paper #3 revised!!

Paper # 3: The Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Movies are a funny thing. The setting can show different time periods throughout history. But no matter what the setting is, the movie will always reflect the time period and culture that is was made in. The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), directed by Don Siegel, is just that, a mirror of its time. The movie is a political allegory that reflects the communistic scare of the nineteen-fifties and our countries struggle to deal with the opposing threat of communism taking over. In the movie, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the characters depict, a town that is enveloped in a “mass hysteria,” which correlates to the communist threat of the 1950’s and the terrorist threats of today.

The movie begins with Doctor Miles Bennell, the hero of the movie, returning from a business trip back to his hometown of Santa Mira. His nurse, Sally, greets the doctor at the train station and claims that she has had a busy week because of all the patients who wanted to see Dr. Bennell. This would have been normal but when they return to the office, there is nobody there. Everyone has canceled their appointments claiming that they are cured. Suddenly, a boy by the name of Jimmy Grimauldi bursts screaming onto the scene claiming that his mother is not his mother. The Doctor, however, dismisses the hysterical boy for having a childish tantrum and drugs him. This is the first sign that something is amiss with in the town of Santa Mira.

Our hero later meets up with his love interest, Becky Driscoll. Their dinner is interrupted with a phone call from Miles Bennell’s good friend Jack. Becky and Miles head over to Jack’s house where they discover a body of a man. The man is lying on the pool table and looked just like Jack! Everyone returns to Doctor Bennell’s house scared and worried to find strange green pods planted in the green house. The pods burst open, and spew foam and ooze a milky substance. Inside the pods are bodies formed in the likeness of the quartet. Miles tries to phone for help when he discovers what has become of the town; the pod people are taking over. The strange beings are in the police, they are your parents, brother, sisters, and they are everywhere and everyone! The pod people have no emotions, they do not laugh or cry, and they want everyone to be just like them.

This is the allegory the Director, Don Siegel, tries to depict throughout the movie, the spread of communism, its threat to the United States. The director illustrates this allegory through the use of the pod people. The pod people in the movie are a representation of socialistic Communism; the desire for everyone to be the same.

Communism started out as a socialistic party at the beginning of the Russian revolution. Its goal was to distribute the wealth among the classes but it only succeeded in suppressing the Russian people and their culture (Wikipedia).Can one imagine living where your job is predetermined for you at birth? Or people have to wait in ration lines for food and if the government, the provider, runs out of bread, the families do not eat for the week. During the late 1940’s and early 1950’s our country was faced with the dehumanizing threat of communism. Nobody knew whom to trust. People were disappearing and being Blacklisted left and right. Families were separated. People were petrified with fear. The United States of America is built on hard work and perseverance; our whole way of life was hanging by a string as people were turned onto the "idea" of equality. I highly doubt Lenin, Stalin, or any other socialist-communist leader had to wait in a food line. There is nothing equal about that. The pod people are depicting the communists with in the movie. The conspiracies, the pressure to make others become “one of them”, the emotionless attitudes, all of the pod people are the exact same.

In the United States during the time period in which the movie was written, there occurred a massive anti-socialistic movement. A man by the name of Joseph McCarthy was a senator in the United States. Senator McCarthy initiated what is now known as the Red Scare. The Red Scare is relevant to the movie because it is similar to the movement of mass hysteria with in the town of Santa Mira. The people of Santa Mira became scared because their loved ones were taken over by the pod people. This would not have been a problem if the pod people were not emotionless empty vessels of the once precious viable lives that were overcome by the “sameness.”

To conclude I do believe that the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers is relevant today. Another theme of the movie is McCarthyism. Senator Joseph McCarthy was a senator who convinced the United States that it was under communist attack. Dr. Bennell was in a way the saner version of Joseph McCarthy. The Dr. was trying to save his town from the monster pods that left people emotionless and in the same likeness, which is the allegory to communism.

The problem today, however, is not communism but terrorism. After 9/11 the U.S. was left scared and vulnerable, President Bush passed an act of legislation that allowed to U.S. to monitor anyone who is suspected of being a terrorist. The Patriot Act is like many of the things that Senator McCarthy tried to accomplish in his reign as senator. McCarthy wanted to protect his country from the imposing threat of communism, and in doing so blacklisted many of the suspecting communists of the decade. Senator McCarthy showed no remorse for suspected communists; almost like President Bush’s zero tolerance on terrorism. The War on terrorism also is prevalent to the movie; because like the pod people are a threat to Santa Mira so is terrorism a threat to the United States way of life.

In closing, I would definitely recommend this movie to others, not for the allegories and allusions, but just because it is a horribly corny movie with great special affects. Watch on.

Works Cited

Dirks, Tim. “General Review for Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” 1996. 27 September 2007. http://www.filmsite.org/inva.html.

Siegel, Don. Invasion of the Body Snatchers. 1956.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism