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Invasion of the Body Snatchers
In the sci-fi classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers, a small
town is gradually overtaken by a race of aliens. Since the aliens essentially
clone their victims, there is no easy way to tell the humans from their
conquerers, and everyone becomes suspect.
Released during the Cold War, Body Snatchers can be read as a
metaphor for the dangers of Communismor, paradoxically, for the
tyranny of Commie-hunting McCarthyites.
Whether
they intended to or not, the creators of Body Snatchers picked
up on a core truth about conspiracy theories: Secret organizations typically
form to combat secret organizations. Conspiracy theorists have a peculiar
tendency to resemble their enemies. As historian Richard Hofstadter once
noted, the Ku Klux Klan imitates Catholism by donning priestly vestments
and developing elaborate rituals and hierachy. The far-right John Birch
Society emulates Communist cells and quasi-conspiratorial operations through
"front" groups.
For the creators of Body Snatchers, the mechanisms of conspiracy
were especially close to home. On and off since the 1930s, the House of
Un-American Activities had lashed out at Hollyhood for spreading "communist
propaganda" (meaning films that portrayed the working class sympathetically
or explored issues like racism and poverty). Bruised and battered, Hollywood
steered clear of political controversy ("propaganda") and instead
started cranking out anti-communist propaganda. In the new, HUAC-friendly
genre, commies were bad, mean people who "didnt have children,
exhaled cigarette smoke too slowly, and murdered their friends."1
Here, then, was a case where accusations of conspiracy were used to engineer
an actual conspiracy: Supposedly subversive movies were simply replaced
with a different form of propaganda.CM
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