1950s American Science Fiction Analysis

'1950s American science fiction was an allegory of contemporary attitudes to Communism'. Discuss with reference to ONE film.

1950s science fiction films are widely regarded as the 'golden era' of science fiction. Their extraordinary popularity during that time was not only due to the novelty and the advancing technology they showcased but also due to the underlying themes that fit into the Zeitgeist: disguised anti-communist propaganda and Cold War paranoia. Elements of the 'Red Scare' can be found in multiple science fiction films of the 1950s, which all have several things in common.
In this essay these elements will be examined, as well as the methods these films use to implement them. Lastly the 1953 film Invaders from Mars will be analysed …show more content…
Firstly, in the most general sense, the very nature of alien invasion films portrays the human race as victimised. In these films, humanity has to defend itself against an unknown outer force, which has its own evil plan, often to destroy or control the earth. Therefore it is suggested the human race could fall victim to a threatening system (communism) and that the outcome would be a dystopia. In order to instil this fear of a communist dystopia, these films rely on multiple elements. Cold War politics of that time had a major impact on the general feeling of anxiety, suspicion and paranoia, which becomes evident in one of the major aspects of science fiction films: the alien. In specifically 1950 sci-fi, alien forces, usually depicted as a dangerous and powerful enemy, are used as a metaphor for communism. However, it is the nature of the alien antagonists that prove their connection to anti-communist propaganda. For example, a major reason people were against communism was a fear of brainwashing and loss on individuality. 1950s science fiction plays on that fear by often portraying aliens as a homogeneous mass of evil, a strange force that no one can empathise with, or remotely trust (Hendershot, 1999). People's fear of brainwashing back then stemmed from 'a general fear of national takeover through the use of much …show more content…
. . . The enemy within is then paradoxically marked by non-difference: "communists" are people just like us save for the emptiness of the eyes and a certain automatism which betrays the appropriation of their bodies by alien forces' (Jameson, 2013: 96).
The inability of knowing who is or is not the threat therefore increases the paranoia that communists could be anyone and everywhere and that they are capable of hiding their true intentions while infiltrating the country. This kind of 'the enemy within' way of thinking stemmed from the fear of espionage, which was common during the cold war. (Hendershot, 1999)
Another important point is that Hollywood essentially exploited people's post-war anxiety in order to lure them into the cinema despite the overall dark feeling of the era- by making equally dark themed films that deal with exactly these fears. Hollywood's goal was increasing popularity of science fiction- and making use of the audience's fears was the most lucrative action (Hendershot,

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