bug-eyed monster
{{Short description|Stock character; a staple evil alien}}
File:Avon Fantasy Reader 15.jpg's Flight on Titan, a type of BEM, cover, Avon Fantasy Reader, 1951]]
The bug-eyed monster (BEM) is an early convention of the science fiction genre.{{cite book |last=Urbanski |first=Heather |title=Plagues, Apocalypses and Bug-Eyed Monsters: How Speculative Fiction Shows Us Our Nightmares |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QAYyBgAAQBAJ&pg=PP1 |year=2007 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-0-7864-2916-5 |pages=149–168 and passim}} Extraterrestrials in science fiction of the 1930s were often described (or pictured on covers of pulp magazines) as grotesque creatures with huge, oversized
or compound eyes and a lust for women, blood or general destruction.
In the contactee/abductee mythology, which grew up quickly beginning in 1952, the blond, blue-eyed, and friendly Nordic aliens of the 1950s were quickly replaced by small, unfriendly bug-eyed creatures, closely matching in many respects the pulp cover clichés of the 1930s which have remained the abductor norm since the 1960s.
Popular culture
{{in popular culture|section|date=March 2024}}
- The Daleks from Doctor Who. When the show was created, the BBC producers stated that Doctor Who would be a "hard" science fiction show, and there would be no bug-eyed monsters – explicitly stated by show creator Sydney Newman. Writer Terry Nation created the Daleks in the show's second serial, much to Newman's disapproval.[https://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/news/briefhistory/daleks.shtml BBC – Doctor Who – A Brief History of the Daleks] URL accessed April 26, 2007
- In "What Is This Thing Called Love?", Isaac Asimov's parody of both pulp fiction and the bug-eyed monster idea, a woman captured by aliens for the purposes of study keeps using the term when referring to her captor.
- In "The Gap Cycle" of books by Stephen R. Donaldson, the alien creatures are referred to by the main characters as BEMs.
See also
References
{{Reflist}}
{{Biology in fiction}}
{{Stock characters}}