What Is Alienation In Invasion Of The Body Snatchers

In the 1950s, technology was advancing which could lunch nuclear weapons just like ordinary missiles, and rockets were made to put satellite, and fortunately a man, into space. During this time space was justified as greatest fear and desire. Despite the fact that lot of this era movies expressed fear of communism and war; Invasion of the Body Snatchers consisted a domestic fear and threat. A change that was shifting roles of women and creating its presence in American culture and society.

This film takes place in west. It is well know that western man were manly and dominant. The pods assume and recreate identities and forms of the humans. It is much hard to identify who is or who is not a pod member. In the begging of the movie little boy named Jimmy knows that his mother is not really his mother and Wilma knows that her uncle Ira is not really Uncle Ira. They way Wilma noticed this peculiar thing is that her uncle has no emotions whatsoever, just dissimulation. This is where the anxiety truly lies in the film: the viewer has no idea who is alien and who is human and it’s up to them to decide who is faker and who is real.

However, since alienation is external and not earthly it become an indicator of pods as a standing idea of communism which slowly takes possession of regular people. Well, this overlooks the more subconscious anxieties which are clearly detectable in film. There was more domestic issues going in America rather than communism at the time: the role of women in society, most importantly mothers, was shifting, racial difference were becoming a much more present issue in American culture.

Most of the time films which overturn human form or behavior and make of them something unusual mostly depend on their visual ...

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...ions of the past.

At the end, Miles undergoes and sees to many births. There is so many double meaning in the scene when he carries Becky into a long tunnel where they hide from the pod people. This is resemblance of mother womb which has birth canal which is a symbol of birth. Yet, Miles birth becomes successful as he is born into the society where authorities can be trusted, doctors have social powers and so on. Becky’s is birthed as a pod, because audience is led to believe that the FBI and police will be able to contain and destroy the Alien infestation. The order of traditional and cultural convention will be restored. The film is about the restoring of order to a society threatened within. By examining the scene more closely and trying to connect them with contemporary events, you can see that these anxieties are played in relation to changing role of women.