Why ‘Godzilla’ is the Most Potent Metaphor in Media

Reporting live from a world on fire is a difficult thing to do, but a lot of us media journalists manage to maintain it, somehow. What gets me through are memories of things as they were, which brought me back into a piece of nostalgia I didn’t expect to make a comeback: Godzilla. Fitting, that we’re reaching a fever pitch of Godzilla content, given that the IP is the most layered metaphor for the many sociopolitical ills we’re facing. Let’s Take it Back It’s 2015, in the waning months of the second Obama term. After a long bout of vacation-less Summers, my wife and I take some time and head to somewhere nice. It rained the whole time. So, we order some good food and turn on the TV just in time to catch the title screen. An ominous deep tone and a black screen with big, blood-red letters, Godzilla.

The illest tag-up ever. Image courtesy of Legendary Pictures (2014)

What folks might not know about me is that I’m a sucker for the Kaiju genre and its many intersections. Or that the man who raised me was the GOAT at copying whatever was on TV onto VHS tapes. So by the time I was learning to read I was already watching throwback Godzilla movies, memorizing arcs, and pantomiming tokusatsu before Power Rangers even hit the scene in the U.S. I am what some might call a lover of the franchise, from its highest highs (King of Monsters, in my opinion) to its lowest lows (Scooby-Doo collab), I was there. So imagine my great surprise to run into a modernized take on the IP, with all the…