Repo Man Can't Help It. Society Made it This Way.

Repo Man. Repo Man. Repo Man. What to do with you? Are you the anti-Regan era rejecting the nostalgic notions of the conservative 50s and a backhand to the resurgence of the Cold War anxieties? Are you a postmodern "youth culture" film about how there is no ideological point-of-view? Or are you a crazy, campy 80s film that was only a small budget over from becoming a Troma or one of the other extremely low budget scifi punk films a la Return of the Living Dead? Something tells me that you have become a hybrid beast of all of the above, Repo Man. But still,what to do with you?

What have low budget B-movie films of the past taught us? Don't judge a really outlandish and poor production value as something dismissible with nothing to say. Repo Man has plenty to say in a short 90-some minutes. For starters, aliens are among us and killing us all! The other is yet again introduced to us, this time it is channeled back to the 50s, an era Reganites would be proud of, or would they? Taking the fear of the other and making them comical (a glowing alien in the trunk of a car evaporates you. There. Is. No. Way this is supposed to be taken seriously) completely negates the anxieties and frankly makes anyone who ever believed in them look stupid. Bring in Regan, who according to the article, was campaigning the idea that the Communists were an evil empire and brought production of the neutron bomb, which would not destroy buildings, only people. This idea of buildings not being destroyed ties to the 80s submergence of mass consumerism. Hey the people might be dead but at least there's still malls to shop in! The bomb is tied to a scientist who just had a lobotomy and drives around like a mad man with alien bodies in the trunk. Resurgence of anxieties of the other and atomic warfare are flipped on their heads. Pair that with the idea that this car, a Chevy Malibu, is being tied to a $20,000 reward and I'd say the 80s culture is being packaged and satirized nicely with a neat little bow. The ultimate goal of the repossession characters is not to get behind what devious plot the government is planning or stop the a war, or bring down the other. It is to get a sweet car and a boatload of cash.

Then we have Otto and the rest of the punks. Past youth culture films like The Wild One that deals with delinquents, but they are delinquents that have a goal. The ideal world for Marlon Brando's character is the open road, freedom, and the girl. In Repo Man there does not seem to be an ideal. Yes, they are out for money. But they also are doing things just to do them. The apathetic attitude Otto has towards his job most of the time gives the feeling that he could care less if he was fired. The punks just want to commit crimes. Yes money is involved but they do things just to do them. They do not have a hierarchy of ideals. They are lost. They do not find anything serious. They embody the postmodern 80s youth.

To wrap up, it seems that playful nature with Regan nostalgia and the rebel without a cause or care oozes with postmodernism and wants to showboat the silliness of the anxieties the 50s and 80s allowed to become overwhelmed in. Apathy is cool, man. Now, let's go commit some crimes.

Clever Rosemary's Baby Title

The first thing that struck me about Rosemary's Baby, other than the plot seems to be taken straight from a death metal song (a woman is raped by Satan and carries his child because witches form a coven want to bring forth the anti-Christ: bring on the metal growls, guitar solos and corpse paint! Devil horns up!), was that the film takes an almost exclusively feminist point-of-view. The film is written and directed by a man, Roman Polanski (might I add the irony in him making a film with the word "baby" in the title, I swear this is my last digression), and shows the abuse a pregnant woman faces by not only her husband but her entire world at that point. I found it fascinating that the audience is being subjected to a woman being exploited in the 60s and it being put into such a negative light. After reading Karyn Valerius' "Rosemary’s Baby,Gothic Pregnancy,and Fetal Subjects" I was given a whole new feminist light that really hadn't occurred to me, which was the issue of abortion.

In class I believe Dr. McRrae mentioned something about the film not necessarily talking about abortion, but I think it takes a pretty clear stance on the issue. The film also obviously deals with certain anxieties coming with pregnancies at the time, i.e., the taking of medicine that gave babies birth defects. Rosemary even looks at her pills at one point and repeats the word "monster" almost as a direct statement to address the issue. But to get back to abortion as my main theme, Polanski shows us a woman trapped into keeping the baby causing so much pain and anxiety. Granted she belts out that she does not want an abortion, and we know she's a willing mother, but she also isn't given a chance to make her own decision about the pregnancy either. She's being made to go to a whole other doctor whom we can't trust. She is being forced fed a drink she doesn't want to take. In fact, her pregnancy was forced on her and the devil's baby was given to her against her will. According to the article, she was under special circumstances at the time to be allowed an abortion: she was raped and it was jeopardizing both her physical and mental health. The article uses a quote from Rosalind Petcheskey which I found to be very useful. "Not only is it not part of a woman’s body, but it contributes nothingto her sustenance. It only draws from her: nutrients, immunologicaldefenses, hormonal secretions, blood, digestive functions, energy. (Petchesky1984, 350)" I know, it's a horrible thought, but it's fascinating because it really is exactly what is happening to Rosemary. The baby is literally sucking the life out of her. She has a deathly look to her throughout the film that deteriorates more and more. Babies are such freeloaders.

