Is Godzilla Male or Female? The 'King' of Monsters Origins Explained

When we think about monsters, the first thing that comes to mind is how we'll protect ourselves from them. Do we have to fight them or just run away? Nothing but fear registers inside our heads the moment we see a 500-foot-tall lizard coming our way without declaring its purpose.

Godzilla’s first major debut in his 1954 film marked the beginning of his ever-growing franchise, and while his origins were that of terrorizing the first city he comes ashore, there are plenty of aspects about him that have been overlooked.

Given its many iterations over the years and 36 movies later, is Godzilla actually male or female?

RELATED: Godzilla Watch Order: How To Watch the Kaiju Franchise Chronologically

Times have changed since the ‘King’ of Monsters stomped onto the big screens with its bipedal footing.

While normally, monsters, aliens, and other unidentifiable creatures have been automatically addressed as ‘it’, is Godzilla a male or female?

Is Godzilla a Girl or a Boy?

Credit: Toho Studios

Godzilla has had plenty of reboots over the years he’s been at play in Hollywood and it’s understandably gotten even more confusing the more we think about it.

The other identity the monster has embedded in us is the fact he’s called the ‘King of Monsters’, which should have ironically stopped the debates, right?

Well, see, at one point, Godzilla had actually given birth to baby Minilla in 1967’s Son of Godzilla. So, this could possibly make the Kaiju a female, no?

But that’s not the only iteration of the aforementioned creature we had about speculations of being a girl.

The big flop of 1998’s Godzilla depicted their stomping giant being pregnant. In fact, the production designer even reportedly declared they specifically ‘sculpted female genitalia’ onto the CG model.

Overall, though, the titular Kaiju was confirmed to have been reproducing asexually, as some of his species (lizards) do.

And yet, despite all this, it would seem that Godzilla has yet to find out whether it’s a he or a she.

In an interview with Godzilla: King of the Monsters director and co-writer Michael Dougherty on Yahoo! Entertainment, the helmer insists that the aforementioned Kaiju is a ‘he’: “It’s a he, he’s called King of the Monsters.”

But in the very same interview, Vera Farmiga (who played paleobiologist Dr. Emma Russell) countered by saying:

“Hands down, it’s a male. I know the ‘a’ at the end of his name throws it, right? Or he’s gender fluid. [Godzilla]’s kind of hybrid himself. He’s amphibian and reptile.”

It is worth mentioning though that Toho Studios always ensures to announce whenever they include a female Kaiju into their Godzilla films (Mothra, Biollante, Megaguirus, to name a few).

Seeing as they keep on referring to Godzilla as, well, 'King' of Monsters, this pretty much answers your question.

A Short Analysis of Godzilla’s ‘King of Monsters’ Origins

Consider this: Godzilla has had many adaptations, spin-offs, and reboots in its entire cinematic run, and from those, a part of its storyline that never disappears is that he was awoken by nuclear or hydrogen bombings.

Typically, anything man-made that could cause destruction from where the King of Monsters lived.

Another thing that stands out in the experimentations and the many, many versions of him we’ve seen on the big screens is that he is essentially a hybrid of his species.

Godzilla is a prehistoric reptilian monster, in simple terms. There’s a chance that although the nuclear bombings that usually awakened him from the safety of his own home are a metaphor for the Japanese consciousness, the tampering with his natural habitat possibly impacted the build of his body.

At most, Godzilla could be gender-fluid or gender-neutral, considering that its main purpose is to wreak havoc against humankind for disturbing his peace, the most iconic Kaiju would inevitably still be called a ‘monster’ altogether.