Invasion of the Body Snatchers Essay examples - 956 Words

In the 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the birth of something horrifying takes place in Santa Mira, California. Dr. Bennell and Becky are two long lost loves from their youth and are reunited after years of no contact. Upon returning from a business trip Dr. Bennell notices odd occurances that start unraveling before him. After a few instances of strange behavior among Dr.Bennells patients begin to take place he quickly becomes aware of an imminent epidemic spreading through the town. The parallels between the theme of the film and rising fears of communism and related topics of concern during that time are captivating. Communism was an ideology originating in the Soviet Union with the ideas of establishing a†¦show more content†¦It wasnt until he began to see for himself the body casts of his friends and loved ones in transformation that he began to believe it himself. At first the pod developed itself inside of a greenhouse, it then proceed to create human figures that looked exactly as the people of the town. Once the look alike has formed completely, the real human that the pod would take over must fall asleep in order for their body and mind to be possessed. Once possessed, there is a drastic change in movement, emotion, and speech. The pod is just a body that needs to survive and will do whatever it takes in order to exitcute its main objective. The same went for the rising fear of Communism moving in. It started like a seed blowing in the wind, as referred to beginning form of pods in Body Snatchers. Those small seeds turned into larger pods and the hub of fear, the mother ship was represented by the large seething plant producing carbon copies of the humans they intended on taking over. This was the view of so many of what would happen if Americans did not hold tight and secure to their capitalist roots. Capitalism is the ideology of a market economy, where most production and forms of the economic system were privately owned. There was an idea of liberty and freedom that went along with the ideologies of capitalism which sent rushes of fear to the possibility of what the U.S.s understanding was of the absoluteShow MoreRelatedInvasion Of The Body Snatchers1808 Words   |  8 PagesSavannah Dye Short Essay #3 October 18, 2016 Invasion of the Marriage Police Invasion of the Body Snatchers is widely dubbed an anti-Communist film by those who have seen it. The plot of the movie is that unfamiliar, extraterrestrial â€Å"body snatchers† are taking over the bodies of people in a small town in California while they sleep, and replacing them with clones that lack emotion. For the most part, a general consensus has been reached that the mass hysteria about the â€Å"pod people† in the filmRead MoreThe Soviet Union And The United States1603 Words   |  7 Pagesespionage during the Red Scare and finally to nuclear war and continuous conflicts between the two superpowers during the mid 1960s. The Invasion of the Body Snatchers captures the American sentiment towards communism in the late 1950s. As a film made in the Hollywood blacklist era, the sci-fi horror story follows a doctor from California who discovers the invasion of alien plant spores from space which grow into large pods that can reproduce an exact copy of a human without emotion. These pods displayRead MoreThe Cold War Between East And West From The End Of The Ussr Essay1596 Words   |  7 Pagespropaganda machine used mainly for denunciation purposes secured the box office a chief function in the Cold War. A multitude of films were introduced with varying dimensions on the same topic. â€Å"The Iron Curtain’(1948) along with â€Å"The Invasion of The Body Snatchers†(1956) and â€Å"The Witch Hunt†(1994) were amongst films which proliferated during the period. The influence of the house of Anti-American Activities (1938) under President Truman and the Era of McCarthyism (1950s) slowly morphed intoRead MoreThe Science Fiction Film Genre Essay1691 Words   |  7 PagesThe science-fiction film genre serves as an excellent medium for examining shifting power structures, social paranoia and Cold War politics during the 1950s. A number of films released during this period, including: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Them (1954) and Attack of the 50ft Woman (1958), are particularly symptomatic of the social and political atmosphere of the time. These films navigate not only narrative based issues such as the threat of aliensRead MoreThe Influence of Science Fiction1059 Words   |  5 Pagesparanoia and fears. Their paranoia was perpetuated by their fear of invasion and espionage, the fear of radiation and the fear of social change. Many of the films produced used the science fiction genre to dig deep er into these fears without frightening the audiences off from their political message. Even though the United States and the Allies won World War II, there was paranoia about Communism including the fear of invasion by the Soviet Union and China. This fear came from the Cold War andRead MoreThe Content Of The Cult Film They Live2044 Words   |  9 Pagesstate of false consciousness’’ (Rayner and Wall, 2004:79) and this is applicable to They Live as there are a series of tropes that Carpenter utilizes in the film. Firstly, the films structure, which is similar to that of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Invasion of The Body Snatchers, 1957), where otherworldly beings live among us, remaining incognito and running our reality in which humanity is enslaved. This can also be interpreted in the original short story. Class antagonism also plays a large partRead More Stephen King Essay768 Words   |  4 Pagesthen that King sensed for the first time â€Å"a useful connection between the world of fantasy and that of what my Weekly Reader used to call current events.† Eventually, countless viewings over the years of such classic horror films as The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Thing, and It came from Outer Space convinced him that the horror movie’s chief value is â€Å"its ability to form a liaison between our fantasy fears and our real fears.† The fortunate discoveryRead MoreThe War Against The Soviet War854 Words   |  4 Pageswould depict the dangers of communism and highlight the virtues of democracy. These films were made and released to the public as anti-communist propaganda, keeping American citizens anxious and firmly against communism. Movies such as ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ (1956) and ‘Red Planet Mars’ (1952) conveyed much the same message despite hiding behind science fiction; the aliens in these movies were used as metaphors for communism that displayed hive minds with the ultimate goal of slowly but surelyRead More Facing Our Fears in Science Fiction Essay3400 Words   |  14 Pageson paranoia. Families built bomb shelters in their backyards and schools held air raid drills for their children. Science fiction thrived on society’s fear, with films such as The Day the Earth Stood Still, The War of the Worlds, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. In these films, along with their numerous brethren, the alien invaders were â€Å"often a metaphor for Communism† (Dirks). The Day the Earth Stood Still was an early warning to the world, and a commentary on paranoid society whenRead MoreCodes and Conventions of Genres Essay1260 Words   |  6 Pagesconflict between us and them and the positive or negative aspects of science and the future. Many of the science fiction films made in America during the 1950s - It became from Beneath the Sea (1955), The invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) featured invasion by aliens. The portrayal enabled people of those eras to construct more modern and futuristic views to the world. The films set standards for the iconography of the 1980s and 1990s science fiction films