I


STAFF


n 2003, the term “celebrity worship syndrome” entered the lexicon thanks to an article in UK newspaper The Daily Mail that was based on a scientific study measuring the levels of identifi- cation people have with famous individuals. John Maltby from the University of Leicester headed up the study, which identified three levels of engagement with celebrities, the most intense one


he labelled Borderline-Pathological, which results in unrealistic fantasies about the famous person, leading to extreme, sometimes dangerous, behaviour. This is when things can go past Beatlemania into Mark David Chapman territory. As Brandon Cronenberg points out in our cover story, celebrity worship has been around at least since


the time of the saints. It has certainly intensified over the years (everything from Britney Spears’ chewed gum to a vial of Ronald Reagan’s blood have gone up for sale online), but it’s only in the past decade that it’s been considered a disease – at least enough to get its own medical term. And it has become medical in the most corporeal sense. Poke around online and there are dozens of stories about people who have spent big money on multiple cosmetic surgeries to physically transform themselves into celebrities such as Elvis, Michael Jackson, Jennifer Lopez, Kate Winslet, Demi Moore and Pamela An- derson. Some of them do it for their careers as celebrity impersonators, but for most it’s obsession. Tat- toos, piercing, hair dye – I don’t have a problem with body modification, but swapping your physical identity for that of another person? Keeping this in mind, David Cronenberg’s The Fly is not only horrifying because Seth Brundle becomes


a revolting inhuman monster, it’s also terrifying because he’s losing his identity/personality, due to a terrible accident. Antiviral’s protagonist Syd March isn’t as visually arresting as the Brundlefly (duh...), but the implications of desirable disease, that he represents an entire society that suppresses such fun- damental taboos as avoiding sickness (and eating human flesh – even if it is lab-grown) for idol worship,


is tapping into a much larger existential dread. Are we just meat? A series of biological processes? Where’s the meaning in defining ourselves by our proximity to an artificial media image? I find it particularly intriguing yet distressing that Antiviral shows us a reality that’s, well, kinda plausible.


Consider this: identical twins from Arizona received cheek implants, nose jobs and porcelain veneers for their teeth in an effort to look like Brad Pitt; a British woman had over 50 surgeries in order to transform into Egyptian Queen Nefertiti; two different women have had surgeries to look like Jessica Rabbit; and a Filipino man so badly wanted to be Superman that he had a nose job, chin augmentation and thigh implants in an effort to resemble the comic book character. You may also have seen pictures of Dennis “Stalking Cat” Avner (pictured above), whose desire to be a tiger led to a shocking physical transformation. It’s one thing to want to look like someone rich and famous, another thing to look like someone that’s


been dead for centuries, and something else entirely to seek the face and body of a cartoon or comic book character – or a different species! Human beings actively trying to lose their humanity is tough to wrap your head around. In medical terms, it’s often tied into Body Dismorphic Disorder (BDD), a mental illness that causes the sufferer to obsess over perceived physical defects. Truth is sicker than fiction... The guy who really pushes my revulsion button, however, is one Steve Erhardt, who has had surgery


to make himself look like a Ken doll. He’s landed himself right smack dab in the middle of the Uncanny Valley, a term described in Wikipedia as “a hypothesis in the field of robotics and 3-D computer anima- tion, which holds that when human replicas look and act almost, but not perfectly, like actual human beings, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers. The ‘valley’ refers to the dip in a graph of the comfort level of humans as a function of a robot’s human likeness.” (There are many the- ories as to why this happens, including “violation of human norms” and “pathogen avoidance.”) Examples of this are Real Dolls (the high-end anatomically detailed yet dead-eyed sex dolls) and the


creepy characters in the computer-animated movie The Polar Express. According to a graph included with the Wikipedia entry, certain robots, dolls and prosthetic limbs are all in the valley, along with zom- bies, which reside at the very bottom of it, creeping us out like nuthin’ else. And down there is where Mr. Ken Doll wants to be, amazingly. His physical manifestation of disease


is much more shocking than the sores in Antiviral. And both leave me wondering, what’s sicker – be- coming the uncanny, or being unable to recognize that you’ve become the uncanny?


PUBLISHER Rodrigo Gudiño


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CONTRIBUTORS


MIKE BEARDSALL BRENTON BENTZ A.S. BERMAN LYLE BLACKBURN JOHN W. BOWEN PEDRO CABEZUELO ARIEL ESTEBAN CAYER PAUL CORUPE MARIO DEGIGLIO- BELLEMARE PATRICK DOLAN TOMB DRAGOMIR JAY FOSGITT MICHELE GALGANA


THE GORE-MET MARK R. HASAN LIISA LADOUCEUR LAST CHANCE LANCE AARON VON LUPTON ANDY MAURO DEJAN OGNJANOVIC GEORGE PACHECO SEAN PLUMMER GARY PULLIN JAMISON RYAN JESSA SOBCZUK ALEXANDRA WEST TAL ZIMERMAN


RUE MORGUE #126 would not have been possible with- out the valuable assistance of Matt Winston, Mary-Beth Hollyer, Al McMullan, Mitch Davis and The Sayer of the Law.


COVER:ANTIVIRAL Design by Justin Erickson.


Rue Morgue Magazine is published monthly (with the exception of February) and accepts no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, photos, art or other materials. Freelance submissions accompanied by S.A.S.E. will be seriously considered and, if necessary, returned.


We acknowledge the financial support of the Gov- ernment of Canada through the Canada Periodical


dave@rue-morgue.com RM6


Fund (CPF) for our publishing activities. RUE MORGUE Magazine #126 ISSN 1481 – 1103 Agreement No. 40033764 Entire contents copyright MARRS MEDIA INC. 2012. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN CANADA.


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