The Surprising Reason Pop Culture Monsters Are So Adorable
Image; Dad-wikimasters
The protagonist turns a corner, and there is a creature. Its jaws are extended, and rows upon rows of teeth are revealed that can bite down on our lead in an instant. An alien growl sends a shiver up our spines. We are confident their death is imminent, and then something happens: the monster closes their mouths, their face softens, and they look just so utterly adorable.
Pop culture is filled with so many cute and fuzzy monsters that we cannot help but love. Pikachu from Pokémon. Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon. All over the world, people's homes are filled with plushies, action figures, and body pillows of these adorable monsters.
Yet, it's not all positive. Our love for these creatures reflects a deep-seated bias within humanity that has far more wide-reaching consequences than what we decide to watch on the silver screen.
When they resemble pets
Pokémon (1997-present) is probably the most widely known show about monsters, yet its creatures are so cute that many forget that its name is a portmanteau of the words “pocket” and “monsters.” Our protagonist, Ash Ketchum (Rica Matsumoto/Veronica Taylor/Sarah Natochenny), is escorted by creatures who can erupt into flames, chuck objects into the stratosphere, and more, and those terrifying feats hardly register, given how adorable Pokémon are.
We mostly don't think of “Pocket Monsters” as monsters, and that's because they emulate our relationship with pets. Ash Ketchum hugs, feeds, and takes care of his terrifying little creature in the same way you would a cat or a dog. This brand mimics the relationship of animals humans already care for deeply (at least most of us), and so it makes sense that Pokémon would trigger an empathetic response.
Image; OLM Team Kato
Pokémon is far from the only property that does this. Most games and shows where you "collect" monsters replicate this dynamic (see Digimon, Ni No Kuni, etc.). Cute monsters are trainable and obedient, and terrifying monsters are not domesticated but wild.
We see this dichotomy represented in the anime My Daemon (2023), a world similar to Pokémon, albeit much darker, where monsters or "daemons" have overrun the world, and a narrow group of people can train them. Our lead, Kento (Miyuri Shimabukuro/Cassandra Lee Morris), owns a daemon called Anna (Kokoro Kikuchi/Cristina Vee) that, although covered with terrifying eyes and pink flesh, treats Kento with love and respect, never appearing to put him in danger.
Anna is cute.
Image; Igloo Studio
That is, except when she loses herself in rage over her desire to protect Kento. In these moments, she transforms into a terrifying, slender monstrosity with slanted eyes and wolf-like features.
Image; Igloo Studio
The scariest part is that she has no control over these moments. She becomes feral. I argue that this feralness causes Anna to shed her cuteness. She has moved from being a pet to a danger — to just a monster.
When we recognize their pain
Another way to hijack our empathy for monsters is to learn they need help. A common trope in media is for a creature to terrorize a locality, only for our hero to learn that the monster is lashing out because it is hurt. The source of their pain is usually a thorn, arrow, spear, or other prick-like object embedded into the monster's hide or flesh — something the creature cannot remove themselves.
An ancient version of this trope can be found in the Aesop tale of Androcles and the Lion, where an enslaved person has run away from his cruel master. He is hungry and alone in a forest when he hears a roar from a monster and tries to flee, but unfortunately, his foot gets stuck in a root. Androcles anticipates his death, but when a wild lion approaches, it begs him to remove a thorn from his paw.
Androcles empathizes with the lion’s pain because he is used to being harmed by his former enslaver. He removes the thorn, and the two become friends.
Yet, this pain we empathize with is not always physical. To return to My Daemon, in the episode A Tough Decision, there is a terrifying creature called Baron (Nobuyuki Kobushi) that resembles the parasitic creatures from the Metroid games. In most narratives, this is the type of creature you gun down for points.
Image; Igloo Studio
Yet, as viewers, we develop immense empathy for Baron because he's under the ownership of an abusive handler. We empathize with his pain as his owner shocks him into submission. He whimpers in a way we can understand, pity, and maybe even relate to.
The emotional pain of monsters we click with is not always theirs. Another common trope is to learn that a monster is only terrorizing an area to protect its offspring, whatever those may be. A modern example is the owlbear from the video game Baldur's Gate 3 (2023), who you discover after entering a cave and find that she is merely protecting and providing for her cub. While you can kill her (BG3 is an open-ended game that allows you to do many terrible things), it's not framed positively. If you don't kill her, other enemies will instead, and your character will remark on how the mother owlbear deserved better.
