ANDY GILL

This week’s theme is fear. The films we watched, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Guilty By Suspicion, and Bad Day at Black Rock specifically deal with the fear of communism, while our reading of the essay “I Can’t Get That Monster Out of My Mind” dealt more with a fear of Hollywood itself, a stark contrast to the discussion of the Hollywood Black List and the red scare in Thomson’s The Whole Equation.
In the 1955 science fiction masterpiece, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, there is an underlying current that addresses the HUAC hearings as well as the fear of communist infiltration. The film itself, however, can be interpreted in two ways, pro-communist, and anti-communist. I believe that the film is anti-communist, and it is my opinion that the pod people represent communists. The pod people were working together, in large groups (one can almost call them communes), trying to undermine the local government (which obviously represents the United States), and only the vigilant doctor, who figures out what’s going on, survives. The film goes through several moments that leave the viewer with the impression of “if I see something strange I should report it!” A perfect example of this would be toward the beginning of the film. Miles is driving his car back to the office when a young boy runs in front of the road screaming bloody murder, Miles jumps out of the car to see what is wrong. The boy’s mother says that he didn’t want to go to school, the audience then hears Miles’ voice over saying something to the tune of “If only I noticed that sooner!” Here Miles is pretty much saying, if you notice something out of the ordinary, or that someone is acting differently than usual, report them, because they may be communists.
One of the more important, and best, shots of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is the scene where Miles is looking out a window and watching the pod-people congregate in the town square. The downward angle of the shot plays up the sinister nature of the scene, elevating Miles (both physically and metaphorically) above the pod-people, the evil communists that our good All-American doctor is trying to stop. Not only are they planning to take over the country, but the fact that they are doing it so out in the open seems almost to be a slap to the face to any good republican from the 1950s.
By representing the communists as a group of evil, scheming group consisting of everyday American men and women (and even children!) and pointing out to the viewer at the end that “You’re NEXT!” the classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a perfect demonstration of the paranoia of communist infiltration in the 1950s and early 1960s.