Monday, April 21, 2014

Culture and the Cold War

How did the film trailers (Invasion of the Body Snatchers/The Crucible) as well as "Leave it to Beaver" demonstrate the mentality of the 1950s?  To what extent was it a commentary on the ideals of American society vs. "the Other"?

15 comments:

  1. From the film trailers of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Crucible and Leave it to Beaver, we can see many things about the mentality of the 1950s. Not only did we see the concept of "perfect family" but also how womens were portrayed as somewhat stupid and ignorant. From what I saw from the trailers, I was able to come up with the fact that women's role in 1950's were to marry and take care of the household. This clearly shows how in 1950s, United States had a chavinistic towards men.

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  2. The take away from Invasion of the Body Snatchers, of my own, it's that people are still fearing about communist taking over there country. The aliens are analogy of communists. They(aliens) come to the earth is as USSR spies come to US. Showly, human with the same appearance are not with the same heart. Without noticing, earth will be taking away by aliens. That is my take away. Just as I would assume, the USSR would have communists in the US government. Without noticing, US can be easily turned into communism. Leave it to Beaver, is a movie about american perfect family, I agree with what Jason said. However, I am not the theory that women are portrayed as stupid and ignorant. I think their society role are just less involved with the process of making money but keeping the whole family together - by taking care of children and husband.

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  3. "Leave it to the Beaver" delineates a typical ideal American family. The family featured in the show has both parents and two sons. Family members love each other. The dad plays golf during the weekend, and goes home with his wife waiting for him. Everything seems too perfect to be true. On the other hand, the invasion of Bodysnatcher as well as the Crucible points out the xenaphobia sentiment in the U.S. both during the Cold War and after. The invasion of Communism causes turbulence among everyone's life in the states. McCarthyism exemplifies this paranoia. The Crucible is an analogy to American's society during the Cold War. Arthur Miller insinuates the absurdity of the HUAC by relating the HUAC and the witchcraft trials.

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  4. Leave it to Beaver portrays a common image of the "perfect" American family. It shows a wife that doesn't work, but stays home all day to take care of the house and the kids. The husbands comes home at the end of everyday to be greeted by his wife and two sons. The only way this could be more American would be with a daughter and a dog. The Body Snatchers seems to make a lot of references to America's struggle with communism. It expresses a feeling of uncertainty and panic and fear of sleeping because beings from a different world will invade and take over your body. The same with the Crucible. The power that the woman had in that movie is similar to that of McCarthy. It was so easy for someone to accuse and for you to then be looked at as a bad person. Evidence wasn't even needed.

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  5. Both of the film trailer show indirectly the fear that came up with the conflicts between communists and capitalism. The American society was full of fear during the Cold War and literally feared everything. The three videos showed as well as luke and jason said how the woman was still very underestimated . Women were really unfairly treated such as ignorants and useless sometimes. On the video of the family, we see how America was much poorer but how rich families worked. They gave mostly everything that the children wanted and the woman had to take care of the kids and the house while the man made the money in the house.

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  6. Both "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "The Crucible" show the tremendous fear that people had towards any "other". Particularly in Invasion of the Body Snatchers I agree with Luke in that the aliens represent the Communist party who supposedly had infiltrated the united states and who were feared. The Crucible helps show the irrational fear that went through people, and how it often took innocents. It also shows how people were so willing to lie in order to protect themselves in those times of insanity. Leave it to Beaver portrays the perfect house, with a wife who is there to feed and welcome the husband (also sort of dumb). A husband who provides all the money, and two perfect children who make mistakes but turn out just fine. This reviles the values of the society at the time, and gender roles.

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  7. The trailers depicted the ideal families in the 1950s. In the 1950s the model family was defined by the wife working in the home, taking care of the children while the husband went to work outside the home in order to keep the family wanting for very little. Leave it to Beaver was a commentary of a perfect post world war II family. The wife stayed at home, she wore pearls while she vacuumed, the father worked in an office, the children had good relationships with each other as well as their parents, and their house was quaint and perfect like the rest of their lives.

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  8. I think "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "The Crucible" showed how the American society was sort of afraid of being occupied or attacked or influenced by the outsiders, here it can be specifically refer to the conflicts between communism and capitalism. Throughout the movie you can see how much people are afraid of those "outsiders" getting into their place and controlled other people. Because communism spread out really quick and soon got a lot of followers, it can be refereed to the Body Snatchers. On the other hand, "Leave it to Beaver" showed a ideal family with a very stereotyped wife that is considered perfect an the family functions in a specific way to demonstrate a perfect American family. However, the entire model of the family was made toward idealism, which is merely a image and encourage people to do what the "perfect family" does, this somehow made the US society seems too idealistic and ridiculous.

