I just had another thought about the Science fiction/space Movie themes in our culture. Recently, most of the movies in the SciFi genre have been about alien invasion.
Are these movies/tv shows a reflection of the concerns and attitudes of our society?
Star Trek, out of the 60's, had themes of equal rights, altruism, exploration, and logic and intelligence being the tools of success.
Star Wars, from the 70's, dealt with forces of good and evil and the battle for supremacy.
Current SciFi centers around the theme of aliens invading and destroying earth, or at least humans.
It is pretty easy and obvious finding the correlations between current events of each era and the popular scifi themes.
The 60's, (Star Trek)
Human rights, feminine rights, space exploration, hippie peace and love and eastern philosophy.
The 70's and 80's, (Star Wars)
USA vs Communism, Western culture vs. Middle eastern culture, The expansion of Capitalism
Current times, (Alien, the Matrix, Terminator, Battle LA, MIB, District 9, Independence Day)
In America, the perceived threat from illegal immigrants, muslim religion and culture. New disease and drug resistance. The rise of technology in our everyday lives.
Of course there are those Scifi flics that fall outside of this view, but this is just a observation of how our pop culture still can give some insight to current moods of our society. It is also very interesting to see what kind of hopes, and ideas get stated in movies that can't be easily voiced when they refer to real events and situations in our lives.
Peace, Live long and Prosper, May the force be with you, Phone Home......
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