Arthropods in film

Jiminy Cricket, a character in the 1940 Walt Disney animation Pinocchio, is a typical anthropomorphized insect in film.

Arthropods, which include crustaceans, arachnids, and insects, are characterized in many different ways. Their bodies are segmented and covered by a cuticle, and their appendages have joints. These and other features set arthropods apart from other groups. Arthropods, mainly insects and arachnids, are used in film either to create fear and disgust in horror and thriller movies, or they are anthropomorphized and used as sympathetic characters in animated children's movies.

There are over 1,000,000 species of arthropods, including such familiar animals as ants, spiders, shrimps, crabs and butterflies. Many different films throughout history have involved the phylum Arthropoda. Some arthropods have distinct colorings and shapes that make them seem "pretty" to human observers, while others may have an appearance that is deemed "scary". "Bugs" like butterflies and dragonflies are often deemed prettier than ants and spiders. This outward judgement often comes from previous experiences that people have had with arthropods, as well as how arthropods have been and continue to be portrayed in common media.

Early 20th century films had difficulty featuring small insects due to technical difficulties in film-stock exposure and the quality of lenses available. Horror movies involving arthropods include the pioneering 1954 Them!, featuring giant ants mutated by radiation, and the 1957 The Deadly Mantis. Films based on oversized arthropods are sometimes described as big bug movies.

Arthropods used in films may be animated, sculpted, or otherwise synthesized; however, in many cases these films use actual creatures. As these creatures are not easily tamed or directed, a specialist known as a "Bug Wrangler" may be hired to control and direct these creatures. Some bug wranglers have become famous as a result of their expertise, such as Norman Gary, a champion bee-wrangler who is also a college professor, and Steven R. Kutcher, who wrangles a multitude of different types of bugs and who is the subject of over 100 print articles.

Illustrations of Arthropods

How arthropods were depicted in cinema has changed drastically in comparison to how they are depicted in cinema today. In his paper Us or Them!: Silent Spring and the Big Bug Films of the 1950s, Bellin describes how insects are shown to be evil and monstrous beings in several different films of the 1950s and 1960s. Movies such as Them! illustrate a world where arthropods like ants are giant creatures that attempt to take over the planet. However, in other films such as Disney's Pinocchio, a character named Jiminy Cricket (representing crickets from phylum Arthropoda) is shown to be not ugly and scary but a rather cute and wise sidekick to the main character Pinocchio. In modern cinema, arthropods are associated with a number of Marvel superheroes including those from the movies Ant-Man, Ant-Man and the Wasp, and Spiderman. Instead of being portrayed as beings to be feared, many arthropods and their qualities, like their strength and web-weaving abilities, are actually pictured as cool and fun.

Horror

Film poster for The Deadly Mantis, 1957, directed by Nathan H. Juran. Artwork by Reynold Brown

Arthropods are effective tools to instill horror, because fear of arthropods may be conditioned into people's minds. Indeed, Jamie Whitten quoted in his book That We May Live, (talking about insects):

The enemy is already here-in the skies, in the fields, and waterways. It is dug into every square foot of our earth; it has invaded homes, schoolhouses, public buildings; it has poisoned food and water; it brings sickness and death by germ warfare to countless millions of people every year.... The enemy within-these walking, crawling, jumping, flying pests-destroy more crops than drought and floods. They destroy more buildings than fire. They are responsible for many of the most dreaded diseases of man and his domestic animals.... Some of them eat or attack everything man owns or produces-including man himself.

Thus, insects and other arthropods are dangerous to humans in both obvious and less obvious ways. Undoubtedly, arthropods are dangerous for their potential to carry disease. Somewhat less apparently, arthropods cause damage to buildings, crops, and animals. Since arthropods can be harmful in so many ways, using insects and other arthropods to frighten people in movies was a logical step.

