Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Invasion of the Body Snatchers


It is often said that films reflect the times in which they are made, this is especially true for Invasion of the body Snatchers. The film was released into post WWII America, a country rife with paranoia and 'fear of others'. 'Others' being not only communists but black people, hispanic people and homosexual people; after the carnage of war, the American people needed someone to blame, they needed a common enemy. WWII brought a threat to the American way of life and this drastically increased the desire to maintain the status quo, anyone who seemed to go against the flow was seen as an 'Other'. 

Invasion of the Body Snatchers begins with the main character Miles in a state of panic; this is different to the 2005 rendition of War of the Worlds, life begins as normal for Ray. This is done to reflect the times in which these film were made. Miles' state of panic reflects the feelings of the society in 1950's America, his panic creates a link to the real world at the time of the films creation. Miles is positioned as the 'other' in the introduction to our film, he is being deemed crazy for perceiving a psychological threat; this is representative of how communism is an ideology. There are no physical features that tell you someone is a communist by looking at them, communism is a mentality. This is why the 'Body Snatchers' look exactly like humans compared to the aliens in the War of the Worlds, the aliens in the War of the Worlds look completely different to humans. Don Siegel has done this to tell us that the 'others' can look exactly like us, there are no distinctive features to make them stand out. In a way this is scarier, the American public were already paranoid and vulnerable but by telling them that they could no longer trust their neighbours or even their family members; this will of amped up their fear. 

Miles begins his story by telling us that "everything looked the same", this establishes the status quo of the film and is another link to how it is a physiological threat. The story begins in Santa Mira, a small town not far from San Francisco, Siegel specifically chose a small insignificant town instead of a major city, he has used Santa Mira as allegory for all small towns in America; this setting is very familiar to most of the American public, they live in town like Santa Mira. This, again, is different to the setting for War of the Worlds, New York was chosen because it is the place were the 9/11 attacks took place; it was a specific target by islamic terrorists. The difference with Invasion of the Body Snatchers is that the 'others' they were afraid of in 1950's America had no real target; they wanted to control America in its entirety; or at least that's what the public had been lead to believe. 

The use of our main character being a doctor is, not only so he can establish later on that it is in fact a dead body, but because it is personal to the audience; everyone has seen a doctor at some point in their life, they are trusted officials. It makes the character more relatable, this is very similar to the use of Ray in War of the Worlds being a 'average Joe' he is a working class, blue collar, divorced father; neither of these men are warriors or war heroes, they are run of the mill American Citizens, this tells us that there are no 'real' heroes in these situations. 

In the film Miles is pulled away early from a conference to attend to the umpteen people who are demanding appointments with him, and only him. This is representative of the paranoia in American society, the fact that Miles is away and there are other doctors available but no one wants to go them tells us that Miles is trusted by the townsfolk. Of course, when Miles arrives home no one wants to attend the appointments because no one wants to be seen as going against the status quo. If you spoke out, you may be seen as 'other' and, therefore, a threat. We are then introduced the character of Becky and as Miles is walking her to her Fathers store, they bump into a old college friend of theirs who doesn't acknowledge them in the way an old friend would. The old friend says a few words, gives them a curt nod and carries on with his day. The significance of this is that he is a police officer and one of the main ways to get people to conform is to take the authority first and give them someone to obey. 

• The Millgrim experiment, links to conformity
• Scene where miles is on the highway
• mcarthyism
• scene where the 'others' have the secret meeting in the house