing passions, and getting really lost in your own creativity especially when you’re taking classes with Skillshare. You can learn about illustration, you can learn about design, photography, video, freelancing, and so, so much more. I took a class this week called “Odd Bodies: Illustrating Expressive Stylized People” which is by the illustrator Tom Froese, and I really, really like being able to flex a new style of art every now and again, really get those creative juices flowing and being able to pick up something new. I want to pick up watercolor I think some time soon and I bet there’s a Skillshare class for that.
Amanda: Oh yeah.
Julia: And luckily Skillshare is a great way to stay inspired to express yourself and to connect with a community of creatives like I did when I took my “Odd Bodies” class. So you can explore your creativity right now by going to skillshare.com/spirits2 where our listeners can get two free months of premium membership. Again that’s two months free at skillshare.com/spirits2.
Amanda: Julia, something that I am not nostalgic for is the experience of going clothes shopping, which as somebody who is plus sized and also gets sweaty walking around, doesn’t want to try on clothes other people have tried on and it’s stressful, they might not have my size in stock and also, like everybody, my body has unique proportions that don’t match how all clothes are cut. So what I really love is that when I am shopping with Stitch Fix A) all of the clothes are selected by one of their stylists to fit my body and my budget, so I am not falling in love with a jumpsuit or dress that I see and then realize “Oh no, it’s $200,” and then B) you can give notes that go beyond what your size is. So for every box that you get and send back, whether you get the items or you return them, you can give feedback on how they fit, and you can let them know if you liked the price, the value, the fabric, the pattern, and specifically how it fit. They also ask like, “Are tops usually too loose on you in the sleeve or too tight in the waist?” and it is a really, really useful way to get clothes that you are excited about and that probably actually are going to fit you.
Julia: Now I really love how much they really listen to your feedback. I have said several times, “Y’all I have yet to find a jumpsuit that can fit me properly because my legs are one size and my upper body’s another size, so if you guys can figure out how to make that work that would be great” and I’ve gotten like three jumpsuits from Stitch Fix that all fit me very, very well! If I went to Target or a nice boutique or something, I would never be able to find a jumpsuit that looks good on me.
Amanda: And for all of the work that they do selecting the right clothes for you, they charge a $20 styling fee, but if you keep even one thing from the box that you get, that $20 styling fee will be applied toward the cost of the item. Shipping and exchanges are also always free and returns as well so you’re not penalized if you need to return a couple items from the box, but if you get a box and you love every single item in it and you decide to keep it, you can get 25% off the cost of those items by going to stitchfix.com/spirits to sign up for Stitch Fix.
Julia: Yup. That’s stitchfix.com/spirits for 25% off when you keep everything in your fix. Stitchfix.com/spirits.
Amanda: And finally, Julia, especially in These Times™ it can be helpful to have something to focus your mind on when you are trying to fall asleep or trying to take a meditative walk or even trying to meditate, and I really love that the Calm app delivers all of those for me. They call themselves a mental fitness app and they really do give you mental exercises and challenges to relieve anxiety, improve your sleep, or whatever else you’re trying to focus on. They are generally there to help you ease stress and get good sleep. They have soundscapes, guided meditations, and over 100 sleep stories narrated by soothing voices, like Lucy Liu’s who should be in way, way more voiceover because she is so fantastic.
Julia: True.
Amanda: And if you go right now to calm.com/spirits you will get their limited time offer of 40% off a calm premium subscription which includes hundreds of hours of programming.
Julia: Yeah! Join over 70 million people, us included, around the world who use Calm to help take care of their minds and get even better sleep.
Amanda: That’s C-A-L-M.C-O-M/spirits for 40% off unlimited access to Calm’s entire library with new content added every week.
Julia: Yup. That’s calm.com/spirits.
Amanda: And now, let’s get back to the show.
Julia: Amanda, it felt right to pick a clear cocktail for this episode since we can see right through that invisible man, but he is still very, very much there. Just like our alcohol choices.
Amanda: And his abusive tactics. You will be found out, sir.
Julia: Sir! You will! So we are going to recommend a White Cosmo, which is REALLY simple to make. It's basically just a regular Cosmo, but instead of using regular cranberry juice, you swap that in for some white cranberry juice. Nice and simple, really delightful. Tastes a little bit sweeter than your typical cosmo, since the white cranberry juice is a little sweeter compared to regular, but I think you’ll find that it's just as delicious.
Amanda: I like to cut it with a little lemon juice now and again if you want to add that little acidic pop.
Julia: There you go. Perfect, and with the triple sec it’s absolutely delicious. Plis, the Cosmo is a classic, much like The Invisible Man. So, a perfect cocktail.