Giant insects or "Big Bugs"

Aside from a natural fear or aversion to arthropods, reasons for using such creatures in movies could be metaphorical. Many of the most famous "Big Bug Movies" were made in the 1950s in the aftermath of World War II, when the world was introduced to the cataclysmic destruction inflicted by nuclear bombs. The bomb was unapproachable, remote, and terrifying; spiders and ants mutated by nuclear radiation to become huge were terrifying, but thanks to the competent government officials, soldiers, policemen, and detectives, the bugs were stopped and safety was restored. Nuclear terror was conquered without expressly facing a nuclear bomb. In this way, big bug movies could be cathartic and liberating to the general public. By another view, big bug movies could be less metaphorical, and more literally reflect concerns about the health effects of actual insect infestations as well as pesticides such as DDT.

Big bug films may symbolize sexual desire. Margaret Tarrat says in her article "Monsters of the id" that "[Big bug movies] arrive at social comment through a dramatization of the individual's anxiety about his or her own repressed sexual desires, which are incompatible with the morals of civilized life." By this theory, gigantic swarming insects could represent the huge, torrential—but repressed due to the demands of society—sexual desires possessed by the creator and viewer of the Big Bug movie.

On gigantic arthropods, Charles Q. Choi stated that, if the atmosphere had a higher percentage of oxygen, arthropods would be able to grow quite a bit larger before their trachea became too large and could not grow any more. In fact, in the early years of the earth, when the atmosphere was more oxygen-rich, dragonflies the size of crows were not an uncommon sight. According to biologist Michael C. LaBarbera in "The Biology of B-Movie Monsters", there may be additional limitations on gigantic insects. Square-cube law would require allometric scaling for any scaled up or scaled down creature, contrary to most movie monsters. For giant bugs as in Them!, their exoskeleton would consist of essentially hollow tubes—thin-walled tubes are very efficient structures, however any slight damage would make them vulnerable to buckling. Additionally he argues, giant insects would face greater stresses on their joints due to a very small contact area (pin joints) compared to vertebrate joints. Animation

Winsor McCay, one of the founders of animation, made the first animated film about insects in 1912, titled How a Mosquito Operates. In the early 20th century, it was technically easier to include insects in animated films, which are drawn, over live-action films which would require more advanced techniques to film insects, due to their small size, necessitating better lenses and exposure techniques than those available at the time. One filmmaker, Władysław Starewicz, found that when filming live stag beetles, they tended to stop moving under the hot lights. To solve this problem, he killed his film subjects and attached wires to their bodies in order to puppeteer them. His films were successful, and he eventually abandoned real insects in favor of puppets of his own creation. One of the best-known animated insects is Jiminy Cricket, whose initial design was more realistic and insect-like, but eventually evolved into an elf-like creature. Computer-animated films have proven particularly suited for depicting insects, beginning with Pixar's 1984 short film The Adventures of André and Wally B. Early computer animation was successful at depicting rod-like appendages and shiny metallic surfaces, lending itself to the depiction of insects. By 1996, films like Joe’s Apartment achieved rendering hundreds of photorealistic insects. Other animated films continued to depict more anthropomorphized characters, such as A Bug's Life and Antz, both of which came out in 1998, and the 2007 Bee Movie.

One reason insects are used successfully in such animations could be that an insect or other arthropod's small size makes it seem heroic and sympathetic when faced against the big, big world. Another reason is counterpoint to the reason for using arthropods in horror films: whereas horror movies play upon the instinctive negative reaction humans have towards insects and arachnids, these animation films make something that is different and strange seem real, approachable, and sympathetic, thus making it comforting.

Action/Fantasy

Ant-Man Movies

Arthropods can be seen in the Marvel Movie franchises in the Ant-Man movies. The original Ant-Man was created in comic March 1979 in The Avengers comic Issue #181. The movies and comics are about Scott Lang, who is an ex-convict, and he gets hired for an electronics position at Stark International. He then steals the Ant-Man suit because he wishes to help his sick daughter, and this turns him into the second Ant-Man. The hero figure of Ant-Man resembles a particular invertebrate phylum; he is based on an ant which is part of the Phylum Arthropoda.