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  9. I think the trailers and the sitcom showed two different sides of the 1950's. The sitcom, "Leave It To Beaver" portraid the "perfect" American family during the 1950's with pretty simple problems such as Beaver not having enough money to pay for a bike. The show also portraid the average woman and what her main role was in the house, always look nice and cook. The trailers for "The Crucible" and "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers" showed a different side of the American society. It shows the struggle, and the not-so-perfect side of America. The main points of these movies were to show what was going on in America through different stories. I agree with everyone that said that the "aliens" were the communist party in "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers." I also agree that "The Crucible" represents all the falsely accused victims of being communist.

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  10. The view of the typical American emerged during this time period: a middle class, white family with a beautiful wife who cooked and cleaned all day while the husband was at work. These shows and movies just reiterated that ideal American picture. This very ideal helped solidify Americans into a common group so they found more in common with each other than with outsiders or "Others". Having a common appearance among a nation and its people is good, it provides more camaraderie, However, with a country like the US, especially today, its almost impossible.

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  11. I think that the movie trailers depicted the fear that was installed in every American during the Cold war. In Invasion of the Body snatchers, the duplicates that are taking over the Americans bodies are supposed to be their double, or their Russian side. In the Crucible Arthur Miller uses the Salem Witch Trials satirically to poke fun at McCarthyism. In Leave It to Beaver, it depicted to us what the perfect family would look like in the 50's. The wife wold stay home all day, take care of the house and cook for when the husband arrived home from work.

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  12. I agree with other people when they say that both of the trailers show how the US put fear into the lives of the people. For example, in Invasion of The Body Snatchers, the aliens of the people are representing how when a person goes to sleep they are really never safe from the government because the aliens are the government and the people are just the ordinary people. In the crucible it shows how there were a lot of witch trials going on during the cold war all over the US and over in Europe. Lastly, Leave It To Beaver showed a "perfect" family in society with the two healthy kids, the husband and the wife who is always there for her husband however she is depicted as a bit stupid which shows that the male presence is the dominate one in the house.

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  13. the only trailers that i found to relate to the mcarthy era was the trailer on the body snatchers and the witch trials. the connections that could be taken away from the witch trials were the fact that everybody was lying on each other. the fear produced from uncertainty turned the community on itself and disarray soon followed. also in the movie body snatchers a alien presence can be compared to the rise of communism. the alien presence represents communist ideals trying to insert themselves into our everyday life.

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  14. It demonstrated the mentality of the 50s because it showed how scared everyone was from communism. The body snatchers were supposed to represent communists, and in the crucible, the trials were supposed to represent the accusations of determining who is communist. These movies shows how much fear is going around because they made movies that sort of describe the mindset of how everyone was feeling.

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  15. "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" may have not been directly been about The Red Scare, but it was inspired by the feelings creating it. The movie itself is more of a creative art piece rather than a social commentary, as it reflects and connects with the fear in the hearts of Americans, as people tried to remain as neutral looking as possible, and avoid government "brainwashing" (which really poured out in the 60s). Eisenhower put numerous PSAs on TV about how to be kind to each other, how to act on a date, how to apply makeup, etc. Though these may be considered "brainwashing" by some, they served as basic guidelines on how to be successful and non-communistic, and ultimately benefited the people by spoon-feeding them the guidelines on how to be successful and not blacklisted.
    Families in "Leave it to Beaver" have made their impact in American society as the "nearly perfect" American family. They continue to be featured in American society as time goes on, such as in "Happy Days" (1974), P!nk's music video for "Family Portrait", and in Britney Spear's "If U Seek Amy" video. They are the family that is always thought of when people think of "The American Dream"-- and that's exactly what they were. They were the government's American Dream family-- a conservative, well dressed, wholesome family with a submissive, beautiful mother, sweet, innocent children, a well-educated, loving father, all complete with beautiful healthy smiles. Subconsciously, it made people strive to live such pleasant lifestyles, and helped give a guide to middle-class families around the nation.
    Variety and game shows such as "The Ed Sullivan Show", "The Milton Berle Show" and "What's My Line?" were also government-regulated attempts to showcase some role model American socialites like Eva Gabor and select actors and actresses like Doris Day.

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