Amanda: Good. Decision. Jules.
Julia: Thanks, bud! So, invisibility, Amanda, like I said, obviously it predates H. G. Wells. In fact, one of the first depictions of invisibility--specifically not by a deity or spirit, since many of those can turn invisible, but as smoke or the wind, and what have you--is a story that was told by Plato and it is The Ring of Gyges. Gyges was a shepherd for the King of Lydia and one day as he was tending to his flock, and then there is an earthquake that reveals a cave in the mountainside. Also, side note, sorry this is just a recommendation from me. I just watched Palm Springs on Hulu which has Andy Sandberg in it, and it is a really fun twist on the kind of Groundhog’s Day stuck in a loop thing. It’s really, really fun. I had a good time with it. It’s got a lot of existential questions. J. K. Simmons pops up really randomly in it and has a really deep conversation. Anyway. It’s a lot of fun. Go check it out. But back to Plato.
Amanda: I mean, similarly, with caves, my partner Eric Silver and I watched, yesterday, a Firewatch playthrough from a Games Done Quick marathon and I really loved the depiction of nature there and they have a really lovely cave sequence.
Julia: Nice. I like that. So back to Ring of Gyges. Gyges, shepherd for the king of Lydia, one day he’s tending to his clock and there’s an earthquake that reveals a cave in the mountainside, as Gyges investigates the cave, he finds that it’s actually a tomb for a very large man, just extremely large, giant-sized man who was laid to rest in a bronze horse for some reason. Gyges then sees that he’s wearing a golden ring, which Gyges takes, and hey bud maybe don’t grave rob? I don’t know. Just a suggestion.Don’t do that.
Amanda: Yeah, no, maybe.
Julia: Gyges soon discovers that the ring can turn him invisible when he adjusts it on his finger, like the ring in Lord of the Rings and he uses that power to infiltrate the king’s palace, where he seduces the queen, gets her help to kill the king, and then marries her, becoming the king of Lydia himself.
Amanda: Wow. That is--
Julia: It’s a whole lot.
Amanda: That’s a whole lot, and also required a lot of skill that wasn’t being invisible.
Julia: Yeah, no. Just, for a shepherd. I guess he kind of deserved to be king? I mean he’s got skills that are not just shepherd skills.
Amanda: Fair enough.
Julia: Fair enough.It’s very MacBethian but I’m into it. But again, this is another instance of the power of invisibility being used for less than great reasons, but does show a common trait in invisibility--it’s an item or piece of clothing that allows someone to turn invisible at will. Which is a common thing and a common trait that we’ll see in a lot of mythology. For example, if we dip into Greek Mythology, Hades was said to have a cap or helmet that could turn the wearer invisible. The grandfather of Odysseus, which is Autolycus, was said to have a helmet that also could turn him invisible and he was a well-known thief, but the cunning kind of thief that is looked up to because of his craftiness instead of being a bad person.
Amanda: It’s like, “Don’t marry my daughter, but fair enough.”
Julia: But we get it. It’s Robin Hood-esque, sure. The Norse also had a similar helmet, which was known as the Tarnhelm, which could not only turn the wearer invisible, but also could allow them to change their shape as well--such as the form of a dragon. Which, invisible and a dragon? Pretty dope.
Amanda: That is wonderful.I think, all things considered, I would rather be able to shift into an animal, because then you kind of are functionally invisible from other people when you’re trying to do human things.
Julia: Sure, unless you’re a dragon.
Amanda: Unless you’re a dragon. I mean, I was thinking more like--
Julia: A dog.
Amanda: --hamster, cat--
Julia: A cat.
Amanda: --yeah.Something like that, a bird--
Julia: If I just saw a random hamster running around though, Amanda, I would be concerned.
Amanda: Okay, maybe cat, rat, crow, and insect.
Julia: Gotcha. Perfect. I’m glad we’re on the same page because dragon and hamster, not the best combo.
Amanda: Yeah, no. Not great.
Julia: And I think it’s really interesting, Amanda, because we do talk about invisibility a lot as a thing of fiction, but I would also love to talk about the actual science behind it and how close we are to actually turning science fiction into science fact! I love that phrase. Science fiction to science fact!
Amanda: I love when that happens.
Julia: Quick science breakdown in terms of the definition of invisibility--it’s literally when a thing is not visible, right? And when an object is visible, it is because there is light reflecting off of the surface of that object and hitting the viewer’s eye, which allows it to be seen. That’s why when it’s dark we can’t really see too well, because our eye is not registering light bouncing off of things.
Amanda: That was definitely a trippy thing for me to learn in my adolescence. “Oh, there is no objective sight.” There is no “thing is actually visible in the world,” it’s just all “how does my eye perceive it and how does my brain decode it?” It’s truly amazing.
