Relax and Shop: John Carpenter's They Live is a Documentary

One of my favourite films is John Carpenter's 'They Live'.  It posits a world in which Aliens, (aka 'The Upper/Ruling Class'), control the populace through subliminal messages.  The hero of the film, a homeless construction worker played by professional wrestler Rowdy Roddy Piper, discovers special sunglasses, (referred to in the film as Hoffman Lenses, after Albert Hofman perhaps), which let him see how the Aliens are controlling us.

It turns out that U.S. Dollars really look like this.

Magazines tell you this.

And billboards are saying this.

There are many things special about this film:

1)    It's a Hollywood picture in which the hero is a homeless person.

2)    It has a 'Kubrick-like' structure of 2 acts - with the second act, which takes place after the discovery of the Lenses), having a completely different feel:  1st act is serious/2nd act is action film.  In the 1st act the hero is keeping his head down, accepting of the situation, sheep-like / in the 2nd act he instantly becomes an avenging everyman.

3)  The infamous 'fight-scene' in which the hero must convince his male friend, (played by the AMAZING Keith 'too much presence for the movies' David), to don the Hoffman Lenses for the first time:  this fight goes on for 5 minutes of screen time - and is simultaneously a jab at men's propensity towards violence, a commentary on how the common man is kept down through 'divide and rule' tactics, a satire on the movie convention of 'two guys gotta fight before becoming buddies' and a wonderful example of building tension through action.

I could go on and on but the point of this post is this:

'They Live', like most science fiction, is a commentary on the time it was made - yes, it's a few years old - but it's really about Our Time.  Its basic message is that those who rule over us use media to keep ordinary folks trapped in a system of enforced consumption for the benefit of the wealthy and powerful.

In the film, the  'man in the street' is unaware of the surrounding subliminal messages that compel him to shop and value money above all else.  The Aliens in 'They Live' have to keep these messages secret lest people rebel and revolt in reaction to being controlled.  But look at where we're at now.  It's worse.

I took the photos in this post a couple of days ago while waiting for a plane at Belfast International Airport.  The information screen there was no longer informing me about my flight times - it was telling me what to do.

Relax and Shop.

Consumer Capitalism has got to the point where the messages telling you to conform to the system don't have to be hid anymore.  And why not?  Since the Cold War's end there's no competing system to worry about.  No reason to hide the persuasion.

Relax and Shop.

But I think we can see the end point a' comin' - when the President of the United States had to say this after a major terrorist attack:

"They want us to stop flying, and they want us to stop buying."

then some thing's afoot.  I'm not sure what it is but there's something brewing on the horizon.

There's got to be a better way to live - one that's not based on mindless consumption of products.  I'm getting this feeling that we're in for some major changes - when our system has no reason to hide its propensity to order people around,  folks are going to notice.  Notice and resent.  That resentment's gotta go somewhere and people are tired of the lack of spiritual nourishment that we find around us.  That's a powerful combo.

OK, that's enough ranting for now, I'm off to read Time Out.  Not long ago they renamed their 'Shopping' section 'Consume'.

Comments

[d-man]

Amsterdam's airport has has "See.Buy.Fly" printed on all their bags for over 15 years. I don't think there's a revolution coming - people are worse than ever. Have you ever seen those "Black Friday" post-Thanksgiving sales in the US where people beat each other up just to get to the bargains? It's a sad modern permutation of the hunter-gatherer instinct in our blood. And of course, more and more exploited by tricky psychological techniques of manipulation (Goebels, anyone?). In some ways, it's no more different than religion = people feel comfortable being told what to do - they want rules and guidelines. For many people, purchasing something, even if they don't need it, justifies their existence! It's sad, but I don't think it will get better. I am constantly cringing at movies these days when out of nowhere, a can of Diet Pepsi or something, label facing clearly for all to read, will be directly centre-screen between the characters, the focal point of the scene composition. With all the outlets for advertising in the digital age, any hint of sublety (not that there was much to begin with) is going further and further out the door....."They Live" was always a documentary for me. It should be required viewing in schools!

[James]

I don't have the statistics to quote, but I believe that BAA (the British Airport Authority) earns more from retail and renting retail units in its airports than any other owner of commercial property in the UK.

*j*

[James]

Aha, found the book which contains the stats behind my last wildly unsubstantiated statement. It's an excellent read on the architecture of consumerism, pausing also to examine the abandoned malls of the USA and how airports are now more shopping centres than transport hubs:

http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/research/publications/project_on_the_city/shopping.html

*j*

[Brabazon]

I'm more disturbed by the amorphous black shape at the bottom of the screen.

Is that Jett's reflection? :)

[fústar]

This is the kind of thing I'd be up to if I was the text writer for such information screens (link may need tidying up):

http://www.fustar.org/wp-content/images/relaxandshop.jpg

Agree with you about They Live. They don't make 'em like that anymore. Eveything's too slick and bombastic these days.

[Jett Loe]

D-Man is right, 'They Live' should be required viewing in schools - though probably the teachers would worry bout the kids imitating the fight scene!

Re: a revolution coming - don't think that's going to happen - not in the conventional sense of a massive upheaval brought about by some sort of proletariat - am just getting a feeling...

...the same feeling D-Man I got when I wrote that pamphlet 'Plagiarism and You'; (full disclosure here - I've known 'D' since I was 11 years old, (I was a strange kid as you can imagine - recall that I pretended to be English for a while...ahhh that explains so much! - anyhew around 1990 I wrote this self-published pamphlet, ((yes, the days before blogging)), in which I described the coming 'Datasphere' in which all information would be traded back and forth electronically - causing untold problems with the nature of copyright/originality, etc. - 'Plagiarism and You' was prescient in an obvious way and am just getting the same kind of 'tingling' now that something's gonna happen).

[yacuncha]

When "They Live" first came out there were protests from Jewish organizations because some anti-semites thought the film was about the secret Jews running the world. Why Jewish groups would protest makes no sense; they should have stayed silent and secretly proud.

[Jett Loe]

You know who secretly runs the world? Nobody.

No one is in charge.