Invasion of the Body Snatchers Essay

Invasion of the Body Snatchers Essay

The film that we have been studying is The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. In this film the pod people represent the followers of McCarthyism. At this time people were afraid of communism, not conforming in with the status quo. This mean keeping up with existing state of affairs and to be a McCarthy follower , especially regarding social or political issues. Everyone who is situated outside this like communism, homosexuals, Mexicans and Black people are seen as the other.

In 1940 Congress passed an act called The Smith Act (The Alien Registration Act) this enforced all “aliens” to register in the United States and record their political beliefs this is intangible evidence that they were seen as the other After the second world war it was used as the alien registration act to act against the communist party.

 Like the film, McCarthyism started off small, McCarthy blamed the smaller people first and not many listened to him, but then he grew in power and started to blame bigger and morn powerful people. For example Edgar Hoover for being homosexual this links into the film as it starts off in a fictional town of Santa Maria, and this represents all small towns in the United States. At this time people would have walked out of the cinema and would recognise that Santa Maria represented their own town and may have sparked a sense of paranoia. In War of the Worlds case it was in a specific location because it was reconstructing a specific attack on New York and an attack on American soil and could not be set anywhere else without

The film starts with sirens in a state of panic, this establishes the themes but also sets the scene for 1950’s America and the paranoia of the time. At this time people were in the constant fear of nuclear annihilation, today, as reflected in War of the Worlds, we live in fear of terrorist attacks. At this time, society was constantly taught to practise duck and cover and constantly reminded of the threat which resulted in mass hysteria because people were constantly aware of the threat. People conformed to McCarthyism because he gave their fears an individual to blame. Even if you was not an culprit of his accusations you still had façade of his blame with you

The film starts with Miles narrating, he is convinced something is wrong but doesn’t know exactly what. In the opening scenes, there are many cues that something is wrong, for example people being ill but then cancelling appointments. Jimmy Grimauldi running away from his grandmother and later saying his mother isn’t actually his mother. Miles’ character is just a normal every day person and shows that everybody has the power to fight the “other” and to side with McCarthy. In both films the main characters both have relationship problems and both represent that anyone can fight this.

This film did not start in the same way War of the Worlds did, it started after the invasion and doesn’t have a visible threat, it’s psychological. At this time people thought that homosexuality was a mental illness that could be cured.

The first pod person the audience sees is the police officer and he is an authority figure. Miles sees him as a normal person but he is psychologically different, at this time McCarthy went after those in power, such as lawyers and politicians, and J. Edgar Hoover who was the head of the FBI at the time. An other of example authority is later on in the film where Miles and Jack found a mysterious body of a pod person but when Doctor Kauffman denies the existence of the body and uses his authority over him and Miles being a doctor, doesn’t believe it and agrees there was no body.

At this time the film industry manipulated the fears of nuclear annihilation of the American public to reconstruct by making film that have this narrative.