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| I wear my sunglasses at night. |
This movie was made for activists, presenting the ideas of
an extreme activist. I'm a moderate activist, myself, but I've spoken to the
extreme folks and I get it. Here's the basic viewpoint: The United States is
falling into poverty because of leaders who are taking resources and using them
for nefarious purposes. They are paying off people who might whistleblow and so
keeping them quiet. Meanwhile, your average person is on the edge of being
homeless, pushed around by those in power, numbed by television and other forms
of mass media which convince us all to consume and obey the powers.
Of course, since They Live is a science fiction story, the
leaders are alien businessmen and you need a pair of special glasses to see
what's really going on.
In one sense, They Live is a spoof of this viewpoint, and a
comedy. Two guys spend almost ten minutes in a fistfight, trying to get one to
put on a pair of sunglasses, after which they are the best of friends, walking
around with bruises and puffy faces. I'm still laughing at the ridiculous of
that scene.
On the other hand, the insidiousness of the paranoid
scenario is scary, because it is partly true, and we know it. All I have to do
is mention Dick Cheney or Edward Snowden and we know that there's something to
it. That same fight scene touches something deep, because the man who won't put
on the glasses knows that this new knowledge of the world will change him,
place him and his family in danger, and so he desperately is resisting that
insight. He has too much at stake.
But the knowledge is there, in the real world, and sometimes
we can't avoid it. We will often stumble upon it, pursuing our own interests. I
am involved in homelessness and I know that there are blocks to certain kinds
of homeless folks ever succeeding to fit into society, even though they are
doing nothing wrong. I also know that others are being paid hundred thousands
of dollars a year to shuffle homeless people from one street corner to another,
and to make it look as if they are really accomplishing something. I personally
know pastors and churches who are professional level societies, who talk about
justice and peace, but won't do anything about the beggars around their corner.
But I also know that this is nothing new. The issues of
homelessness and of white trash are older than the discovery of America. I wish
that we could blame our callousness and ignorance on aliens or the Illuminati
coming to take our resources. But more often than not it is bureaucracy that
stands in the way of relief. I wish that we couldn't see the messages,
"Sex is success" or "conform" without a pair of glasses on
every magazine. But it is all human, all coming out of our everyday natures. It
is all easy to see, if we would but look. The ignorance is within ourselves,
because, like Frank, we'd rather be secure than know. Because if we admitted
that we really knew how evil our culture was, then we'd have to do something
about it.
As far as the film itself, it is really well done, balancing
the two sides of hinting at paranoid reality and laughing at the same point of
view. There is but one problem: the lead actor. Roddy Piper as the lens through
which we see this world is a very poor choice. He can't even rummage through a
box of glasses believably, let alone give us a believable line reading. Never
have I missed Kurt Russel more.
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