After my stunning plot synopsis of the film in yesterday's class, I'm sure everyone is excited to here my thoughts on Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I got the sense that a majority of the class had issues with the film. Whether it be plot holes, issues with the representation of women, or just the film in general. I actually quite liked it. Sure it's campy, low budget, there's some bad acting, but I just took it for what it was, a 1950's horror movie. It's so bad it's good. I'm a big fan of films like that.I do agree that some of the film was over exaggerated. A big problem that the class as a whole agreed on was the depiction of women. Becky's character was annoying. That's the best way I can describe it. The relationship between her and Miles was equally as annoying. Aside from the mounds of cigarettes found at the beginning of scenes, dialogue bluntly stated that the two have had an intimate relationship.
"Becky: Is this an example of your bedside manner, doctor?
Miles: No, ma'am. That comes later"
The article "You're Next!": Postwar Hegemony Besieged in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, also discusses the way women are portrayed in the film. While he article stretches much of it's arguments, it was still quite interesting to read. Katrina Mann references the original novel, written by Jack Finney, to support and further her arguments. In the original novel Becky fights off the pods with Miles and ends up surviving. While in the film, she falls asleep and becomes another one of the pod people. After hearing the change from the novel to the film, I wondered why there would be a change. Mann believes that Becky survives only because Miles resists her sexual advances. Thus in the film she dies due to both her and Miles acting upon these urges;
"Her menace is located less in her destructive sexual appeal or sexual aggression than in her ambivalent sexual allegiance in the wake of the assault by aliens." (Mann, 61)
Mann also argues the film was a metaphor for minorities moving into suburbs and communities like Santa Mira. Mann believed that the aliens were supposed to represent illegal aliens, Mexican migrant laborers at that time. In one of the first scenes in the film, we see a community vegetable stand closed down. Miles is surprised by this as he believed the stand to be well taken care of and popular within the community. This is one of the first clues to us that something within the community is going wrong. Mann states that the reason why this stand and others would be closed down during this time due to the welcoming of Mexican laborers, called braceros. The produce trucks that were used to carry the pods in the film also seemed to copy those that were actually used to bring Mexican workers to the U.S. Along with this Mann argued that African Americans moving to predominately white neighborhoods was another influence for the film. Honestly the article just seemed a bit too crazy for me. Especially when she delved into the minority theories. It really lost me. But I did find the paragraph on Capgras Syndrome to be very interesting. It may be just a "postwar urban legend" but it still makes sense with the story. The syndrome was encountered by people who believed that their "loved ones were not who they claimed to be.
Another important piece of trivia I learned about the film was the original ending. The film was supposed to end with Miles screaming to drivers on the highway. Instead the studio decided to put bookends of Miles telling his story to a hospital staff. While the story is never fully wrapped up, the studio found it important to have a happier ending to the film. The importance to have an some sort of resolved ending to a film is something that American film always seems to need to do. In another one of my film classes, international films, we discussed this need. What do you guys think? Did it need the proper ending? Do you agree with Mann's theories?
