The Real Evil Lurking Within: Tokenization, Exotification, and Racism in the Subtext of 'The Possession (2012)'

Taken at face value, The Possession (2012) is a classic example of a Hollywood horror film, as it hits a fair number of tropes in the possession subcategory; an otherwise 'ordinary' white nuclear family left to grapple with the sudden, uncharacteristic, and dangerous change in one of their children (usually, it is the benevolent, gentle, and endearing white daughter). 

    The film depicts spiritual/metaphysical elements of a non-WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) culture and portrays these elements in a manner which seeks to exotify or sensationalize. Yes, the dibbuk box was of Jewish origin, so including parts of Jewish tradition in the narrative was necessary to make this film both plausible and believable. However, it may be worthwhile to consider:

    1) Why was a dibbuk box in particular chosen to be the main conduit for horror in this film? 

    2) Why was Judaism discussed or portrayed only in relation to the demonic circumstances at hand? 

    3) Why was Apyzou's dialogue transcribed in the subtitles as [unintelligible whispering], rather than a direct translation? If it was the film's intention to leave these words purposefully obscured, why? 

    4) Why did Clyde (the dad) need to seek help from the Hasidic community in particular -- a branch of orthodox Judaism viewed by western goyim as "traditional" or, less kindly, "other," or even "backwards"? 

    5) Why couldn't Clyde's family have been Jewish? Why couldn't it have been a demon from a Christian tradition? Would either of these alterations change how 'scary' this film is? Why? 

    All of these are questions alluding to the main issue with not only the writing and execution, but the very concept of the film itself: the exotification and subsequent (literal) demonization of Judaism & its portrayal as, at best, a strange, foreign, yet ultimately benign and subservient token minority (as symbolized by Tzadok), or at worst, a danger that can be tracked into your home and influence your children in ways that you are unable to comprehend or control (as symbolized by Abyzou). The irony of this dichotomy is that it isn't a dichotomy at all; both Tzadok and Abyzou are Jewish, both are used as tools to strengthen the bond of the white nuclear family, solidifying their connection to each other whilst simultaneously drawing clear cut lines between what should be viewed as normal, safe, or right (the white nuclear family reunited as one), and what is abnormal, unfamiliar, or 'other' (Judaism). Tzadok is not even thanked for risking his life to exorcize Abyzou. And then he is killed rather unceremoniously. In the final shots of the film, we do not see Tzadok's corpse, or even a stray lamb dangling out of his totaled car; the first and last on-screen depictions of Jewishness in The Possession are an evil, child-killing demon. 

Also interesting to note are the only depictions of black people in The Possession being 1) basketball players, and 2) a school teacher, who is the first character to die. It seems that this film hit all the best classic Hollywood horror tropes. 

How did Tiamat become a Dragon?

The Enūma Eliš, as we've seen, is a foundational myth in Mesopotamian culture. Tiamat as a central character fills the role as the mythical mother of gods and monsters, an avenging wife, and a monster herself, as tempestuous as the seas which she represents. While there isn't much scholarly debate over what Tiamat actually is (as a goddess and a creature representing saltwater), when you get into the specifics of what she looks like, things get a bit more muddy. 

We do not have any truly "original" depictions of Tiamat from when the Enūma Eliš was written or even from Mesopotamia (the images we do have are below and were found to be from around the same time during the Neo-Assyrian Empire), and the Enūma Eliš itself is loose on specific details outside of the generic inclusion of things like “a head” and “entrails” in her description. But later depictions show her as a serpent or a "dragon," alternative translations even calling her such. 

Here's one where she has many different animals 

making her up, like a lion, an eagle, horns, and snake parts.

A relief from the palace of Ashurbanipal from the 860 BCE

This depiction is believed to be a seal showing the defeat of 

Tiamat, and will be the image I focus on the most (she's the long one)

Dragons, though, are ill-defined. What a dragon is can be different depending on what time and in what culture you ask the question. Early Jewish apocalypse tales featured Behemoth and Leviathan, monstrous beings of primordial chaos like Tiamat that opposed YHWH and could have very well been called draconic. The Greek drakon (one who looks/stares) was a large, serpent-like creature that guarded different things, like the Drakon Ismenios, which guarded a sacred spring of Ares near Thebes. This idea of a dragon was later subsumed into Old English culture, where dragons (draca), described as wyrms or serpents, hoarded treasure and would fight heroes to defend it, like is seen in the dragon that slew Beowulf with its venomous bite. But if you look further east, dragons were water spirits in most of East and Southeast Asian myth, and were highly intelligent, shapeshifting, snake-like beings that controlled the rain.

Check the snakeyness on this Ismenios bad boy!

Pictures taken moments before disaster (ft. Beowulf)

A long lad from the Qing Dynasty

All this to say that the only unifying factor between all these mythic dragons is being vaguely snakey, and even that was a stretch with some of the other animals thrown into Mesopotamian “dragons” like lions or eagles. What we would consider now as a Western dragon (or as I once heard it, a dinosaur with wings) didn’t appear until 1260 C.E. in the medieval bestiary, MS Harley 3224.

The original Western Winged Dragon

in the MS Harley 3224 bestiary

An interesting thing, though, is how Tiamat has been repurposed by modern Western culture, where we have re-applied our modern definitions of a dragon to her early depictions and characterization. If we look at how Tiamat was originally thought of, she was destructive and chaotic, but not evil. She was a mother and suffered the tragic deaths of her first and second husband, and was driven to destruction because of that loss and grief. She is Marduk’s adversary, but she is also his grandmother, and through her defeat, she created the rest of the world: the land and sky from the two halves of her body, the Tigris and Euphrates from her tears, the mountains from her breasts, etc. Tiamat is a swirling mass of destruction and creation, and is more complicated than good or evil. 

