Godzilla vs. Kong vs. Barbie

your experience with with giant monsters? Well, you know, have a three year old, yes, right, So Barney is the first thing I think of. Oh I thought you were going to say she was like a small monster. Oh well yeah, she kind of yeah, yeah, yeah, And it is kind of funny how actually I'm sure to her, I'm a big monster, and she actually loves for my husband and I to chase her around and sort of do the big monster arms. So for sure, there's there are some themes going on there, but Barney is favored.

Barney I think of as a monster. Um, I think of the crack and of course one of my favorite monsters. Oh from my class at the time. Yes, yeah, um, Paul Bunyan. Was there a movie about Paula or just in general this stor like super giant kind of a human but not how come no one ever did? Uh? I mean that would be that would have been great to have like a purely American. I mean, I guess King Kong is really our American giant monster, but even

he's an import Paul Bunyan. But Paul Bunyan in his giant Ox attacking San Francisco, like that would be that would be a great foot Yeah, I know. I mean, I don't think that people think of Paul Bunyan is menacing, but I do I think that there's a plot line here. What about you? I mean, I grew up as a young boy, so I was very into the monster films, especially the one I've mentioned. I think it's like a

TBS or something. They had the grand Grandpa Monster hosted a like a midday monster show, and they were aways showing like Godzilla movies, and you know, of course they're there are just tons of Gods older movies. So it's Gods older versus this versus that versus like a whole cadre of of various rubber suited villains. So you know, I was heavy into those and I got then. I I was an am big mystery signed theater, a few thousand fan, and a lot of the movies that they

watched when involved giant rubber monster suits. And uh. One of my favorites today, which which I won't I won't get break into too much, but is a film called Hanuman Versus Seven Ultraman, and it is a it's an Ultraman film, but it's a it's a Thai Japanese co production in which Hanuman, the monkey god out of Hindu mythology but also very important in Thai culture. Hanuman teams up with the Ultraman and an ultra woman. I'm not

really sure. I'm more up on the Hindu mythology than Ultraman mythology, but they team up to just beat the tar out of a bunch of hideous monsters that emerge from like a rocket fact manufacturing plant or something. So it's goofy and beauty full and psychedelic and from like, yeah, sixties or seventies, and it's it's well worth hunting down

if you're you two are a monster fan. But I guess one of the things that I'm really highlighting here is like silliness, Like there's definitely a large amount of silliness and fun like kids love Gammera, kids love Godzilla. But if you go all the way back to n Gohira, you're you're really looking at a different animal. Especially if you're you're not you're not dealing with the americanized version that came out, like Raymond Burron and all the different translation.

But the original Grim Go Heiro movie is a different animal time, right, because I mean, this is a far more complex creature, right. The American version is not so much concerned about the radiation part, right, right, right, But the Japanese version, this is a creature born of radiation and exuding radiation, right, I mean, the whole sort of part of the mythology of an atomic test and it

brings this monster into being. But yeah, this original one, like people were dying just from being near Godzilla and right close to it, right, And there are far more scenes of individuals. It's more of a disaster film than a lot of the subsequent Godzilla films. Lots of people fling, lots of people in camps, lots of people in hospitals and lots of people dying from radiation poisoning. Culturally, it's such an interesting film because you look at Japan's place

in the world at the time. You know, it's like we're in the shadows of the Second World War, in the shadows of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and other incidents. Go Here references an incident involving an American thermonuclear device attested

near Bikini. Ititall in the Pacific code named Bravos, detonated with about two point five times greater force than anticipated, and the fallout from the bomb it ended up enveloping this tuna trawler named the Lucky Dragon number five, and it's just just coated in like a blizzard or radioactive ash. And so the crew members in return to their home port and they're black, and they've blistered skin, just a cute radiation sickness, and and all the tuna is irradiated.

