Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Pod People

Last night I watched the original "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" movie with my kids. They picked up the phrase "pod people" from somewhere, and I was trying to explain where it came from, it was easier to just show them the movie.
One of my favorite lines is from the small town doctor hero who says "I'm used to seeing people who have lost their humanity, but it happens slowly to all of us, over time."
After we watched the movie we had to see the trailer which featured these words of course:
They're Here!!!!
You're Next!!!!
So we decided that calling someone a pod person could be a really good put-down. Not everyone would get the meaning though.
Today I talked with them about the time the movie came out (1956), and the cold war situation, and how the movie is really about the American fear of how Communisms' aim was to turn everyone into the same, unfeeling, easily controlled creatures. Seems to me that TV and the media culture we have now is doing a pretty good job of that without any communist help.
And don't even get me started on the political version of pod people, there's a rant for another day...

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