Monster High: Human Similarities

In my articles Reboots: Why They Happen and the Results and My Little Pony/Game of Thrones: Loyalty I covered the show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, a show about a world inhabited by talking ponies. This show was primarily aimed at the female audience. Monster High, was a fashion doll franchise created by Mattel in 2010. Taking place primarily in a High School, Monster High was a brand that made all of its characters into younger versions of fictional monsters. In fact, some of the main characters were implied to be the offspring of certain fictional monsters, or were made similarly as their predecessors. But rather than be portrayed as stereotypical monster, everyone who was a monster in Monster High had traits that were similar to human teenagers. This was reflected in different episodes from the web series that showed all of its characters dealing with issues that normal teenagers had to face. In the twenty-third episode of the second volume, Abbey, a female teenage version of the Abominable Snowman, had to deal with attending a new school and dealing with meeting new people. Another episode, the thirty-second episode of volume two, dealt with a character who had some issues about himself, mostly because he was a teenage version of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde. And for teenagers who attended school, but still lived in a foreign country, the sixth episode of volume three featured its own foreign exchange student who had her own issues about being away from home. Monster High was a cartoon that took an average day at High School, and basically made all the characters monsters. But that does not mean that they were not going to act like typical humans.

One of the main characters in Monster High was Abbey Bominable, essentially an Abominable Snowman or Yeti. But a girl. She was introduced in the online episode Back-to-Ghoul as a foreign exchange student. She was a character that was somewhat easy to relate to in that some people were familiar with feeling awkward about going to a new school. Especially for young girls. Abbey's introduction involved the viewer seeing that she apparently could cause people to feel cold when in close proximity to people, she could freeze a guy whose gimmick was that he was constantly on fire, and she seemed generally anti-social. However, during her introductory episode, she had some justification being somewhat anti-social towards characters that were obviously meant to be considered the villains of this series. Of course, another way Abbey could relate to humans was that misunderstandings could occur when one was in a new place. Specifically, one of the more antagonistic characters in Monster High using the snow that was produced by Abbey and using them on Frankie, another student who was based on Frankenstein's Monster. These shenanigans of course resulted in another misunderstanding that caused a snowball fight inside of a classroom that hit the teacher on the head. Which ended with both Abbey and Frankie being sent to the Principal's Office. And additional episodes that continued Abbey's animosity towards Frankie. Fortunately, both characters eventually made-up, and Abbey eventually became a main character amongst Monster High's cast and characters. So it was all good.

Some of the monsters of Monster High were not monsters, but humans with abilities that were linked to the Supernatural. Take Jackson Jekyll and Holt Hyde. Since this was part of a brand of toys that was aimed for children, these characters were portrayed differently compared to their source mater from the book Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Mostly because rather than having a split personality that was evil, this split personality was actually kind of cool. Basically, Jackson was portrayed as a stereotypical geek, but Hyde was portrayed as a party animal. In a few segments of Monster High, notably the episode Dueling Personality, both characters were forced to acknowledge this literal double life and all of the issues tat came with this arrangement. This problem could possibly be something most teenagers could relate to because people can have just as many personalities like this character. Just not a literal secondary personality. People who like sports might like to listen to classical music, people who join a Chess team might like going on a shopping spree at the mall, and people who like going out to parties could enjoys learning about chemistry. People can have different preferences even if that person acted like a certain high school stereotype, but that is completely normal and should be accepted. Which was the resolution for both of these characters. Or at the very least using a video phone to talk to each other in an attempt to sort out any differences between them.

In Back-to-Ghoul Abbey Bominable was the new girl to the Monster High cast and characters. She was the foreign exchange student who probably was misunderstood and was somewhat antagonistic towards some characters. Fortunately, she managed to make friends with everyone and became another main character who hung out with the other main characters of this series. While she was a character that reflected teenagers who were the new kid in whatever school they were attending, she also served as a reflection to kids who went to a new school because they had to move far away from familiar surroundings. Basically kids suffering from homesickness. For example, in the episode No Place Like Nome presented another aspect about Abbey being from another country. Since she was based on the Yeti, basically Bigfoot from Asia, it would make sense that Abbey would be the character who would have an episode on homesickness. As revealed through the other main characters, Abbey had certain traditions from the Himalayas that she most likely wanted to attend. Consisting of staying up at the Himalayas for a week and participating in various physical and mental challenges, Abbey could not easily access these challenges because she was attending school in an area that would take a lot of time and money to go there. Also because it was finals week. Fortunately, Abbey's friends found out about Abbey wanting to go to the Himalayas and her homesickness, and decided to help in their own way. By using a giant freezer as a substitute for the Himalayas, Abbey could stay in the freezer for a week under similar conditions. Provided she used a Webcam to attend classes while she stayed for a week inside the freezer. And there was even another occupant in the freezer who could provide some of the physical and mental challenges that the Himalayas provided.

Monster High was a brand of toys made by Mattell to appeal to female buyers by making a world where teenaged monster attended high school and got into various shenanigans. The online episodes that came with this product also helped humanize the characters by giving them various personalities. Sometimes literally more than one personality. This helped viewers relate to these characters. For example, Abbey Bominable represented people who were the new kids of their school and people who were homesick for their homes, but were unable to go there due to certain circumstances. With these humanized characters, viewers could relate and become endeared to these characters on a personal level. And possible but their toys.