Invasion Of The Body Snatchers

In what ways does Invasion of the body snatchers reflect the time in which it was made?

The film opens with final scene of Miles telling the Dr and the cop about the pods and how they’ve taken over everyone. The scene then goes to a flashback as Miles tells the story from the start from his point of view. In the first scene of the flashback, we see the fear and state of panic; this reflects the issues in American society at the time such as the fear of communism and the red scare. At this time in America, people also feared McCarthy as he was seen as an internal threat. This is shown in the film through the pods and Miles’ paranoia. The film taps into America’s fears by showing the audience that Miles and the inhabitants of Santa Mira are blind of the unseen threat, just like the citizens of America at the time.

After the prologue, we see Miles returning to Santa Mira.  We see that the film in set in a small town rather than a major iconic city. This makes the film more relatable and creates uneasiness for the audience as it challenges their expectations and comes across that it could happen to anyone.  By setting this film in a small-unknown town, it taps into the audience’s fear of McCarthyism and shows that it is an internal problem.  The message of this film is to purposely pick at the existing fears of the normal Americans and tell them to open their eyes to the society they are living in.

After Miles has returned home, he comes across two individuals, such as little Jimmy, that complain their family are ‘different’ but they don’t know how.  However, Miles does not believe them and shrugs it off as psychological conditions.  We then learn that the ‘Grimaldi’ family has gone out of business due to the change in their society. This is a comment on the American way of life as people who were seen as communists were blacklisted. This means that they couldn’t get job, went out of business and couldn’t pay bills. Later on in the film, we see that little Jimmy is no longer concerned about his family and is acting weird. This is also a comment on American society as McCarthyism targeted the weakest first, which were children. This was because McCarthy grew in power as people accepted his ideologies. His small issue became a nation one as people feared communist infiltration. However, the problem was with the people who were paranoid, not the ones that were under suspicion.

Throughout the film, more and more people begin complaining about the symptoms showing on the individuals around them. Miles then becomes concerned and takes notice to these people and the problems they are facing. He realises that a real threat is emerging. However, when the likes of Becky’s father shows the symptoms, Miles is stubborn about his ideology that it is still a psychological cause.  This reflects people’s adaptations to McCarthyism and how people then started to view the minority as ‘others’ and to somewhat, threats. At the time the Alien Registration Act allowed McCarthy to deny people their constitutional rights such as freedom of speech. This meant that people could be automatically imprisoned or blacklisted.

As more pods grew, they grew into authority taking over the town.  This raised questions and concerns as people who challenged the ‘others’ were classed as crazy and were threatened with imprisonment, just like in America at the time.  McCarthy also threatened people with imprisonment when his power grew and people with authority adopted his ideology.  However, there were individuals that took on his belief out of fear of being a ‘communist’.

The following day, Miles wakes up and is given an explanation by the authority figures.  His behaviour is viewed as suspicious and he is being watched. Many people were pessimistic about how society was changing and the questioning of the new status quo. Authority figures became untrustworthy as they adapted to McCarthyism, this tapped into society’s fear even more and paranoia spread from city to city. It left people feeling insecure and scared as their views were being questioned and undermined.  Anyone who was seen as problematic or went against McCarthy and his followers were then viewed with suspicion.  Individuals within society would adopt these beliefs and would see people who were seen as suspicious as a threat.  Many people in the US changed their viewpoints in public even if they didn’t change their beliefs due to fear and recognising that that was it; society was changing and there was nothing they could do. They realised that they could carry on with everyday life or be blacklisted, so people chose to give up their own personality and views to fit the status quo.

When at Jack’s house, Miles discovers a pod in his green house.