Oh No! I Fed My Mogwai and Now Find My Family Under Demonic Oppression!
Our Occasional Ethics Newsletter, Issue 2
What to do when, through no fault of your own, you get to clean up Pete Fontaine’s handiwork. Book club coming up for supporting subscribers on Monday.
It’s Not Always Your Fault: The Gift of the Mogwai
Today’s edition of Oh No! comes to us from one of my oldest and most faithful readers, Kevin Still. Kevin and I met when I visited my alma mater on a college visit, he complimented me on my Tooth and Nail t-shirt. We’ve been friends ever since.
I’m particularly grateful because today’s question delves into that most beloved of subgenres: the comedy-horror1. Gremlins belongs to that time period when horror-comedy was still en vogue, and for my money, the whole genre of horror was better for it.
What makes the horror-comedy work is the fact that figures like the Gremlins are pretty comical in their mannerisms and appearance: they’re literally Muppets. But their comedic appearance hides a deeper truth: they are going to kill you.
Kevin’s question makes reference to the key moment in Gremlins that makes the whole film turn. The Mogwai, named Gizmo, is being cared for by Mr. Wing, and there are very particular rules for caring for these kinds of creatures:
do not expose the creature to light, especially sunlight, which will kill it;
do not let it come in contact with water
above all, never feed it after midnight
How one is realistically supposed to do 1 and 2 is beyond me. How such creatures exist as carbon-based life-forms? Let’s suspend that disbelief. But nonetheless, the Mogwai exist in this movie world, so apparently, their directions can be done. Mr. Wing did it, and his nephew wrongly assumed that if his loony uncle could do it, surely beleagured Randall Pelzer could do it.
Mr. Pelzer gifts Gizmo to his son Billy, and this is where the question of guilt comes in, because it’s not Billy or Mr. Pelzer who set this train careening off course: it’s Pete Fontaine. Pete Fontaine is the one who spills water on Gizmo. Pete Fontaine is the one who gets too overzealous and gifts the world with evil, flesh-hungry Gremlins.
Rule #1 of any 1980s movie: you do not trust Corey Feldman.
But none the less, Billy and his lady friend Phoebe Cates are left to deal with the fallout of Pete Fontaine. This motif should be familiar: someone given a gift with particular instructions, and that person is then undermined by someone else who didn’t hear the instructions first-hand. The people who were given the gift then have to deal with the aftermath because of actions by those who weren’t there to hear the instructions.
That’s right: this is the story of every letter of the New Testament. Over and over again, one of the apostles (who encountered Jesus firsthand) are tasked with providing direction and correction to innumerable churches (knuckleheads every one). The question then becomes: what do you do when Mogwai—that you didn’t mess up—are wreaking havoc on your loved ones?
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