And so, you know, I was reading some some interesting commentary on this, which I'll link to on the blogs so that people can explore it further. But there's a lot of interesting commentary on how like this incident in particular, especially on the heels of the Second World War. I mean, the Japanese culture is very concerned with hygiene and uh, and then you have this situation where you know, we're just radioactively contaminated and not sure what is clean anymore.

And then there's also commentary to make about in especially in subsequent Godzilla films, you see Japan using all of its technological prowess to fight off an opposing force, and that it can be argued that postwar Japan felt rather powerless to a certain degree in the global climate, you know, because they've just come off this disastrous armed conflict, and so their fantasy world, their fictional worlds kind of reflect this longing to be able to deal with problems more directly.

I mean not to limit the films to just that it's not just a one plus one equals to situation, but but those themes are pretty strong in the in the films. Well, I was gonna say, you see that anxiety working itself out quite a bit in these films. Are twenty eight Godzilla films, and now is that counting the the Geno movie. I believe that is, and I know that that has been called an abomination, and not

in a good way. It's just the one where the version of Godzilla is is that he's a lizard gets messed with because of a nuclear meltdown and scatters it and becomes a monster, which is kind of I mean, I mean, I know that you know, Godzilla is uh far fetched anyway, but I mean you couldn't make it any more far fetched with that premise, right, But yeah, twenty eight films, and from what I understand to Godzilla, you know, at first is a very menacing figure, right

is the embodiment of the problems of nuclear energy, nuclear warfare, and then he comes to later on represents somewhat of a hero or at least take on this part of as someone who is helping the people. And in fact, they have different versions of god Godzilla versus this Godzilla versus that Godzilla versus the small monster ecological problem um. You see, especially in the famous Keen congressus Godzilla, which is you know, interpromotional dream match there. This is really

on a slightly removed scale. This is the US versus Japan again, and each country's cut has a slightly different preference in who's the superior super monster. But then in later films, Godzilla becomes not only a champion of Japan, but a champion of Earth itself, defending Earth against various catastrophes. And and then Godzilla's can do the same like Gammra as always protecting the planet, protecting children, which I think

is kind of beautiful. Again, it's kind of the idea that these uh we create, especially in the original Godzilla and Gohira, we create this avatar of all our all the worst possibilities of humanity, this frightening thing, and then we're able to transform it into something positive, into into like a strength. I don't know. I guess you can make the argument too that it's kind of casting the warnings aside and forgetting what the native potent to begin with.

But yeah, but again I think it's so this is where you know, art movies paint things. Everything that sort of allows us to work out these anxieties comes into play.

And in fact, MPR had a story this morning that was talking about Fukushima a year later, Um, you know, the the earthquake, the tsunami and um and then the subsequent you know, mountdown of the three reactors, uh and that you know, the real problem right now a year later, isn't so much the radiation levels, which really aren't as bad as the initially thought because much of them were swept away by the winds out over the Pacific, but more that it's it's a psychological problem because again you

have this long history with with you know, nuclear materials Japan and this distrust and the year later, people are still not quite sure if they feel, you know, like they're on terra firma just you know, with their government, with their food supplies, and it's just it's kind of interesting. So they were saying that is not a culture that really invests a lot into mental health. I mean they have, you know, obviously you can go and you at medical attention,

but it's not so much geared towards mental health. So there's not so much an outlet there. King Kong, on the other hand, there's there's not I don't know, he's

not quite as deep. No, no, I mean this is what the nineteen thirty three that King Kong comes on the scene, and people have pointed to King Kong and said that, you know, definitely King Kong embodies UM, so that the naivete of American society and especially UM concerning race relations at that time but yeah, King Kong, because he's his foreign threat, this subhuman threat, and I think you can sort of from an exotic place, exotic place.

