IOTBS

It is often said that ‘films reflect the time in which they are made’. How far is this true for invasion of the body snatchers?

The film Invasion of the Body Snatchers is set in 1950's america during McCarthyism and the red scare. In this period of time the USA was in a state of extreme paranoia and had a great fear of ‘the other’ and alike to the post 9/11 period in War of the Worlds there was a fear of annihilation. As apposed to fearing 'the other' (communists, homosexuals and people with non-Christian religions), in the film is seen to be the pod people. This is unlike War Of The Worlds as in this film the threat physical, but there are many links we can make. One being the shared fear of annihilation in the films and that both films were made in a time when America and the world felt a heightened sense of paranoia and both reflect the ideologies of the time in which they were made. The intro so the film is threaded with paranoia and links with the fear of the unknown. At the very beginning of the intro Miles (the protagonist) is in a hospital surrounded by police and doctors. In this situation nobody is listening to him and he cannot make the authority figures listen to him. This juxtaposes both the pod people and McCarthyism as these infiltrated the figures of authority first.

As we enter the flashback Miles says the line: “At first everything looked the same, but it wasn’t - Something evil had taken over the town”. This is an important piece of dialogue as we are able to see how people felt during the ‘red scare’ – there was no physical threat but a psychological one. The reason that the town is a fictional place is so more people in America can relate to it and see it as allegory for any town. This is an implication that the threat is everywhere. The film also uses normal people like doctors and police officers as their main characters as a lot of people can relate themselves to these people. Everyone has a doctor and every town has police officers. This would - like with the town -  allow people to form links with their own lives and this is allegory for just how paranoid people had become.

 At first people who see the threat are thought to b deluded like Becky’s cousin Wilma in the film. But as time goes by and the more people conform to the idea and succumb to the paranoia, this leads to the people who don’t believe become the other. In the film the first person we see to have been turned into a pod person is Sam the police officer. It is important that the pods have taken over him first as they need to take over the people of authority first. The reason for this is if you make the people that others look up to believe in your cause then others are soon to follow - and anyone that doesn’t conform to the idea is seen as being suspicious. This is the way people who didn’t agree with McCarthyism were viewed in America in this time. One other important line in the intro is when Becky says 'I feel like a stranger in my own country'. This line describes how the people of the USA that didn't conform to McCarthyism would have felt. 

If I had more time I would talk about the rest of the film.