For centuries, an inanimate object or animal could be held responsible—and punished!—for committing a crime. Don’t take our word for it. Just ask Plato, who wrote in one of his dialogues: ...

This is as true for human faces as it is for inanimate objects. Images credit: flickr user Jun'ichiro Seyama, under a c.c.-by-s.a.-2.0 license.

To be an inanimate object must be, I fancy, a very uninteresting affair. Certainly, being one appears to have a disastrous effect upon the disposition. No one who has had any intercourse with ...

In fact, it might be the most inanimate object on this list, given that it doesn’t budge; not for Tony Stark or Captain America or (heh) Hawkeye. Come on, Hawkeye, you never had a chance.

“Inanimate” is the first piece of theater, or any other art form, I’ve encountered that addresses objectum sexuality. In a meta comment, Erica bemoans the lack of representation in pop culture.

As scary as movie monsters like Freddy Kruger, Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees and Norman Bates can be, there is another brand of killer that has proven it can be just as scary -- the inanimate object.