He wants to steal women, climb buildings, and yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess if you look at King Kong from that standpoint, he's kind of awful, Like he's also kind of an avatar of awfulness, just maybe in his an initial inception when they want as conscious of it. Whereas Go here is obviously the themes are a lot more prevalent and on the surface, whereas King Kong and the awfulness is

kind of hidden. And yet in King Kong in the story, you're meant to feel empathy for this creature, so you're you to fear him, but you also are too empathize with him, right because here he is he's the last survivors species. He's lived on School Island his entire life. He's a beautiful girl. Uh you know, he tries to to I don't know, to make out with her or whatever, and then he is essentially enslaved, brought to New York, he made to perform on Broadway. I know, I always

forget about that portion of the story. And then and then of course, the whole building thing and the airplane. Yeah, yeah, it's it's a sad story. The remake of that was a lot more in keeping with I guess the spirit of the original is that the Jessica Lang one. Oh there were no there were a couple of remixes, right, there's one that there was like an eighties version of it. Yeah, yeah, and that one was I think that one was just

kind of weird. I don't know if anyone has any real love for that film outside of maybe you know, cheesy enthusiasm. But then Peter Jackson, Oh that's right, okay, yea, yeah, which my only problems with that one is a it seemed I think that movie is like six hours long or something like. It's awfully long for King Kong, and I'll so I remember it just had some really look over.

I mean, I love dark imagery as much as the next person, but like, this is King Kong and there's this scene where these like all these horrible giant insect monsters are like meeting people and giant slugs are like sucking people's faces, and I remember thinking that this is a bit dark. Jackson, Um, well, it was filler to

your point. You can't really make a film that long with the premise of King Kong, you know, but still it was over like everything was like like they're like King Kong, let's do this, except we're gonna it's gonna be King Kong on steroids. In the original, he fights one dinosaur. This time he's gonna fight two dinosaurs. You know, that's right, all right, So let's let's let's throw some

science on these beasts. Yeah, first, let's take a quick break, and when we come back, we'll see stabbling about the culture behind these monsters and so forth, and we will start talking about the science behind gigantic animals and whether it's even pot Alright, so we're back, and it's time to get into the morphological limits of giant monsters. Yeah yeah, okay.

So here's here's just something that's a basic Okay, all right, So if you're going to create something that's bigger than the original, um, the weight as a function of their volume is going to increase dramatically faster than does the surface area, right this creature. This is important to remember because this has a lot of important consequences. Um. So, basically is that if you're going to double something size and keep its proportions the same. The weight doesn't double

or even quadruple. It actually increases by a factor of eight. Okay, so when we're talking about King Kong, we're talking about a gorilla that is super giant, right, And when we're talking about Godzilla, we're talking about dinosaur hybrid that is runs on both gas and electric. That's right. He does have some electric properties similar, which doesn't make any sense with the flames in the radioactivity. I mean there's a

lot going on there anyway. Well, radioactive firestorms. I mean that's part of the whole nuclear apocalypse scenario, you know, Like you see the ridges on his back start to get electrified, and then the fire comes out of his mouth, and yet at the same time he's always exuding radiation. I'm just saying, Yeah, there's a lot of port for one fork. Yeah, well, Gamra has it coming out both ends. So because you've seen Gamra, right, a big turtle, he can retract his back to legs and then fire comes

out and he flies around. But I was going to make like a little gas joke. There should be eight year old boy in me. Yeah, I should have brought in my Gamera toy too help us with this, but I'm getting off track gadding about monsters. Another way to look at this mass thing that I really like is

the spherical cow analogy. Alright, So the shape of an animal can be a little complex, and it's a simpler if you look at something like a cow, and look at the cow and imagine it as just a sphere like the mass just reduced to a sphere of calmus, okay, and then imagine increasing the size of that that mass, all right, And again the volume increases more rapidly than the surface area. So if you double the ray idious of the sphere, the surface area increases four times, and

the volume increases eight times. That again, like you said, you double something size, and if it keeps the same proportions, the weight doesn't double or even quadruple, it increases eightfold. So you have something like King Kong, right, who is thirty feet high in the film, five times the size of a real gorilla, and his proportions are more or

