the invasion of the body snatchers

Science fiction film stands out as a major catalyst of the anxiety and paranoia that was apparent in the United States in the 1950’s. 1950’s America was a ticking time bomb: people read daily about the threat of a communist takeover and the end of the world as a result of nuclear war. A specific type of science fiction film became popular in the 1950’s, the ‘alien invasion’ film. The paranoiac themes of these films provided the framework through which post-war anxieties about altered and ‘invaded’ bodies could find expression. Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers did just that; it was a ‘social’-science fiction film that explored the invisible yet psychologically unbearable fears that penetrated America in the fifties. The following essay will discuss The Invasion of the Body Snatchers as a metaphor for fifties America; it was a film that intensified the issues of communism and atomic radiation, which were the paramount factors of anxiety and paranoia at tha...