John Carpenter is a horror studio director that never really interested me. Aside from the original Halloween, I never really could say that I was a fan of his contrived horror lexicon. That was until I saw his masterpiece They Live. Carpenter was able to capture the alien Big Brother world we take for granted today in the form of a horror film. They Live also manages to capture the sociological elements facing the proletarian and their faceless masters.
The international mass media is able to “win” public opinion simply by having the biggest voice. Despite the fact that the media and entertainment industry only make up 2% of Americans “national” gross, these industries (aside from the dreaded American “public” schools) are possibly the most important “programs” in America (and international) for molding the lives on “individuals.” To put it simply, the media has a much more important purpose than “to make money.” John Carpenter’s They Live takes a look at this in a most frightening way.
The hero of They Live is a blue collar man (Roddy Piper) simply looking for hard work to do for little pay. Whatever job he should have had was probably outsourced to China so that Ari Cohen can have an extra vacation house in Las Vegas that his wife won’t know about. The blue collar laborer eventually finds a black friend in a similar job situation. Both men realize something is not right but are incapable of articulating their thoughts. It is not until Roddy Piper finds a pair of “alien” seeing sunglasses that he realizes there is evil behind the slave like irrationality of society.
The media masters and their “cute” puppets love to pretend that they are the good guys. The reality is that they are relatives of the same criminals that own the war promoting international bankers. They put on a Zio-clown like John Stewart because he’s “funny” and he “really sticks it to Bush.” Another robust and jelly filled media favorite is “documentary” filmmaker Michael Moore. Moore is an individual whose credibility lies in his “everyday fat American slob appearance.” Obviously someone like Moore is a “good guy” just looking out for the small guy. The Weinstein’s certainly approve of his genuine and honest look at the evil white men.
The media bosses are as honest with their “news” as Bolshevik mass murderers Leon Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin were real “proletarians.” The two proletarians of They Live realize that the only way to stop the mind numbing filth found on television is to destroy it’s various sources. The problem is even normal people are siding with the soulless aliens. What is one to do in a world where no one is trustable and the majority of individuals seemed to have suffered a TV induced lobotomy?
The reality is that public schools and big media sources are most crucial sources for causing racial tensions. This is brought up in a subtle way in They Live when a fight occurs between the muscular protagonist and his unconvinced black friend. Once realizing that poor blacks and whites have much more in common than they want to believe (through a fight to “look through“ the glasses), they join together to battle the real cancer. Whether it be the Jena Six Hoax (in which the Southern Poverty Law Center paid 20,000 blacks to invade a small Louisiana town) or the gothic white supremacist executed Columbine massacre (despite the fact that Dylan Klebold was Jewish), the media uses these events to propagate race based hatred and impotent white guilt. They have to have the masses consumed with hatred against each other so that no one can stop them from committing their evil genocidal deeds.
They Live is John Carpenter’s most powerful and important film. A film that takes a look at the hidden infestations in society, and has common men attempting to destroy it at it‘s very source. They Live is an even more relevant film today than when it was released 20 years ago. The media, television, and films are by far the biggest influences on Americans. For some reason, people seem to believe the televisions are just magic boxes that provide them viewing with no real reason behind it. I wonder what kind of face the Ghoul Rupert Murdoch has behind his already grotesque human mask.
The international mass media is able to “win” public opinion simply by having the biggest voice. Despite the fact that the media and entertainment industry only make up 2% of Americans “national” gross, these industries (aside from the dreaded American “public” schools) are possibly the most important “programs” in America (and international) for molding the lives on “individuals.” To put it simply, the media has a much more important purpose than “to make money.” John Carpenter’s They Live takes a look at this in a most frightening way.
The hero of They Live is a blue collar man (Roddy Piper) simply looking for hard work to do for little pay. Whatever job he should have had was probably outsourced to China so that Ari Cohen can have an extra vacation house in Las Vegas that his wife won’t know about. The blue collar laborer eventually finds a black friend in a similar job situation. Both men realize something is not right but are incapable of articulating their thoughts. It is not until Roddy Piper finds a pair of “alien” seeing sunglasses that he realizes there is evil behind the slave like irrationality of society.
The media masters and their “cute” puppets love to pretend that they are the good guys. The reality is that they are relatives of the same criminals that own the war promoting international bankers. They put on a Zio-clown like John Stewart because he’s “funny” and he “really sticks it to Bush.” Another robust and jelly filled media favorite is “documentary” filmmaker Michael Moore. Moore is an individual whose credibility lies in his “everyday fat American slob appearance.” Obviously someone like Moore is a “good guy” just looking out for the small guy. The Weinstein’s certainly approve of his genuine and honest look at the evil white men.
The media bosses are as honest with their “news” as Bolshevik mass murderers Leon Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin were real “proletarians.” The two proletarians of They Live realize that the only way to stop the mind numbing filth found on television is to destroy it’s various sources. The problem is even normal people are siding with the soulless aliens. What is one to do in a world where no one is trustable and the majority of individuals seemed to have suffered a TV induced lobotomy?
The reality is that public schools and big media sources are most crucial sources for causing racial tensions. This is brought up in a subtle way in They Live when a fight occurs between the muscular protagonist and his unconvinced black friend. Once realizing that poor blacks and whites have much more in common than they want to believe (through a fight to “look through“ the glasses), they join together to battle the real cancer. Whether it be the Jena Six Hoax (in which the Southern Poverty Law Center paid 20,000 blacks to invade a small Louisiana town) or the gothic white supremacist executed Columbine massacre (despite the fact that Dylan Klebold was Jewish), the media uses these events to propagate race based hatred and impotent white guilt. They have to have the masses consumed with hatred against each other so that no one can stop them from committing their evil genocidal deeds.
They Live is John Carpenter’s most powerful and important film. A film that takes a look at the hidden infestations in society, and has common men attempting to destroy it at it‘s very source. They Live is an even more relevant film today than when it was released 20 years ago. The media, television, and films are by far the biggest influences on Americans. For some reason, people seem to believe the televisions are just magic boxes that provide them viewing with no real reason behind it. I wonder what kind of face the Ghoul Rupert Murdoch has behind his already grotesque human mask.
-Ty E
let me try to put into context just how brilliant this film actually is, if orson welles had made science fiction movies he would had made something like "they live", and in my opinion the scene where roddy piper puts on the special sunglasse`s and see`s the world as it really is has got to be one of the single greatest moments in the entire 120 year history of the medium of the moving image, (for me it even ranks alongside the reactor chamber sequence in "return of the jedi" in terms of the unmittigated genius on screen), although for all its cult magnificence it still isn`t carpenters best film, that honour goes to, the one, the only, "THE THING".
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ReplyDeleteTy E, I have a genuine, not retoric, question: how do you manage to know exactly which director/actor/producer/midia person is jewish? Seriously, every time I did research on someone you called jewish, hebraic, kosher (even if he/she was a blue eyed blonde aryan type), I found you were right! Do you have a jew people database program that highlights the names? Because I want it too...
ReplyDeleteThank you for the great reviews, and for the film suggestions (I have been watching and re-watching some real good stuff because of you guys). This a refreshing site, a lighthouse in the dark seas of bullshit and mediocrity.