less the same. If you were to take an actual gorilla and you were to blow it up like that in a you know, honey, I blew up the kid's fashion, the creature would not be able to stand, its legs would break. Basically, its own weights bones can't support it. We're talking about thirty ft high tons, right. Yeah. I was reading an interesting country about the size of animals and how the size of something is very much. I mean it's it's not just a matter of oh, this

is a big one and this is a little one. Yes, there are there's a certain amount to be said about dwarf is m versus gigantism in organisms. But but takes something like a whale, Like a whale is large, and whale is massive, and its mass allows it, among other things, to keep warm and chilling waters. If you were to reduce a blue whale to the size of a minnow, it would not be able to stay warm. Its size is part of its function. Would actually have to consume

far more, right for energy. Right, Yeah, That's why you have things like mice and other small animals that are just so ravenous that have an endless hunger because they're having to keep up their metabolism. Yep. Yeah. So when you're looking at King Kong and you're talking about a creature that's a hundred and twenty five times heavier than an original gorilla, right, and you also have the problem that relative to the size, King Kong has only twenty

five times the surface area of an ape skin. Okay, this is important because on top of that, you have for that is five times as thick as a real gorilla. Because he needs to lose excess heat, he's metabolizing like

like other mammals to keep warm. He's metabolizing. He us to lose that excess heat, but he has less skin to lose it through and more for that's insulating, right, So it's a lot harder to wick off that heat, right, right, So I mean you would have to shave constant and then that might do it a hairless King Kong, which would completely change that storyline, I think. But I mean, just think about that if he were to try to

do any sort of normal movements. You know, first of all, he would collapse again under the weight of um of himself. But also he would probably collapse because you wouldn't be able to again get rid of the heat, and so he would just be in a jumbled mess. He wouldn't be able to get the girl and climb to the top of the Empire State building. Right. Another thing to know about the legs again, he would need larger leg bones.

He would just need bigger legs in general, and he would probably need a different gait, you know, instead of having like eight light bendy knees, he would need more of a straight legged type of movement, which would probably limit his ability to climb skyscrapers. Yeah, indeed, all right, let's talk about one husky boy here, Godzilla. Well, Godzilla has kind of a leg up on the situation on one hand, because because he's cold blighted or I don't know,

presumably he is cold lighted. Um. And in the American version, well, who knows. In the America that doesn't count. Presumably Godzilla is is cold blooded and accounting the nuclear fires brewing in his belly. And uh. And we look back to the dinosaurs, and these are clearly a great example of a large creature that was a probably cold blooded you know where the drew is kind of but but presumably cold blooded for the sake of this argument, and was

walking around on land. Some of these guys were quite huge. And while we used to think that some of these different sarropods were we're walking around in the muck or in the water. To help you, know, to buoy them, especially if they if they were to make love right right, Yeah,

we talked about that in the dinosaurs. They probably the species, but yeah, if they were going to make out, knock boots whatever, there was always that question of how do they actually do this because they are so weighty, um, and in in Godzilla's case, we were talking about sixty thou tons, right, like the size of a battleship, and he does emerge from the ocean. That's worth noting. But

back to battleship. That's another interesting example. I ran across took a battleship out of the water and put it on land, like it would to what extent would it fall apart because it doesn't have water holding it right? Right? But okay, so the dinosaurs, for a while we have thought that they that some of these larger models were having to stay in the water all the time to

support their weight. A lot of the footprint information that we have and now the fossilized prints, indicate that they were walking around at least in the mud, you know, and that therefore we're capable of land movement, maybe even running as fast as stay an elephant, uh, you know, like three miles per hour, I think. But here's the thing. Addition having really thick legs like a cong or a

