Friday, September 13, 2013

"You're next!" The "Us vs. Them" Mentality of Cold War Culture

You need to watch the ending in case you missed it:


The surprise twist ending: Nancy has survived the pod invasion, but Matthew did not.  The bloodcurling zombie scream he emits is his way of alerting other duplicates to a human presence.

So how does all of this relate to the Cold War?  Consider the ways in which Truman's Policy of Containment, as well as the McCarthy Era attempted to identify an "other" as the enemy.  Relate your understanding of the film to the historical context.  In what ways do you see the American government identifying and rejecting an "other" in their policies?  What was the threat posed to American society after the war?  Do we still see such fears and threats posed to our society today?

12 comments:

  1. Well obviously the American government didn't want anything to do with Communism or anybody that agreed with the idea. I think its ridiculous how if you call someone a communist now a days its an insult. The government engraved in the minds of Americans that communism was bad and shouldn't be taken lightly.

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  2. I think the movie has a lot of aspects which connect to McCarthyism and the anti-communist mindset people had at that time. the paranoia with which random people where accused of being communist relates to the fear of not being able to trust even the closest people, because they already might have turned into soulless "pods". In the fear of becoming a pod, you might also see the fear of loosing one's own personality and becoming equal to everybody else, which is what a lot of people fear about communism.
    I think that America is looking a lot more relaxed towards communism, but where I come from, the USa is still seen as overly capitalistic. I just have share the trailer to one of my favorite German movies which looks at this a little humorous. It's about two young college students who decide to go see America after the Berlin wall has fallen and when they arrive and enthusiastically explain at immigration that no, there no nazis at all, but FREE communists, you can imagine what the reaction is...
    It's really funny, you should have a look.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYIQcIyOxAo

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  3. The movie showed how the invasion of these "bodysnatchers' spread so quickly and so immensely to the point where no one could escape it. This can be connected to the fear of the spread of communism during the Truman/McCarthy era. The US government is afraid that if communism continues to spread, things can get out of control and soon enough the US will be "taken over" by communism, just as the town was taken over by these vicious bodysnatchers. It also showed how this force is just so powerful. Even though the main characters were so involved in stopping the bodysnatchers and never wanted to fall asleep, the power of these "other" people was just to immense for them to keep escaping. This exemplifies the communist threat to America. Many Americans were SO afraid of communism just because of how easily one can be turned over by its increasing power.

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  4. The pod people were able to spread out into society at a rate that no one knew what was happening until it was too late. This could relate to the spread of communism, thus stating that communism is something that will turn everyone into clone-like figures. The ways that the pod people identified humans was important, I feel, because McCarthy wanted people to point out the 'others'

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  5. Well the rate of the spread of the alien people was probably relative to how those who feared communism thought it might spread. something that was interesting about what the pod people were saying was that it was better to be them, that they were better off that way, and that sort of relates to the idea that, in theory, communism is actually a fairly good idea which is why so many people were willing to jump on board, it's simply in practice that it sort of turns sour so being like the aliens wouldnt even be all that bad (except for maybe the weird screeching thing) but they didnt seem too upset about the whole thing and to not have as many emotions would actually be, in theory, something quite a few people might go for.

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  6. I think that the film is a great representation of the fears that the government had about the spread of communism. Just like in the movie it only takes one "seed" to spread the idea around and if that idea was that america was doing it wrong and Russia was doing it right then that was a problem. I think that the fact that it started off small then went into a group, then went into the entire city is the realization of the fears america had about communism. We even saw some McCarthyism in the film when everyone was claiming that one person was a clone. If one person was marked out as a "clone" they were outed from the group, but the scariest part is that the "strongest" of the group can fall as well and that is what america was afraid of.

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  7. This film demonstrates the fear of both the government and communism spreading. Communism was spreading rapidly and if it were to spread to a certain point, eventually it would have been uncontrollable. The US government was afraid that if Communism weren't contained, it would become more powerful than them. Also, people did not know who to trust during this time, just like in the film. Some people were clones who were a threat to the normal people. It's sort of ironic how the government was afraid of Communism brainwashing people, but yet the government brainwashed the people into accusing others of being Communists.

    And to respond to Hannah's comment...that is an interesting fact...I can definitely see why another country may look at the US as over capitalistic.

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  8. Fear, it was all about fear. In fact if you replace the town that the body snatchers took over with the entirety of America and the fear of the body snatchers with the fear of communism and you have invasion of body snatchers come to fruition in reality. Minus the aliens of course. And there is one other twist to the reality version, communism didn't win. So in that regard a Truman's Policy of Containment and the whole McCarthy era succeeded.

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  9. As we saw throughout the movie, the spread of this invasion was so incredibly fast that no one knew what it was or what is happening until it is too late. This relates directly to communism and how it was spreading at a rapid pace. There were efforts to stop or delay the spread such as the policy of containment but unfortunately wasnt as successful as we would have hoped.

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  10. I think that this film along with other films relates to the Cold War through its themes of fear and expansion. Just as the people in the movie greatly feared the bodysnatchers, the people (influenced by the government) greatly feared communism. In both the movie and the actual Cold War, the characters/people aimed to stop the spread of these things. Although prior to the movie I could not imagine there being a connection, quite a few parallels can be drawn.

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  11. The movie relates to the fear of Communism because of the American idea at the time that Communism was like an infectious disease, and that if one came in contact with it, it would consume them and ultimately take over the entire country. Because of the unknowns of Communism, and the fear of losing freedoms, Americans were terrified that Communism would end up infecting them or their neighbor, because they saw examples of it in Europe that spread like a wave, infecting everything that it touched. Americans had this anti-communism agenda and fear without every American fully understanding what Communism is, just the idea that it is bad.

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  12. communism was and still considered as a incurable mental disease like zombie invasion, anyone who got infected would get marginalized right away even executed or get through assimilation brutally. The film kinda relates to the states quo of Cold War make a lot of sense to me because it's just amazing to see how many people are involved within the mental infection and regards other as hatred and deadly feud。

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