If we recognize a maternal instinct in a monster, our empathy for the creature seems to widen, especially for the babies it protects.
Image; Larian Studios
Yet again, feralness (i.e., the potential to harm people) often comes into play here. The Queen in the Alien movies is also protecting her children by sending out face-huggers to devour human hosts from the inside out, but that type of procreation is so foreign to how we perceive ourselves it's rare for it to earn our empathy.
It's also important to note that we must recognize the pain inflicted upon the creature or its offspring, which biases the verbal communication and body language we are used to. If the creature's expressions are unreadable, then we, as viewers, never get comfortable enough to empathize.
A great example of this is the alien invasion movie No One Will Save You (2023), in which protagonist Brynn (Kaitlyn Dever) and, consequently, the viewer have trouble deciphering the invaders’ intentions. There is an excellent scene in a hallway where the alien makes an obscure symbol, and I cannot tell what it means to this day. The whole point is that no one really can.
Image; 20th Century Studios; Star Thrower Entertainment
It is too unknown to be cute.
When they look like us (evolutionary speaking)
As we have alluded to, similarities with how humans act and, more importantly, look are a quick way for people to develop empathy with monsters. Most Pokémon, particularly the more popular ones, have wide eyes and mouths that more closely resemble humans. Whether you are looking at Pikachu or Dragonite, they have the ability to smile, laugh, and emote by saying their own name.
Image; OLM Team Kato
When creatures are depicted as having such expressions and vocalizations, it is much easier for us to develop empathy for them. It's not a coincidence that many fictional creatures that we consider "alien" and "evil," from the tentacled Mindflayers of Dungeons & Dragons to the frightening inter-dimensional aliens of The Mist (2007), resemble non-mammalian animals such as insects and octopuses.
Online, whenever these monsters are "cutified" by various artists, they usually superimpose large eyes and other facial features to make them more human-like. The Deviantart artist pokketmowse, for example, turns a menacing Dungeon & Dragons’ Beholder into something adorable by softening the skin, narrowing its frame, causing it to blush, adding eyelashes, and adding a smile—all mammalian features.
This idea of cuteness being related to mammalian traits doesn't just apply to fictional animals either. In environmental conservation, there is a concept known as "charismatic megafauna," a term given to creatures that humans identify with, such as lions, elephants, and gorillas. These animals often become the ones used at the center of conservation campaigns or, in the case of the giant panda with the World Wildlife Fund, the face of organizations.
Unsurprisingly, these creatures' "charisma" often relates to their human-like features. As written by Sutirtho Roy in Wildlife SOS:
“Anthropomorphism is defined as the tendency to attach human attributes to non-human (animal, plant or inanimate) matter. Often, the process is intuitive, leading us to attribute certain animal characteristics being similar to humans.
Size of the animal and its physical features are factors that prompt sensitive reactions from human beings. Charismatic animals therefore fit well into descriptive categories like “cute” or “cuddly” because of large and forward-facing eyes, delicate and infantile features and fuzzy, round faces among others.”
This overidentification with such animals is not always good, as it leads to our neglect of creatures such as snakes and insects that do not have these features but may still be vital to a particular ecosystem.
This is why some environmental groups have attempted to switch over to the language of “habitat protection” rather than focusing on individual animals, as our tendency to bias "cuteness" can sometimes get in the way.
This a more pressing problem that pertains to more than just fictional monsters.
A monstrous conclusion
For as long as humans have had stories, there have been demons, terrors, and other monsters. Creatures that stab, maim, and kill humans from the darkness and illicit a sense of panic that causes us to want to retreat into ourselves.
And for just as long, some of these monsters are creatures we can empathize with — animals that resemble our pets, parents, and caregivers. Creatures who wear smiles and make sounds we can relate to on a human level.
However, this sense of empathy is not universal. We tend to bias creatures that act like us, feel and express emotions in the same ways as us, and are often mammalian, just like us.
Fiction is a tool that, at its best, can expand our empathy for different people, scenarios, animals, and even things. I hope to see our anthropomorphism combated more in future stories. With the environment at risk from our own activity, there is far more at stake than simply what creatures we shriek at on the silver screen.