Godzilla would need. They also walked around on four, which is again is an enormous help in Godzilla is walking around on two. Well, especially if you're thinking about the heart and pumping blood, it's another key thing because your

brain needs some of that blood. Yeah, and you we've you know, sore pods have been somewhat of a mystery in that respect too, right, because they have really long necks and they have huge bodies, and so you're talking about pumping blood from when end up a two hundred meter long body to the other and that's a lot of pressure. So if your Godzilla, you know, in order to resist that kind of pressure, your arteries near your heart would have to be made out of steel, you know,

and so that your your heart didn't burst. Yeah, Like even giraffes, we've talked about the about this, their hearts after piece very high pressure to force the blood all the way to their brains. And uh, way back, one of our first few podcasts tore that we talked about exploding heads and reheb there was the some people are asking, well, well, how come the giraffe's head doesn't explode when it bends

down to drink. There's actually they have a cluster of arteries and veins that divert the blood flow under the right circumstances to equalize the blood pressure. They've got adaptations for that. But the blood pressure involved in some of these, uh, these dinosaurs, these long necked sauropods, is like we're we're looking at like eight times what would we encounter in

a normal animal. So something like Godzilla or or King Kong, they would have to have tremendous blood pressure, like you said, to just to keep the brain active, right, or you know, maybe maybe they just get dizzy very once in a while and that's why they're swiveling around the cities and destroying everything. Well, that's that's I'm glad that you mentioned dizziness because that's one way to get a quick idea of what this is. What we're talking about with the

blood of the brain. Lay down for a few minutes and then get up really quick. But not right now, right now, So don't we don't know what you're doing. I mean, you could be on a bus, on a train walking, but that feeling that you get when you get up really quick and you're like, oh, I'm so dizzy. That's because you've your position has changed the bloodstic to your brain. Uh. Imagine if you were even taller, it

would be even more of an issue. So that's another thing to take into a consideration with these giant animals is how's the blood flow gonna work? How are they going to get blood to their brain? That we're dealing with a whole new set of engineering problems. Here's another sticking point, Godzi less skin. Yes, okay, it has to be somehow strong enough to resist bullets variety of munitions, but yet flexible enough to move around. Right, So I

mean that's that that's some serious engineering right there. It is. Yeah, and nanotechnology wasn't even you know, next since in nine um. And then another key issue to keep in mind with the animal size is that you have to ask your stuff like why why are animals as big as they are?

And why do they remain that way? Well? Um, like size evolution has a lot to do with the arms race between prey and predators and surviving various environments, like there has to be a reason for something to be that big, and granted, Godzilla kind of gets by with the whole Oh it's a mutation or it's you know, ancient ancient animal from a previous ecosystem plus radiation equals

something that doesn't quite make sense. King Kong has less of an excuse because he's just living on an island somewhere, right, And does he really have an environment and ecosystem that supports his size. I mean, granted, there are like dinosaurs on Skull Island and presumably he's eating some of those, right, But yeah, but if he's the largest and most fierce too, I mean, he doesn't have a natural predator that he

needs to be really that large and dominate anyway. Yeah, I mean it's like when we're talking about super predators, especially like this was us, wasn't it? Or I feel like we were talking about this in the past podcast about then are doppelgangers maybe oh yeah, oh their their podcast?

Yeah mind yeah, yeah, Okay, But if you think of like any kind of superprederor especially like the prehistoric superpredators like this giant like super shark, super tyrannosaur type creatures, imagine them as kings the top of pyramid of bones there at the very top, and that that pyramid gets wider as you reach the ground, because those are all

the layers of food that have to support them. Like the lowest layer, of course, is like plants, and then there are a whole bunch of things that eat those plants, and then things that eat those animals, and then things to those animals, and at the very top you have this this lofty king of all things. The environment can only support so many of those guys, and there are limits to what they can support, what they can give, right,

and what they can give. So so that's another thing you have to ask about, especially like a King Kong or anything that lives on a monster island, is to what extent could the ecosystem possibly support an animal and how how long could it supported before you know, Kim Kong wiped out everything? Right, right, Yeah, he's not very sustainable, that's the thing. So he's a perfect symbol for American culture. I'm about to say, yeah, he's He's a good symbol

for gluttony for sure, Bob. But another symbol of American culture, right, oh yeah, yeah, another beast um. What we're talking about is the blonde haired giant menace Barbie. Uh. Since two thousand and seven, Gallia Sland, now a student at Hamilton College, unveils a monster she created for the purpose of showing, um uh people the the sort of body dysmorphia present in the Barbie doll. And she presents this at the National Eating Disorder Awareness Week at different events. It is

a life size Barbie that she created. And I'm just gonna throw some stats out there. Um, if Barbie were an actual woman, Okay, she would be five ft nine that's a reasonable height for yeah, yeah, she would have a thirty nine inch bust. Now, Okay, in these times of padding, maybe that doesn't seem too huge, but just think about it that that really is quite large. It's more like on par with maybe Dolly Parton, Okay, Okay,

