Hollywood Utopia

However - and ultimately affirming the paradox implicit in 1950s culture - while a
nuclear explosion caused the terrible monster to come alive in the first place, a
radioactive isotope is also required to destroy the terror in the end. 5
Peter Biskind in his study of 1950s B-movies also signals the possibility of a supraecological
reading by proposing that many of these cultural artefacts remain
preoccupied with ‘nature’ defined as ‘the Other’ and it is this ‘othering’ tendency
which ‘threatens to disrupt and destroy culture’. Biskind adds that science also
exists in order to control nature but if it resists this control, ‘nature becomes
monstrous’ (cited in Jancovich 1996: 17). 6 While analysis of 1950s B-movies, which
explicitly use fears of nuclear power together with other radiation scares to feed
various types of eco-paranoia, is relatively straightforward, other films, which
appear less preoccupied with nature, require more careful investigation. For
instance, the classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which focuses particularly on
an alien threat, remains ostensibly preoccupied with a specific form of right/left
ideological paranoia and appears resistant to the more overt ecological paranoia
cited above. Nonetheless, the film’s primary trajectory remains focused on human
identity together with the implications for a progressive expression of ecological
identity as opposed to those emanating from anti-human life forms.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
1950s America was steeped in representations of conformity aided by post-war
economic expansion, with the ‘pod people’ in Invasion of the Body Snatchers
serving as an effective metaphor for the McCarthy show trials. McCarthyism
promoted mob rule and the diminution of human individuality. 7 For many critics,
the ‘pod people’ came to reflect non-individualised simpletons who accept losing
their personality and selves for the good of the system, not unlike the Communist
system or the Borg in Star Trek, to be discussed later. Political debates can more
easily be engaged with when displaced through representation of societies that are
non-terrestrial.
The Cold War, which was much like any other war with regard to how the mass
media functions, essentially served to polarise public opinion. The slogan
demanded of every citizen affirmed ‘You must be either with us or against us’.
Freedom of expression has not got the same cosy liberal meaning during such
periods as compared to peace time when the mass media, not to mind
audience/public manipulation, is not as strategically important to the body politic.
The takeover of ‘normal’ middle American town-folk by alien pod people while they
sleep represents the eternal struggle to uphold sacred liberal notions of humanity,
which must be defended by right-minded individuals. Kevin McCarthy sums up
the mood when he says to Dana Wynter in the film, ‘All of us harden our hearts, only
4 Conspiracy Thrillers and Science Fiction 145