Isms of the 1950s

Invasion of the Body Snatchers, a science fiction film of the 1950s, revolves around the idea of alien infiltration. When people seem different in the town of Santa Mira, California, general suspicion is aroused. Dr. Miles Bennell, the local doctor, tries to figure out the mystery, and eventually he does. Pods from space are spreading on Earth and overtake people’s bodies, turning them into non-thinking, non-feeling, barely human clones of themselves. As more people are being overtaken, the mission to clone people grows stronger with each person that is cloned, until only Miles and his girlfriend Becky are left. They find themselves in a cave, having fled, and when Miles leaves Becky for an instant, she has been cloned, and he finds himself alone in the world. Finally, he makes it to the police, and they take action to stop the invasion.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers, a science fiction film, is about the fascination of the American public with ideas of conformity, communism, and control. In a post WWII era, Americans were terrified at the prospect that they couldn’t guarantee control over their lives, just like Europeans couldn’t guarantee control over theirs. Soldiers had come back from the front lines, and they had seen graphic and horrific images of starved human skeletons. The Nazis had used mass-control and conformity to carry out their Hellish work, and people were intrigued and terrified. “Science fiction films presented indirect expressions of anxiety about the possibility of a nuclear holocaust or a Communist invasion of America. These fears were expressed in various guises, such as aliens using mind control, monstrous mutants unleashed by radioactive fallout, radiation’s terrible effects on human life, and scientists obsessed with dangerous experiments” (O’Donnell 169). The film is a reflection of these fears. It is not necessarily a fear of one specific ism, such as McCarthyism or communism, as many have claimed. America had changed drastically in the previous years, partially due to events abroad, and soldiers had brought back moral questions and dilemmas with them. The film is a culmination of these newfound American fears, as many aspects of the film reflect these new isms and the ways in which the world was changing.