So Dolly Parton is a good frame of preference for that. Okay, Yeah, an eighteen inch waist, which is insane, Like, who would that be on part with? That would be Vivianly from Gone with a Wind And she was corseted to a nineteen inch waist, and that's insane because she's super petite. Okay, I think woman corseted to the point of passing out. Yeah, to think about the like your typical hourglass dimensions would be, you know, like thirty thirty four, thirty four being the hips,

twenty four being the waist, thirty four being the bust. Okay, So here we have Barbie five nine, thirty nine bust, eighteen inch waist and thirty three hips okay, so very slender hips and a size three shoe. Okay. Now, of course, with all the other Godzilla and King Kong proportions that

you know, that doesn't seem too crazy. But again, you know these when we get the Godzilla dolls or I should say toys rather or King Kong toys, we don't actually think of them as fashioned after ourselves, whereas Barbie is fashioned after a female human. So at five nine tall and win one ten pounds, Barbie would have a body that index of sixteen point two four and she likely would not menstruate because of this, And if you were a real woman, she would have to walk on

all fours due to her proportions. And I just thought this was fascinating. Slumber Party Barbie was introduced in nine and came with a bathroom scale permanently set at one pounds, with a book entitled How to Lose Weight with directions inside stating simply don't eat. Yeah. Yeah, that this is the most monsters thing, like discussed in the podcast. And there are two Barbie dolls sold every second in the world. Wow,

now that is world domination, my friend. Yeah, I far better than a little girl, a little boy would want to grow up in the Godzilla I think. I mean, you can breathe fire. I mean, that's that's pretty cool. You're turning your your your weaknesses into strength. You're standing up for the environment, for for nation, for planet, for little kids. I mean all that Barbie just wants sold these weight and not learning maths. So yeah, but you know, just a little fun like, uh talk about the limits

of human I guess you could say proportions. There's something I want to throw out to the listeners. I wonder has any work of fiction actually tackled giant creatures in a more believable manner, like taking into account the physics, because I generally that that's off the table with these

and I'm not complaining because I enjoy them. But like, the only example I can think of about hand is that there's a book by the author Michael Shea, who's a fabulous sci fi horror and dark fantasy writer An he wrote these books about this character, nif Bilin, and he's always going on these like the guy is like super into Dante's Inferno and the sex lies of the insects.

So he's definitely an author after my own heart. He writes these sales about these characters, is going into the underworld and and there's there's one episode where guys to bring back this elixir to these giant underworld insects used to to feed their larva, and he brings it up and they feed it too. Bees. With this scheme, they're gonna grow giant bees and then they're gonna have lots

of honey. And of course the bees then get so big they can't fly and they're just rolling around and the human ends up taking some of this and he gets so big hecaus just in constant pain. And he's first rolling around and he doesn't like fall apart at any or anything, but he ends up having like crawl into the ocean to support his weight. A dinosaur knocking boots. Yeah, and then I think he gets like I forget what happens to him. But if you want to read more

about it, check out the work of Michael Ja. He's quite pacive. Uh, And do tell us what you think about giant animals, giant monsters and again if you find any in in fiction that actually make a little bit of scientific sense, let us know. You can always find us on Facebook and Twitter. On Facebook, we're stuff to Blow Your Mind, and on Twitter, our Twitter handle is blow the Mind one word and you can always drop us a line at blow the Mind at Discovery dot com.

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