Saturday, March 5, 2011
Are You Now or Have You Ever Been a Member of the Communist Party?
A lot of really good 1950s political, cultural, and social themes showed up in this most recent episode of Angel, "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been." However, I really responded to the interesting connection between a paranoia demon and the era of rampant McCarthyism. McCarthyism was essentially the motivation behind a mass anti-communist paranoia in the United States, between the late 40's-late 50's. Senator Joseph McCarthy was a proponent of anti-communist sentiment using tactics such as fear, paranoia, and panic to spread his message. I thought that the visual of the paranoia demon in "Are You Now..." was perfect, although could've done with a few adjustments. I liked that the paranoia demon had red eyes, red being the color associated with communism. The classic black hood and disfigured palish blue face always make for the creepiest of villains (see Voldemort). But the best feature of the paranoia demon was his autonomous set of testicles; I mean tentacles. They almost acted as the paranoia demon's minions, moving on their own to suck the hotel guests' souls out through tactics of paranoia and fear. I think that if we put McCarthy in a black hood with some slimy testi- tentacles, he would resemble the paranoia demon pretty closely.
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3 comments:
I keep forgetting that this episode kept revolving around McCarthyism since it was also heavy on racsism. There was a lot going on in this episode for it only being 1hr.
Its really fascinating to think just how pervasive the feeling of communist paranoia was in 1950's America. McCarthy held the power to ruin lives and question countless members of society, standing unopposed and without much objection to his methods. The fact that someone could have such unchecked power in an openly democratic setting such as the U.S. really shows us what the emotion of fear can drive us to do.
Smart post and comments! Regarding Adam's point: it is well worth thinking about how anxiety over communism and anxiety over race are quite similar, at least in terms of creating paranoia, etc.
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