They Came from Outer Space

Today, I took my son to see a revival of the old (1953) War of the Worlds film at the Loews Jersey, a restored 1920s movie palace in our town. I had only seen it on TV before, a long time ago, and this was a real treat. The special effects, stunning for their time, are still quite watchable, and it's a decent adaptation of H.G. Wells's story. I found some of the dialog and acting to be far more dated than the effects, actually, especially the way the female lead carried on--screaming and crying and fainting and so on. It's interesting how much the way we expect women to act (in both senses of the word) has changed in the last half century. It's accepted and admired for women to act like the men in 1950s movies today (i.e., tough and heroic), though no similar change has come about for the male population.

In a way, I think our country has been taken over by Martians, only these aliens are called NeoCons. I was remarking to a friend the other day that it feels like we're now living in Bizarro World--that mirror universe from the old Superman cartoons in which everything is topsy-turvy. Cut taxes for the rich to deliberately bankrupt the government, invade countries for what they maybe, perhaps, could do to you (even if you're secretly none too sure that they could), appoint people to head government agences who want to destroy them, and on and on. An alien, Bizarro World country.

In the movie, it was the "littlest creatures"--bacteria--that finally defeated the Martians, after all else, including an atomic bomb, had failed. I'm wondering what the equivalent of bacteria are in our socio-political culture today. Something to ponder on (another!) dreary, rain-soaked day . . . .