In this movie, several different types of ant species are seen. Some of the species are the crazy ant (Paratrechina longicornis), carpenter ant (Campontus pennsylvanicus), the bullet ant (Paraponera clavata), and the fire ant (Solenopsis geminata). In Ant-Man, they used the ant species and portrayed them as they would actually act outside of the movie. Crazy ants are named because of their behavior; they move quickly and often act very agitated. In the movie, these ants can be seen being swift and using their dexterity. However, the movie did show one characteristic that has not been scientifically proven, and that is the electrical conductivity of the ants. In Ant-Man, they show the ants that damage wiring in electronic devices. The movie depicts the fire ants in an accurate light in the movie by showing how fire ants will create a float or "raft" to protect their queen from flood waters. This can be seen in the movies when a rush of water is occurring and the fire ants join together and create a float like structure while Scott Lang is seen to hold their queens position and stay on top of the structure.

The Ant-Man movies show quite a few interesting views on insects in the phylum Arthropoda. They show the ants in a positive light unlike many other films where arthropods can be seen. They show the ants to be helpful, especially in helping Scott Lang be the hero of the film. The use of the different species of ants allowed for Scott to complete different tasks that he needed. This movie is able to bridge a more human connection to arthropods unlike many other films that contain arthropods.

Spider-Man Movies

Even though they are represented as evil, spiders, which fall under the subclass Arachnida, are represented on the side of good by one superhero: Spider-man. This has drastically changed the way people view heroes and villains as well as the creatures they are associated with. One study uncovered the fact that, statistically, the quantity of heroes and villains did not differ, even though it was thought that there would be more villains considered because more of the population associates spiders and other arthropods with danger. Spider-man is a superhero in the Marvel comic and cinematic universe. Showcasing the now thought to be interesting powers of a spider, Spider-man slings his webs and climbs walls just as spiders do. Bitten by a spider as a teen and learning to deal with his powers, Peter Parker fights crime and teaches others that the powers we have are to be used for good and with great caution; they come with important responsibilities. After his uncle Ben is killed, Peter Parker, who's alias is Spider-man, decides to use his powers to fight crime and work towards making his city a better place to live in.

Movies such as the aforementioned Ant-Man and even Spider-Man depict arthropods in a more positive light. They showcase the attributes of arthropods including their abilities of communication, strength, and defense as "superpowers" that could enhance human attributes. Illustrating arthropods in a nonthreatening manner may help to alleviate certain arthropod phobias to a certain extent. A study published in June 2019 by Hoffman et al. found that some people with a fear of arthropods who were exposed to short clips from the movies Spider-Man and Ant-Man saw a small decrease in their fear of arthropods. While this study needs further experimentation, it does show that movie companies are profiting by portraying arthropods in a positive manner rather than a threatening and negative one, as they have often done so in the past.

A Bug's Life

A Bug's Life was created in 1998, and it is a production by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. This movie is about a colony of ants which is led by their queen. As the seasons are changing, they have to do their annual search for food to provide for the colony. However, every summer, they are forced to give it to a group of grasshoppers led by a mean grasshopper named Hopper. This exchange happened annually with no issues until one summer when a clumsy ant named Flik accidentally destroys the food. So, when the grasshoppers came to collect the food and saw that it was destroyed, Hopper demanded that the colony give them twice the amount of food for the inconvenience. Many issues throughout the years have been happening due to this ant Flick, so the Queen decides this would be a good way to get rid of him and sends him to the city to find food. Flick experiences many trials and tribulations, but he eventually is able to make it back to the colony with the food, defying everyone's expectations for this clumsy ant.

While this movie may stray from some from the realistic abilities of ants, it does describe some real abilities that ants do showcase. Colonies of ant often times have to hunt for weeks and days to find enough food to take care of the colony for the year. They also have to protect their food from other arthropods that might need it too. When Flick ruined the food this seriously hurt the colony, so, just like the Queen did in the movie, other arthropods will try and get rid of the weakest link in their colony. However, where the movie strays from the ability of ants is in the fact that one ant would not have been able to bring back that much food by themselves.

Further reading

• Resh, Vincent H.; Cardé, Ring T. (2009). Encyclopedia of Insects. Academic Press. pp. 668–674. ISBN 9780080920900.
• Berenbaum, May R. (1995). Bugs in the System: Insects and Their Impact on Human Affairs. Addison-Wesley. ISBN 9780201624991.