SotA Anthology 2015-16
to be organised and strictly
regimental, clearly serves
as the perfect metaphor
for Soviet communism, as
the anti-Soviet propaganda
of the decade frequently
depicted the Soviet citizenry
as mindless drones who
had been brainwashed into
submission by Stalin and
his henchmen (Brooker,
2001, p.143).
If the ants are meant to
represent the communist
enemy that was being fought,
then Them! does not only
portray them as regimental
and
highly
organised,
but also associates the
totalitarianism and savagery
(a term used to describe the
ants a total of four times
during the film) of the ants
with this communist threat.
However, whilst the ants
do very clearly serve as a
metaphor for the paranoia
surrounding
the
threat
of
communism,
there
is perhaps an alternate
reading, in which they are
used to portray concerns
about
the
American
government. To defeat the
ant colony, the American
society depicted seems to
sink to the same levels of
totalitarianism that the ants
are portrayed as operating
under – in Los Angeles,
martial law is declared as the
authorities look for the ants’
nest, with all the citizens
made to obey in order for
the threat to be defeated.
In this way, the film seems
to convey the message
that in order to defeat
the enemy, the forces of
authority in America would
do away with democracy
in order to meet the threat
(Brooker, 2001, p.144).
The authorities in the film
also seemingly go against
the first amendment of the
American constitution: the
clearly reflect the role of
women at the time. Patrick
Sharp discusses the role of
traditional masculine values
in the film, suggesting that
freedom of speech, press,
et cetera, as throughout
the majority of the film,
they readily supress news
of the ants in more and
more extreme ways: whilst
initially just hiding it from the
press, the latter stages of
the film see a man who has
seen the monstrous insects
detained in a psychiatric
ward to keep him quiet. For
a society which prides itself
on its constitution and the
amendments that ensure
their right to freedom, their
right to bear arms and their
right to vote, this depiction
of the American government
perhaps serves as a warning
to the American people –
when faced with a threat like
communism, America could
very easily abandon its own
values in an effort to win.
the period following the end
of the Second World War saw
a nationwide reassertion of
these traditional masculine
values, where women were
encouraged to return to the
domestic sphere (Sharp,
2008, p.215). In this case,
then, the character of Dr
Pat Medford is one that
counters this expectation of
women at the time, though
this is balanced with her
femininity and role as love
interest. When Pat is first
introduced to the viewer,
the film presents her in a
light that only reinforces the
beliefs of the time, evoking a
somewhat classical view of
how a woman is presented:
as she descends a ladder
from the aeroplane we are
presented with a mid shot
of only her legs, bare from
where her dress is caught.
This use of a focused shot
on her legs immediately
presents her as an object
for the men, suggesting
As well as the anticommunist messages that
permeate the film, the film
also carries messages that