Throughout the Cold War fear was at an all time high all across the country spreading from family to family and town to city causes what I like to think of as a fear epidemic creating controversy everywhere. Fear of the abnormal; communists, any non-caucasian race, homosexuality and feminism were all but normal in the caucasian male dominated normalcy of America. The perfect American family: father, mother, son, daughter, and dog all heterosexual living a middle class life with a white picket fence surrounding their perfectly unblemished lives was the only way to live in the 50's and everyone on the outside looking in were the greatest causes of anxieties. The film Invasions of The Body Snatchers and the readings of Katrina Mann touch base on these very anxieties of the 50's in their own theatrical ways.
The film is based on a small non-existent town of Santa Mira, California which appears to be a normal middle class working suburban society in the 50's. However what we begin to uncover as the film unfolds is that this town is anything but normal. The women of this film seem to be a bit more "frisky" then they really probably would have been during this time and the residents of Santa Mira are having their bodies taken over by an alien form that seem to resemble their original selves in every way right down to their very memories. What was the message that Don Siegel was trying to portray throughout this film? I believe he was trying to show his audience that what we view as normal may just be an act, do we really ever know anybody or their true intentions? Look at the Rosenbergs; two communist spies that lived in America and led completely normal lives until they were found to be frauds sending shock through their community that really had no idea who they were. This is what I believe Siegel was saying - We could be best friends with a Commie and never know until it may be to late. It worked for the alien attackers in Santa Mira, they seemed real and normal and no one expected a thing.
Katrina Manns message was a bit more realistic that Siegel's. She based her readings upon real instances not a syfy drama. Mann talks about the abnormal taking over the suburban dream by discussing the feminist societies that were beginning to bloom threatening the ideals of the betty crocker stay at home housewife and white superior society when the African American's move into the neighborhood. Mann really touches on the delicate subjects in a real light showing how easy it was to cause anxiety and uproar amongst an ignorant population. Homosexuality, Feminism, Racism, and Espionage caused a ridiculous amount of uproar and fear throughout the 50's causing people everywhere to act out and do heartbreaking things like lynchings and public executions to the most innocent of people and films like the Invasion of The Body Snatchers only added more to the fear epidemic.
I would have to disagree with the idea the Siegel was expressing the idea that we do not truly know people or their true intentions. I feel as though maybe Siegel was referring to the conformity that was happening in the 1950s and the loss of independence. In regards to the "All American Family" to which you referred, every family was trying to achieve such as life with the white picket fence, dog and so called perfect life. Moreover, his attention to feminism. You see him call out conformity in a big way when you see how the majority of the women in the film dressed plain and proper and generally all the same. Then you have the leading lady who was dressed a little more riskay for the time and seen as a sexual deviant because she was divorced. Siegel was calling attention to how women were unable to support themselves, had no real role merely a pawn in a man's life and conformed to the idea that they were the damsel in distress and could not save themselves. Even more so the film attacks the idea of conforming to communism even McCarthyism as discussed in class. Paranoia or histeria as the doctor described it in the film when the uncle wasn't the uncle and the mom was not the mom but it was spreading throughout the nation in fear that communism is taking over. The idea that this fear can be calmed with drugs and sedatives also rears its ugly head as well. In all Siegel was trying to point out the dangers of conformity especially in regards to communism and bringing to light the importance to individuality.
ReplyDeleteThe reading also touches apon the ideas of feminism, homosexuality, societal pressures and racism in great ways. In a way I think Mann was touching apon how in the fifties people feared change and used the fear of communism as a way to stay the same and scare there children straight. Being gay is wrong, or listening to rock n roll and dancing in inappropriate ways will lead to communism or dressing is a frisky way makes you a communist. 1950s was based around fear and inability to commit to change or rather their fear of changes within the society.
I think the "fear" you both are referring is not only a fear of change but a fear of the status quo's loss of power, this status quo specifically being what Mann repeatedly described as white and patriarchal. That status quo had been around for several centuries and while there were groups that did somewhat challenge certain ideals of the white patriarchal status quo they also supported other status quo ideals (i.e., progressives in the late 19th century). In the mid- to late 1950's however, there are these ethnic/gender/age groups starting to fully challenge the status quo/mainstream social perspectives, and the latter starts to realize "Hey we might end up losing our hold over the public's minds, that's a pretty terrifying thought", and in order to hold onto that, the status quo introduces and implements these ideas that if society changes, its a sign of Communist infiltration. I think that this wasn't the intention of Siegel's film. Like most 50's B sci-fi, he wanted to give his audience thrills and scares, and the way to do it was to capitalize on the public anxiety of infiltration by some outsider, perhaps in reality, "Commies" and turn it into outer space threats. Also in relation to that I don't think he was trying to make Becky's character into a threat. Rather he was trying to titillate audiences with a character in a way that was approved by social morals;by making her a divorcee. I do think however that Siegel's film was a unintentional reflection of mainstream society's fears both of the loss of status quo and change.
ReplyDeleteWhile I hate to completely disregard the reading we did for class, I didn't really get what the author was saying.
ReplyDeleteI personally thought she saw the movie, heard the directors interpretation that it was "just a damn monster movie" and drew all sorts of straws of ideas from that.
I too don't believe the director of the movie could make "just a damn monster movie" without using some of the fear of the time. Because of this I'm more inclined to believe your view of the movie concerning communists. He may not have directly said they were communists in the movie, but it seems like he was definitely building off of peoples fear of communism at the time.
So while I agree with you on Siegel's interpretation, but I just can't bring myself to see the other interpretation's value. I realize the issues brought up in the work were prevalent at the time I think it was simply a philosophical attempt to derive meaning that simply wasn't there. (I just can't see the seed pods being Mexicans...)
Interesting discussion! What I like about it is how you're all working to come to terms with the odd bundle of free-floating fear of American Cold War anxiety--it's not just one thing, but a whole cluster of things that somehow stand in for each other. This is what the reading describes as fear of the Other, which in her analysis isn't really Communists but rather, our own society's racial and sexual Others.
ReplyDeleteKeep in mind though, that there was really no such thing yet as feminism in any organized way during the early 50s. Women's sexuality as a threatening force is certainly a theme, as are portrayals of women trapped by domesticity, but feminists weren't seen as an organized threat from without, more like women's power was a force that could go terribly wrong from within. I'm not sure I would go so far as to say that Becky's sexuality made her a threat either, just perhaps, as a sexual woman, more prone to corruption.
Allan, I hope that class discussion about the reading helped a bit.