Julia: Yeah, exactly. So invisibility, by this definition, would mean that an object cannot reflect or absorb light. Currently there’s no practical way of “cloaking” an item, that is to say, creating real optical invisibility. There are some theoretical ideas of how we could potentially achieve these things, such as using metamaterials and applying radio waves in order to distort visible light, for example. In a year 2000 version of The Invisible Man, actually, that method is what is used. There is a theory that light waves can be manipulated similarly to radio waves. A scientist from the University of California, Berkeley, Xiang Zhang, explains it in a way that even I can understand, because I’m not huge on science and his quote is: “In the case of invisibility cloaks or shields, the material would need to curve light waves completely around the object like a river flowing around a rock. An observer looking at the cloaked device would then see light from behind it, making it seem like it disappears.” Which kind of makes sense, it’s just bending around the object so you’re seeing the light past it instead of it blocking the light that you’re supposed to be seeing.
Amanda: Sure.
Julia: And, Amanda, in 2019, a company called Hyperstealth Biotechnology--which is a bit on the nose and sounds like the villain in a sci-fi movie. Not great--
Amanda: Yeah. I would flag that as a suspicious transaction on my credit card.
Julia: For sure. They patented a technology that would create a material that bends light to make people and objects near invisible to the naked eye, which is called “Quantum Stealth.” Again, a bit on the nose, gang. Not great. Don’t love that. Of course, Amanda, they plan on using it for military purposes because what else, I guess. I guess we are living in a dumb cyberpunk future and I’m not a huge fan of it. What else? Anyway.
Amanda: Why else would we need scientific advancement and, I don’t know, research funding?
Julia: However, the bending of light seems to not be the only way to turn things invisible, at least not in theory. In 2012 a new physical phenomenon related to electronic resonance of laser processed materials was discovered and I don’t know exactly what that means. I asked Jake, and I still don’t totally understand what that means but I’ll try to give you my best and I’m sure someone will send us an email telling me how I got this wrong, but basically from a university in Canada called Laval University, the scientists created a way of using lasers instead of circuitry in electronics so that the conduits aren’t visible. Basically what I think it’s trying to say is--again I’m not a scientist, I don’t really get physics or lasers or engineering super well. That’s why I married an engineer. Together we make a well-rounded person, but it’s basically--
Amanda: Other reasons too, but it’s like, “Yes. Thanks honey.”
Julia: We make a well-rounded smart person. It’s fine, but basically they’re able to make circuits but with lasers and you can’t see the lasers.
Amanda: Yeah. Instead of wires you can see laying there, the connections are made with lasers which you can’t see.
Julia: Yes, exactly. So, Amanda, at the end of the day, I really understand the appeal of invisibility as a story mechanic both in mythology and in later fiction. Especially as a horror mechanic. We talk a lot on this show about how disturbing it is to think you hear or see something that no one else can see or hear and only to discover that it’s not real. A big personal fear of mine too, is the classic like “woman is 100% definitely being haunted or stalked or gaslit and the rest of the world just does not believe her” which is why asylum horror tends to really be big on my list of horror tropes that really, really put the scare in me. but I think there’s a deeper part to that as well. One of the big questions that is often posed to people in “would you rather” style games is the choice between invisibility or flight, and according to a Psychology Today article, to choose invisibility is to embrace your Jungian shadow self in order to transcend it, and there is something distinctly dark about choosing invisibility. The ability to get away with something, to have your actions hidden from society, and to enact on these secret desires that no one else can know about, and I think that’s what is particularly scary about invisibility. It makes the fact that it could happen in our lifetime even scarier.
Amanda: Absolutely, and I think it was a really prescient decision for Ralph Ellison to use the title Invisible Man for his novel about the African American experience in the early 20th century, and it touches on Black identity, Marxism, Black nationalism and is just a very foundational book for a lot of contemporary writers on race and Black identity. There is something about--it’s not just visible in the physical sense, it’s also social recognition and being visible in society is something that people have to confer on you and a thing that should be inherent, but in the socially constructed world of hierarchy, race, power, all those things and the physical, tangible benefits and deprivations that race and society assigns and takes away. Visibility means a lot.
Julia: Right, and that is the one that kind of starts at the beginning of the novel with the idea of, “They don’t see me because they don’t see me as a person.”
Amanda: Exactly.
Julia: And that is a great example, physical invisibility is something that we think about in a lot of mythology and stuff like that, but there are so many groups of people who are basically invisible to the rest of society because it is “easier” it’s less uncomfortable for us to not think about those people.
