Those still hurling after seeing “Beauty and the Beast” know weshouldn’t judge movie characters by their covers. As it usuallyhappens in Disney movies, the scary monster in the beginningturns into a kind, lovable guy faster than we can shout “I want arefund!” The lesson we learn is not that Disney movies belong inhell, but that scary monsters are really harmless, wonderful peopleon the inside.

But here’s the problem: some real monsters are being ignored. I’mnot talking about the Beast or Quasimodo; I’m talking aboutkidnappers, pedophiles, rapists and murderers. These monsters prowlabout looking for victims, and they are evil. We might call themevil, and we’re probably all afraid of them, but we pay littleattention to the time and money we spend trivializing who they reallyare.

On one side we have movies begging us to look at a monster’s innerbeauty. On the other we have R.L. Stine, Alvin Schwartz and thetraditional monsters (ghosts and vampires). These give us the “real”monsters, the know ’em when you see ’em kind. These horrific monstersaren’t real people, and that’s why they’re so scary.

So what both sides do, and do very well, is convince people thatmonsters are either ugly on the outside or creatures of fantasy. Inother words, your hideous and evil plumber is either a misunderstoodsweetheart or a wicked Frankenstein. And you call him a monster forblowing up your toilet, but you don’t mean it. He got that waybecause nobody trained him.

But you know ordinary people can be monsters too, right?

National Review’s Jonah Goldberg recalls, in his recent Halloweenarticle, filming a documentary on gargoyles. Gargoyles are demons ormonsters carved in stone, and are found on roofs of gothic churches.Goldberg describes what he learned: gargoyles were used for a lot ofthings, but their central role was to remind people that monsters areeverywhere. Having climbed a lot of church rooftops, I can tell youthat up to 90 percent of gargoyles cannot be seen with the naked eyefrom the street. Many of these incredibly elaborate, bizarre andoften lewd demons and dragons are hidden in places you’d never findunless you looked for them.

In the Oxford English Dictionary, the original word “monster” (OldFrench) is defined as “a divine portent or warning.” The other,better known definitions came later. So gargoyles, images ofmonsters, were used to warn people that monsters were anywhere andeverywhere. That’s why so many of them are in odd places. And beingreminded that evil and monsters exist doesn’t seem like such a badthing, especially with so many people tirelessly reducing “evil” tosome offending stimuli.

Take the comments of Brandon Wilson’s defense attorney Robert Owen(Wilson, you recall, is the monster who murdered young Matthew Cecchiin an Oceanside public restroom last year). He says “It is very clearthat (Wilson) is psychotic and a product of that psychosis is a totalinability to appreciate the moral nature of the acts he wascommitting.” But how many of us would turn our backs to him in abathroom, even after we “fixed” his psychosis?

Or what about the monster who broke into a Merced family’s homethis year and murdered two children with a pitchfork while the othertwo watched in horror? We were expecting Dracula, perhaps? Just askyour friends if they’d call this guy a monster. I’m sure many willblame his “faulty genes” or “inadequate childhood.”

Or, perhaps he’s only monstrous on the outside?

It’s very easy to explain. Many people are opposed to saying”these monsters and the thousands like them are pure evil; lock themup” because it’s a cruel punishment for a person who had an abusivechildhood, etc. If I added “these murderers deserve to be executed,”people will actually say I’m the evil one. But that’s what happens.We think Texas Gov. George W. Bush is spitting into our popcorn whenhe defends the death penalty. We chuck our baby food onto the floorbecause we just can’t, or won’t, accept the idea of monsters.

The reality is some people are monsters, and that’s all there isto it. It’s not a subjective reality, either. We have no troublecalling Adolf Hitler a monster, but demur when a Palestinian moblynches a few jailed Israeli soldiers. We’re not so sure about a gangturf war that kills a few people (the dead guys were in the wrongneighborhood), but we’re mortified when some pubescent racist wholives in his parents’ basement scatters six intolerant flierssomewhere.

I think we’re so hesitant to stop monsters because we’re afraid ofappearing fascist. We’d rather send a pedophile to rehab than sayhe’s “evil,” because that’s just not a thing sophisticated peoplesay. And who are we to judge what a man does to a little boy?

But we’re so afraid of fascism that we’re going to fascist lengthsto dismiss it. Goldberg uses Nietzsche to make a similar point:”Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he doesnot become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyssalso looks into you.” So by trying to understand people like BrandonWilson, we become enlightened. Using gargoyles to augment ourmorality makes us childish and barbaric.

I’ll admit that legitimizing evil behavior is very normal, and wedo it because the results are palatable and allow us to sleep atnight. Who, honestly, wants to wonder whether one’s neighbors arecapable of such horrific behavior? I don’t. Who wants to wonderwhether that frat boy in your class would willingly get an underagepledge drunk enough to die of alcohol poisoning? Nobody does; that’swhy it’s so nice to explain behavior away to a level we can fix.

Increase Mather, a Massachusetts minister observing the SalemWitch Trials, lamented that New Englanders were using unreliablespectral evidence to accuse one another of witchcraft. By acceptingsuch evidence, Mather said, New Englanders were “hotly and madlymauling one another in the dark.”

Limiting “monsters” to harmless or improbable creatures will onlymake us feel safe and smart in the daytime.

Anybody up for a gargoyle on Hardy Tower?

–Benjamin Abel is a social science junior. Send e-mail todaletter2000@hotmail.com.

–This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of TheDaily Aztec.