‘How far do the American films you have studied convey key themes in similar ways?’

In this essay, I will be answering the question ‘How far do the American films you have studied convey key themes in similar ways?’ and with this, providing evidence from two American films. There are two key themes, Paranoia and Fear of Others.

Paranoia is one of the major themes of these film, the Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1956) looks at the matter by first presenting the matter through using the end scene at the beginning. The paranoia kicks in as we see Miles as rushed and shocked, we get the idea that Miles is scared by something however we don’t understand what it is. This film tapped into the hearts of many Americans, as it was very relatable as the film continued into the first part of the story, Miles described that everything was normal but at the same time it was all different. He was commenting about how there was a problem in society and that people were starting to change from McCarthyism but they put on a facade like everything was okay. McCarthyism wasn’t noticed until more people started turning against their own friends and family in fear of being black listed.

For the film War Of The Worlds (2005), their look on paranoia was commenting on the paranoia of terrorists and Muslims from the 9/11 attacks in New York. For example, when we first see the tripods, they emerge from the ground and that indicates that they have always been there for years and nobody suspected it. This links to the 9/11 attacks because the threat came from the interior of the city as the terrorists were in the city to begin with so they didn’t have to fly in. Later on when our main character, Ray Ferrier, tries to get him and his children out of the city, Rachael who is his daughter automatically assumes “Is it terrorists?” This symbolizes that she has acknowledged their attacking before and the paranoid accusations are primary instinct to guessing who the attackers are.  The follow up attacks from the tripods when the trio managed to find the mother’s house also is a signifier of the 9/11 attacks as there is a crashed plane outside of the building, the tripods are using transport as weapons like the terrorists did.

Fear of others, also known as xenophobia, is another key feature in both films. Invasion Of The Body Snatchers use this theme through the first few scenes as Little Jimmy is our first character to become worried about his mother, not long after Miles arranges to go see Wilma and he also discovers that she is also worried about her Uncle Ira. Both characters sound and look normal but they complain that something has changed about them and they’re not the same. This links into McCarthyism as the problem started off small and it went unnoticed and those who perceived this was to be looked upon as paranoid. Once more and more characters began to be overtaken by this “condition”, Miles takes notice of the issue and keeping it in mind but he still assumes it’s just a psychological state. More and more people started to take in the PoV of McCarthy and for those who didn’t were immediately seen as threats, relating to them as ‘others’ and that’s their xenophobia.  

War Of The Worlds looks at the matter through the aliens who are invading the earth and want to exterminate the human race. The American’s perspective of Xenophobia at the time was anyone from outside of their country, especially any Arabic people as they’d assume they were terrorists, however, WoTW used that to their advantage as they would always be tapping into the paranoia and the fears of the Americans in New York. When the tripods first started moving, whenever they’d attack it wouldn’t burn the person but it would turn them to ash, this resembling the wave of ashes as the two towers collapsed on 9/11, also we received a close up shot of a camera falling to the ground as someone was recording the attack, This was a very powerful camera shot as this links into the sort of footage people were recording when the 9/11 attacks were taking place.