Amanda: Yeah, and that’s something that I hope and think that everybody is kind of getting better at and recognizing.
Julia: Yeah, absolutely. Now, at the beginning of the episode, Amanda, we kind of talked a little bit about the idea in the movie that we as the audience are never put into a place where we think that Cecila is not being followed.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: This stuff is--we know that things are happening to her, because she goes off screen and we as the viewers are shown that someone is messing with her life. Someone is turning on the gas in the stove and turning it up so it catches fire or someone picks up the knife and hides it away from her and stuff like that, and I think that that is genuinely something that is one of the big horror moments for me. That is something that really sits with me when I watch movies like this, and I think it’s something that you picked up as well, is the idea that you know you are sane, but the people around you don’t believe you.
Amanda: Yeah, or are trying actively to make you doubt that belief in yourself.
Julia: Yeah, and it’s part of the reason too, that when we got into the asylum potion of the movie, like the institutionalized part of the movie, again, that’s big horror for me. Asylum horror is big horror for me, but you’re so vindicated in that fight scene, that suddenly these people are so unprepared for something you are prepared for is--it felt so validating in that moment to be like, “Oh you’re all so stupid! Come on, why didn’t you believe her? You can see that something’s happening now! Do something about it!”
Amanda: Someone knew, yeah.
Julia: Someone knew! I think that’s what made this movie so impactful for me is that you feel so vindicated when Cecila is vindicated, right?
Amanda: Yeah. 100%. It’s also beautiful. It’s beautifully shot, it’s beautifully done.
Julia: It is a gorgeous movie, and the effects and the stunts especially in a lot of these invisible fight scenes was so, so, so well done. I really need to find a behind the scenes documentary or something and see how they shot all of that because it’s fascinating.
Amanda: Yeah, it never felt like when you see on sitcoms, actors pick up the telephone, say three things and quick succession and there is no way that a person on the other end of the telephone could have had a conversation with them because they’re not waiting long enough or every time they pick up a coffee cup it is obviously empty.
Julia: Oh that drives me crazy!
Amanda: I know, I know.
Julia: It’s my least favorite thing.
Amanda: I get it. I get it, you don’t want to spill on the costumes. I get it, but just, come on. Put some ball bearings in there. Anyway, it is not like we thought Cecila was fighting with the air. They really seriously--whether it was someone in a green screen suit or whatever--they did it well, and I agree that seeing the behind the scenes would be really fascinating here.
Julia: It would be. It would be, definitely. I”m just very glas this movie exists in a lot of ways because I think it takes that trope of the woman not being believed and then finding vindication and gives the audience more of that. Because I feel like 90% of the time when you’re seeing a movie like that, the point of the film is to put that doubt in your head and to feel vindicated at the end, but this whole time you are just asking for someone to believe this poor god damn woman.
Amanda: Yeah, it’s kind of like the opposite of Inception in that way where--I was just talking with my Eric about this and how Christopher Nolan, we watched his magician movie. What is it? The Prestige?
Julia: The Prestige.
Amanda: Recently we watched The Prestige and then that other magician movie that came out the same year--
Julia: Oh, god yeah.
Amanda: The Illusionist?
Julia: Yes. The Illusionist and The Prestige. Those are the two.
Amanda: I’m still half-convinced that there is no difference.
Julia: They’re probably just the same movie.
Amanda: After watching The Prestige I was like, “Yeah, Christopher Nolan loves, at the end of his movies, to be like ‘Fuck you! You don’t know what you just saw! I’m the storyteller. Bye!” and while I am a fan of ambiguous endings in theory or in small doses, I really appreciate that this one--the ambiguity was not ambiguity, but a sense of hope. The end of the movie that leaves you turning to your seatmate and being like, “Whoa!” it was not “Did everything we just spent a bunch of time believing turn out to be false?” because maybe for the more privileged in society, that is not an experience they have to deal with all the time, or convincing people that they’re right or searching desperately for vindications of their point of view, but instead here we get to see Cecila be right and then at the end of the movie to have more options than she did at the beginning.
Julia: Yeah. It is nice to have a horror movie where the end happens and you punch the air, excited, because “Yes! It worked out! All of the lead up to this is worth it because she got to get her revenge and it’s wonderful.”
Amanda: Well, I was scared but also had some wonderful moments of vindication and I think that’s what I go to horror movies for.
Julia: Exactly, and I love it.
Amanda: Well, Julia, thank you again for bringing this to me for our myth movie night.
Julia: Amanda, you are very welcome. I’m glad you enjoyed it and I hope our listeners enjoyed it as well.
Amanda: Absolutely, and remember, everybody, believe yourself. And also…
Julia: Stay creepy.
Amanda: Stay cool.