“The Shape Of Water” begs the question: who’s the monster and why do we love?

Set in the 1960’s where by every conventional standard blacks were monsters who couldn’t eat at the lunch counter, gays were monsters who couldn’t love openly and the most women could hope to accomplish was being dressed up like a doll at home where being groped before sex is foreplay and being dressed up like a maid at work where mopping up urinal pee flecks is a career.

White men are the future, since we’re told they’re the future. The future drives a teal Cadillac, since we’re told they drive a teal Cadillac. The Cadillac is actually green but we’re told it’s teal, since you don’t know what to believe until you’re told.

The main character is a mute woman who’s felt invisible her entire life, seeking comfort in routine, musicals and punching the clock at work.

The only sense we get of an inner life happens when we see a friend of hers save a place for her in the line to punch the clock, since she’s chronically late for work. This is a glimpse of the defiance lurking beneath the surface.

She falls in love with a monster, only her monster radiates heart. Unlike Melania’s monster, who radiates like a neon sign in the red light district. There’s nothing normal about it, no matter what we’ve been told…

The Nunes Memo is perfectly normal, we’re told. Firing Mueller is perfectly normal, we’re told. The Fake News Awards are perfectly normal, we’re told. Melania arriving separately from her husband dressed in a white pantsuit lent to her by Hillary Clinton at the State of the Union is perfectly normal, we’re told.

Even though she just found out her monster had sea creature sex with a porn star. It’s not normal, Melania. Believe me. So on behalf of all the Sea Monkeys living happily at the bottom of the Adriatic Sea, let me tell you what would be normal: take the money and run.

Divorce your monster. He’s an affront.