Victor Frankenstein would have been a poster boy for the manosphere. But Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein — it released on Netflix this month — like many earlier adaptations of Mary Shelley’s novel, misses the real monstrosity of the novel. Shelley’s novel has long been taught as an early work of science fiction warning about the dangers of invention. That interpretation is accurate but incomplete. At its core, Frankenstein is a study of how patriarchal power behaves when it is allowed to operate without restraint.
Victor is proof of what can go wrong when a man assumes mastery over everything and sees it as his natural right, perceiving dependence to be a flaw. This assumption is also central to the manosphere’s foundation. Modern influencers describe emotional independence as a masculine ideal. They repackage dominance as self-development. Victor follows the same pattern. He isolates himself, pursues ambition without consultation, and treats other people as satellites orbiting his genius. When the creature appears, Victor rejects him and refuses to acknowledge any role in his suffering. Shelley identifies this behaviour as cowardice, not strength. This clarity is what is missing for young men who are taught that empathy is a liability and that turning away from emotional responsibility is a mark of strength.
The creature’s development is further proof of how toxic the echo chambers of the manosphere can be. Shelley does not portray him as naturally violent. His rage emerges after repeated experiences of exclusion, humiliation and abandonment. He teaches himself language, studies history, and tries to form relationships, only to be met with hostility. Shelley makes it clear that monstrosity is not inherent. It is produced through neglect. Victor’s indifference shapes the creature’s fate far more than any physical deformity. Shelley thus offers an early psychological case study on the effects of social isolation and parental failure — conditions that the manosphere often trivialises or misinterprets.
As in the manosphere, the women in the book are consistently sidelined or erased. Elizabeth Lavenza is idealised into near invisibility; Justine Moritz is executed because no man defends her; Safie’s mother is removed from the story by a controlling father. There is a discernible pattern here. Women in Victor’s world exist only within the limits men set for them. The novel demonstrates how patriarchal systems depend on the suppression of women’s agency, and how male authority often relies on narratives that exclude competing — feminine? — perspectives. This is precisely the dynamic that the manosphere tries to revive.
Frankenstein also exposes the instability of the patriarchal voice. The novel’s narrative structure — shifting among Walton, Victor and the creature — reveals how limited each narrator’s authority is. None of them sees the full picture. Each distorts events to serve his own self-image. Shelley anticipated a problem that is now amplified online: men presenting their lives as closed systems in which their understanding is complete and their judgements are beyond question. She reminds us that such certainty is a mask for fear, insecurity and isolation.
Most modern adaptations of Frankenstein do not address this part of the novel. The omission matters because they reinforce the idea that Frankenstein is a story about technological overreach rather than a study of social power. Del Toro’s adaptation is not an exception. A correct reading of Frankenstein would, in fact, challenge the central myths of the manosphere, showing that emotional suppression is not strength, that authority requires care, and that neglect has lasting consequences. It would demonstrate that women’s silence is not natural but enforced. Above all, it would argue — convincingly — that a culture that rewards male detachment creates the very wounds it later claims to diagnose.