In this episode Andrea and Alex deep-dive into John Carpenter’s cult-classic exploring the ways that materialism, Marxism, and maximalism have driven us to the edge of consumption.
Check out our Class of 2024 merch! Artwork by the incredible Candice Purwin.
REQUIRED READING
They Live. Dir. John Carpenter, 1988.
EXTRA CREDIT
“Eight O’Clock in the Morning.” Ray Nelson’s short story that inspired They Live.
The Politics of Gender Presentation – Why what we buy to wear matters.
The Films of John Carpenter. John Kenneth Muir’s examination of Carpenter’s filmography.
LISTEN
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I like Carpenter as a director more than you guys (he was less of a one-trick pony than Romero), but this film is probably the dumbest one regarded as a classic. The hero isn’t supposed to be a dummy like Jack in Big Trouble in Little China, but he really acts like one. He starts insulting people and shooting up a business immediately rather than trying to lie low so the aliens don’t realize he’s onto them.
“Life’s a bitch and she’s back in heat” sounds like a reference to Bertol Brecht’s “[T]hough the world has stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again” from an allegory about Hitler.
Knowing about something doesn’t stop it from continuing, so don’t expect that from The Substance either. In the case of advertising, see https://meltingasphalt.com/ads-dont-work-that-way/ And in the more specific case of advertising in They Live, the subliminal messages are completely needless https://www.econlib.org/archives/2005/11/chomsky_scifi_t.html
You bring up the west not heeding what Marx wrote. The same can’t be said of the east. Have you ever discussed that? I can’t say that Russians, Chinese, Koreans or Vietnamese were less “exhausted” than westerners.
On “No Logo”, you might be interested in Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter’s “The Rebel Sell”.
Loved this! Re the racial undertones of the fight between Frank and Nada, Nada’s famous “bubblegum” line came from the (also famous) barbershop scene in the 1973 film “Five on the Black Hand Side,” where it was part of what’s been called a proto-rap by a Black male character bragging about his sex life. Don’t know if Carpenter has ever acknowledged that, but it adds another layer to the conversation about the racial undertones of “They Live.” (The rap also makes a reference to “Sweet Peter Jeeter,” which is a song by Rudy Ray Brown. Brown is credited as one of the main progenitors of rap.) One could easily argue (and someone probably has, but I’m too lazy to look it up right now) that the alien propaganda in “They Live,” especially “Obey,” has been used against Black Americans by white Americans since forever, which makes me wonder if the appropriation of the bubblegum line was on purpose to make a point, or if Roddy saw “Five” and “borrowed” it, suggesting adding it as part of the collaboration with Carpenter. Regardless, loved the episode.