Some of the Enūma Eliš tablets!

Now, though, you’d be hard pressed to find a depiction of Tiamat that isn’t evil. The most prominent example is from the original tabletop roleplaying game: Dungeons and Dragons. Tiamat, in this mythology, is a 5-headed chromatic (aka, evil) dragon hell-bent on destroying her brother, Bahamut (derived from the biblical Behemoth mentioned earlier), who she helped create the world with. Bahamut is the leader/creator of the metallic (good) dragons, and Tiamat and her children, the chromatic dragons, will stop at nothing until all his creations are gone from the Earth. The most succinct way I think she can be described in this form is as “arrogant, greedy, hateful, spiteful and vain,” as she's described in the supplemental D&D book, Faiths and Pantheons (2002). While this Tiamat retains a history of having helped create the world and even has the meta bonus of leading to the creation of modern dragons, her enduring legacy is that of an evil, malicious figure with little to none of the traits that makes the Mesopotamian Tiamat complex and interesting as a cultural and religious figure. 

D&D's version of Tiamat...she's definitely had a makeover

The wide reach of D&D on the modern fantasy landscape has led to other Tiamat depictions, some close to this reimagining, others departing to make her a breasty anime girl who can shoot lasers out of her hands. But each version clings very closely to the idea that the original Tiamat was a dragon like we think of them in the West today, wings and all. It’s my belief that even if Tiamat was the mother of the modern-day dragon, she and her original depictions should not be forgotten. She should be remembered in all her snakey, weird metaphorical glory, vague descriptions and all.

And if Mesopotamian myth is to be believed, this is Tiamat's world, and we're just living on it. Maybe it's best not to upset her by messing with her look.

And now, here's some examples of modern Tiamats that I had to look at while trying to find images for this blog post! Now you have to look at them too :)

I'll give it points for including the feathers,

feet, and saltwater epithet, but what on Earth 

is going on with the head...

What in the... Ya know, 0 points. 

-20 points. 

-1000 points. 

I do not like it.

They turned her into a Funko Pop. This is a dark day.

I'm actually ok with this one. At least they got the ocean 

in there, that's honestly good enough for me at this point.

Thanks for reading!

Also, here's an aside to talk about Satan for a sec:

If Europeans took the ideas of big snakes and turned them into dragons, and Satan’s first appearance in the Bible was as the serpent that tricked Adam and Eve into consuming the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, why hasn’t Satan taken the form of a dragon in the wider Christian mythos today? Sure the Middle Ages had depictions of him as a draconic-ish creature at times, but I want a Game of Thrones style dragon Satan to have his own story. Give me the Paradise Lost cultural fanfic that canonizes Dragon Satan. I’ll be waiting.

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiamat

https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/heritage_floor/tiamat#:~:text=Tiamat%2C%20a%20Babylonian%20personification%20of,split%20her%20body%20in%20half.

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Tiamat

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_dragon#:~:text=MS%20Harley%203244%2C%20a%20medieval,a%20fully%20modern%2C%20western%20dragon.

https://www.theoi.com/Ther/DrakonIsmenios.html#:~:text=THE%20DRAKON%20ISMENIOS%20(Ismenian%20dragon,monster%20with%20a%20heavy%20stone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dragon_(Beowulf)#:~:text=The%20Beowulf%20dragon%20is%20described,vengeful%2C%20fire%2Dbreathing%20creature.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eXAPwjASEQ

http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/amgg/listofdeities/tiamat/index.html#:~:text=Tiamat%20is%20a%20personification%20of,in%20the%20En%C5%ABma%20Eli%C5%A1%20TT%20.

Enuma Elish

https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends-asia/tiamat-mesopotamia-0010565

The "Yassification" of Cupid

Valentine’s Day is filled with candy, flowers, and other material forms of expressing love. This time of year is associated with the colors red and pink, hearts and teddy bears, and images of a man-baby shooting arrows of love. But Cupid wasn’t always portrayed as a cute, lovable character...his origins are much darker.

Cupid is the Latin name for the Greek god Eros, god of love and sexual attraction. He first emerges in Hesiodos’ poem Theogonia (c. 730-700 B.C.) as beautifully dangerous with an extremely strong power of attraction. Depictions of Eros (Cupid) show a nude, young man with white feathered wings. Beginning in the early 4th century B.C., Eros is pictured in many art pieces as son of Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty.

In the Roman period, the image of Eros/Cupid shifted from a young man to an infant boy. After the Roman Empire converted to Christianity, the ideals and images of many gods and deities were altered, often seen as lesser gods or even demons. For Cupid, being a god of attraction was now contributed to lust. In The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville (c. 560-636 A.D.), Cupid is described as a “demon of fornication”. Continuing through this century, Cupid was associated with trickery and using his arrows to poison people with lust.

It wasn’t until the Renaissance that Cupid was used as a symbol of pure love. This is contributed to romanticized art, poems, and plays during this period. William Shakespeare's A Midsummer's Night Dream contains one of the most famous mentions of Cupid as a romantic figure. His portrayal continued to be in the form of a baby with wings and a bow (ie. Cupid Riding on a Dolphin by Erasmus Quellinus III circa 1630 A.D.)

In the 19th century, Valentine’s Day was on the rise and pictures of Cupid, as an image of love, were plastered on cards and other decorations. To this day, Cupid is directly associated with true love and affection. So, Cupid has the commercialization of Valentine's Day to thank for his improved reputation.