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Guillermo del Toro’s new Frankenstein is being sold to audiences as a lush, emotionally drenched retelling, starring Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein and Jacob Elordi as the Creature, with a staggered theatrical and Netflix rollout this fall. The movie premiered at Venice and is arriving on streaming after a limited theater run, which means most viewers will see this version packaged by Netflix’s sensibilities rather than judged on any traditional cinematic merits.
From the first interviews and closed-door trailers, del Toro makes no secret that his Frankenstein is meant to be felt rather than feared — he insists it isn’t a horror picture but an “incredibly emotional story.” That framing is a choice, and it’s one that signals a larger cultural project: to recast male strength as emotional fragility and to treat agency as a symptom rather than a responsibility.
The casting choices underline that project. Jacob Elordi — handsome, youthful, and already a symbol of modern, performative sensitivity — replaces Andrew Garfield, and interviews show del Toro actively shaping the monster as a soulful, wounded figure. Hollywood keeps packaging attractive leading men as stand-ins for modern masculine virtue, then telling us the real problem with men is that they do not feel enough, rather than that they lack character.
Del Toro’s Creature is described in press as an “outsider” whose moral arc centers on a choice between love and rage, and the director leans into the pathos of that struggle. Conservatives should push back: portraying male violence as merely the output of unprocessed trauma removes individual accountability and excuses vice in the name of empathy. Storytelling has consequences, and when films suggest that men are chiefly victims of feeling, they normalize surrender, not strength.
Netflix’s backing and the festival circuit attention guarantee that this Frankenstein will be held up as an artistic milestone, embraced by critics who prize emotional symbolism over traditional moral lessons. That’s exactly why ordinary Americans must be skeptical — corporate streamers have the power to make ideological art into mainstream doctrine without asking whether it strengthens families, communities, or the next generation of boys.
Mary Shelley’s original asked hard questions about creation, responsibility, and the moral costs of playing god, but del Toro’s version appears eager to swap those questions for a sermon about feeling and victimhood. There’s a political current here: when culture elevates an aesthetic of woundedness as the primary male identity, it undermines the virtues conservatives prize — courage, duty, and personal accountability. The result is not a reclamation of Shelley so much as a repackaging for our therapeutic age.
This isn’t a call to ban the film — art should be judged and debated, not censored — but it is a call for clarity. Hardworking Americans deserve entertainment that recognizes men can be both emotionally intelligent and morally responsible, not art-house narratives that insist fragility is the highest good.
If you’re going to see del Toro’s Frankenstein, watch it with a clear eye and a firm sense of values. Appreciate the craft if you must, but don’t let stylish melancholy replace the timeless lessons about character and consequence that built our civilization.
