So, if you’ve read my “About” page, you know that I have an agenda about turning our attention in a more optimistic direction, and specifically imagining a better future, rather than sinking into a dystopic depression. That said, cautionary tales and satirical observations still have an important role to play in our collective psyche.
The highly underrated movie, They Live, written and directed by John Carpenter, and starring (Rowdy) Roddy Piper, Keith David, and Meg Foster, is such a story.
One branch of Science Fiction (and Fantasy) deals, not with what might someday come to pass, but with the possibility that the current reality may be very different than you think. This premise is generally introduced by opening a portal or passage to another world which is happening behind the scenes of the one we know.
In They Live, this mechanism takes the form of a pair of sunglasses that lets one see things as they “really are.” The protagonist, George Nada (Roddy Piper), upon donning the mysterious shades, finds himself in a world ruled by an insidious alien species, which is using a wide-spread illusion, for their own benefit, at our expense. This illusion encompasses essentially the whole world, imposed on humanity to enslave and exploit us, and blind us to their transformation of our world, the alteration of our atmosphere and climate, and the decimation of our quality of life.
Based on the very short (and very good) story, Eight O’clock in the Morning, by Ray Nelson (which I also recommend), They Live is not just an interesting ride, but a satirical indictment of our society. The world presented in the movie, including rising homelessness, pollution, climate change, extreme wealth disparity, and diminishing opportunity, looks exactly like our world (as of 1988, and increasingly so since then). But all that is actually the projected illusion, hiding a much more alarming “reality.”
When Nada puts on the glasses, every magazine page, every billboard, poster and tv screen looks different, bearing messages commanding the populace to “Marry and Reproduce,” to “Conform,” and “Obey,” etc., and perhaps most disturbingly, the print on money declares “This Is Your God.”
Interestingly, here in the real world, if you distill the underlying messages of many magazine (or online) articles and ads down to their core underlying messages, they do basically tell us to conform, obey, submit, etc. and to treat money as the most important thing there is.
But the movie does not stop there. It goes on to show us that some human beings, even understanding the truth, voluntarily go along with the aliens’ agenda, betraying their own species (and all of life on Earth for that matter), in exchange for the aliens’ largesse and a more comfortable place in the deteriorating world. And again, one might look around at the real world and see this behavior, just without the aliens.
This is more than a “what if” story. It’s a “what is” story.
What greater criticism could one make of our society than “this looks just like it would if aliens were destroying our world deliberately”?
Like any other movie, They Live has it’s flaws. Piper, brings his shouting wrestler persona with him into the role, which is a mixed blessing. It helps to keep the energy high and keep the story from becoming a depressing slog, but his tone does not fit every moment. I would say he did a truly excellent job of acting… for a wrestler. And the music soundtrack, though appropriate in it’s slow plodding beat, does get a little monotonous at times. But, at least for me, none of this is enough to ruin the ride.
So how does a movie like They Live fit into an agenda of envisioning a better future so we can go on to make it? I think stories like this help us us define those aspects of the world in greatest need of improvement.
On the map showing you where you want to go and how to get there,
one very important marker is the one that says “you are here.”
They Live provides that marker, and it does so in a way that is thought provoking, and also fun and entertaining.
