1. Presentation for POL 338 Dr. Kevin Lasher

2. Monsters, Punks and Despair
1950s: Good Times
BUT ALSO
Monsters, Punks and Despair

3. 1950s: Good Times
US as world’s dominant economic, military and cultural power
US GDP about 1/3 of world GDP
World’s leading manufacturer
Low unemployment

4. 1950s: Popular President
Eisenhower 65% approval from

5. 1950s: Baby Boom

6. 1950s: Consumer Society

7. 1950s: Escape to Suburbia

8. 1950s: Creation of Middle Class

9. 1950s: Problems

10. 1950s: Problems
Civil Rights movement

11. 1950s: Problems
The Organization Man

12. 1950s: Problems
Cold War

13. 1950s: Problems
Nuclear War

14. 1950s: Problems
McCarthyism, HUAC and the Blacklist

15. Hollywood and the 1950s

16. Hollywood and the 1950s

17. Hollywood and the 1950s

18. Hollywood and the 1950s

19. Dark Side of 1950s Hollywood
“Black Films” which represented modern life as violent, corrupt and hopeless

20. Dark Side of 1950s Hollywood
Films about troubled teen-agers and juvenile delinquents

21. Dark Side of 1950s Hollywood
Bad teen-age girls

22. Dark Side of 1950s Hollywood

23. Atomic Monsters
Japanese Godzilla

24. Atomic Monsters
Giant radioactive ants in Them

25. Atomic Monsters
Giant radioactive crabs

26. Atomic Monsters
The Incredible Shrinking Man was exposed to radiation

27. Atomic Monsters
The 50 foot woman was NOT exposed to radiation (she encountered a giant alien)

28. Alien Visitors
Martian invaders destroy everything until they catch an Earth virus

29. Alien Visitors
In Earth versus the Flying Saucers, unknown alien ships wreak havoc until a scientist perfects an anti-magnetic ray

30. Alien Visitors
Kind but frustrated alien tries to convince humans that we will not be allowed to “export violence” once we begin to explore space in The Day the Earth Stood Still

31. Communism Hollywood Fears
Dissatisfaction with consumerism and suburbia
Atomic war and atomic radiation
Alien invasion
Another this-worldly “alien danger”?
Communism

32. Hollywod Fears
Not the case that every “1950s danger” is a metaphor for communism
But some were

33. Invasion of the Body Snatchers
1956

34. Invasion of the Body Snatchers
More written about this film than any other science fiction film?
Open to various interpretations
Compelling story remade three times

35. Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Communists want to turn Americans into “soulless”, group-oriented beings
Communism comes from the sky and from within
One can never rest in the struggle against communism #1

36. Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Anti-communists (like HUAC) seek to promote unthinking, patriotic conformity
If you do not conform with the anti-communist struggle, you are treated as a threat #2

37. Invasion of the Body Snatchers
1950s American society was creating a mind-numbing cultural conformity
Americans were losing their humanity through consumerism, corporatism, and suburbanization #3

38. The End