Another way to show this as a feminist approach to abortion is the fact that others are choosing what goes on between Rosemary and her fetus, and not her. Who are making these choices dictating her baby's fate? Is it surprising that it's old people of a religious stance (well more like cult, unless you think Satanism is a religion) and not one of them "under 60"? As the article states, the unborn is given rights and individualized before it is even born. Pro-life people are known for sticking their noses in other people's uteri because of their belief that every fetus is a living being and the woman is to carry it term. We are given a demonized, pun intended, look at the pro-life movement through Rosemary's torment and psychological torture.
This is not to say Polanski is saying "abortions for everyone!" but I do believe he has a more cynical view toward those not giving women the choice of whether or not to carry the baby to term.

And oh yeah...HAIL SATAN!

Humanity's Invasion

There was a line in The Invasion of the Body Snatchers that seemed to sum up everything I wanted to cover about the alien invasion and replacement of the true person for the "revised" one, but the reading does not at first seem to back up the line. To paraphrase (since I was writing and listening and completely lost track of what I was writing down), Mile's voice over said something along the lines that after we lose humanity and have to fight for it we realize how precious it is. The humanity of the population of his great town is being stripped by the alien forces and he is forced to either comply or fend off against the growing alien population. At first the quote doesn't seem to resonate with much of Katrina Mann's "You're Next!" article because she focuses on the anxieties of the postwar 50s, but perhaps the article and this loss of humanity can be correlated somehow.

What was American "humanity" in the 50s? From past movies and articles we might be able to say that America's humanity was a white democracy in a male and middle class dominated society. If you will accept my definition of American humanity (aka the status quo of the time. I know it's a stretch but bare with me) then perhaps it's easier to find a connection between this line from the movie and an argument or two from Mann's article. The movie draws on the fear of losing the normalcy during the time of anti-Communism. Every 50s stereotype seems to be played on this film: the assertive, do-gooder dominant male; the complacent women of the town who are fragile and timid; and society working together in perfect harmony. Nothing could possibly go wrong in such a white washed little town. So we think.

The aliens stand for everything that stands against normalcy. Though the article's use of race seemed to almost be far-fetched to most of us in class considering there were no minorities used in the film, there does seem to be a point made in Mann's article. She talks of African American families starting to move into white small towns more after World War II. This was definitely something against the norm in these towns. Normalcy is what keeps the people of the town in the film "human." When things change, people get scared. The same could be said for the migration of African Americans and other minorities "invading" the towns of rural middle class white neighborhoods. Again, if we are accepting my definition of American humanity in that era, we can see how this migration can be related to Mile's line about losing humanity.

To derail from the article, the alien invasion has its obvious connections to fear of Communism. Our capitalist society cannot fathom a world where everyone is paid the same and not an individual. The individual could also be part of the "humanity" definition considering that is what the town in the film was losing because of the aliens. They are emotionless and expendable with no personal motives. They don't waste time on individual concerns such as love or money for themselves. Sounds like a pretty obvious tie to Communism, but didn't the director say he was just making a film and it's nothing more than just a horror film? I think that statement is more far-fetched than my definition of American humanity in the 50s.

The 50s: Fear Incarnate

Ah the 50's. What a peaceful and glorious time to look back upon. The war to end all wars was over with the drop of a bomb and the women were back in their respectful homes making dinner for the men after they get home from a hard day's work. Little Billy has been doing great in school and Susie just said her first word. There's not a care in the world in this ideological utopia that is depicted in all the television shows and popular movies.

Except there were plenty of cares and worries during this faux-utopia. The "Atomic Cafe" film was more than enough to attest to the overwhelming amount of fear and anxiety that seemed to be brewing in the aftermath of World War II. Film clip after film clip depicted the horrors of the Atomic Age. Hiroshima survivors were shown to have disfiguring radiation burns. Americans were so caught up in how we could tell ourselves "it's ok" or "we're safe" by ducking and covering, or being shown that a nuclear blast wasn't so bad. See the happy Bikini villagers? See the soldier running into the fallout zone after an atomic bomb test? All he can talk about is how beautiful the blast was. Those Commie bastards won't see what's coming! One can only guess that the soldier didn't see the affects of radiation coming later in his life either.

The film and "Civilian Threat" article really seemed to emphasize the importance of fear in the 50s. Fear kept people aware of the dangers of nuclear war. Fear put faith in the government and emphasized the importance of Christianity to not be apart of the atheistic red Commie. Fear kept people American. The beginning part of the article was what seemed most important to me. It focused on the fact that civilians would be the targets of an attack on America. I mean if we could do it to others (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) what would stop others from doing so? The "panic stopping" described in the article of drilling one's family doesn't seem to do more than suggest that the threat of war and death is real and being prepared is the only way to to have a chance in survival. If that thought doesn't scare the hell out of anyone, then I don't know what is scary. The bomb shelters being sold in the film clips also are a lot like the reminders of impending doom. Sure you think your safe but the reason you buy this insurance isn't just for safety, but that thought in the back your head telling you that you constantly are in danger of being vaporized by Communists.

We generally think of the 50s as being some sort of time of "normalcy" or a time of American "tradition" ,though the incredibly corny notion of "normal" back then is sickening in itself. Through the film and article we can see that the 50s were a time of high stress and constant fear of the other. If that's normal then I don't want to know what isn't.