As The Cut wrote, "There's a reason we don't have bugs gracing the covers of our cereal boxes or appearing as lovable heroes in our kids' cartoons." Our disgust and fear of insects has fed into wider culture, creating a world of media and entertainment in which most bugs are considered threatening, grotesque, alien and even predators of humans. Over the past few decades, NBC's "Fear Factor" submerged contestants in vats of creepy crawlies, "Starship Troopers" pitted humanity against a race of giant insects, and David Cronenberg's "The Fly" transformed a 1950s B-movie into a body horror film centered on a teleportation accident (involving, yes, a fly, as well as Jeff Goldblum). Popular culture both feeds on and informs our distaste for the insect.
But the humble bug may still have a chance at redemption. Peter Parker, bitten by a radioactive spider, has endured for years in comics and film as Spider-Man. The French children's show "Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir" also features a bug-based superhero. And the animated films "A Bug's Life" and "Bee Movie" attempted to depict insects as tired little workers scraping by each day — just like us.
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