From: UFO UpDates - Toronto <ufoupdates@sympatico.ca>
Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2003 18:34:04 -0400
Fwd Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2003 18:34:04 -0400
Subject: Pop Culture's Encounters Of The Alien Kind

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Jul. 12, 2003. 10:24 AM

Pop Culture's Encounters Of The Alien Kind

Vinay Menon

If aliens are among us, chances are they've stopped watching
television.

Who wants to travel millions of light years to be portrayed as
an insidious annihilator or bumbling imbecile? Who wants to come
in peace only to be accused of planetary conquest by a bunch of
paranoid homo sapiens?

And who wants to be associated with Alf or the Great Gazoo or,
most distressing, John Lithgow?

Intergalactic roamers once knew the worst place to have saucer
trouble was over a cornfield on Planet Earth. Because as soon as
you touched down, amid a time-halting flash of white light, some
hapless farmer would inevitably bolt into the shadows, screaming
at the moon while begging you not to probe his bodily orifices.

In this age of irony and celebrity, things have changed.

If a spaceship were to land in Central Park today, the only
commotion would be an enthusiastic horde of New Yorkers crowding
the glittering craft while demanding autographs and pictures
with the startled visitors.

We've come a long, long way since 1938, when Orson Welles aired
his famous "War Of The Worlds" radio dramatization and ignited a
mass panic. And, in part, this blas=E9 attitude toward the
extraterrestrial question is a by-product of popular culture's
unrelenting obsession ever since.

Over the last 50 years, alien portrayal, whether as good or evil
entities, has been linked to broader commentary on society and
culture. As you might expect, aliens are then either vilified or
glorified depending on the spirit of the time... The Day The
Earth Stood Still, Invaders From Mars, Close Encounters Of The
Third Kind, Alien, E.T.: The Extraterrestrial, Independence Day.

Alienated, a new Canadian comedy that premiered this week on
Space, uses the abduction narrative as a launch pad for more
terrestrial stories. After being abducted by aliens, the already
dysfunctional Blundell family must cope with new impulses that
are as bizarre as they are amusing.

Taken, Steven Spielberg's 10-part epic miniseries that's airing
on CBC this summer, is a shining example of the Benign Alien.
What's most fascinating about Taken is how closely it hews to
the actual UFO mythology while presenting a possible explanation
for alien visits.

Screenwriter Leslie Bohem anchors the sprawling narrative with
several significant ufological names and places... Roswell,
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Groom Lake, Betty and Barney
Hill.

This ability to fictionalize popular mythology is what made The
X-Files such a compelling program in its early years. Chris
Carter's show also inspired several imitators, including Roswell
and Dark Skies.

The predominant theme of The X-Files was government conspiracy.
The truth was out there. They were keeping it from Us.

Recently, the American Sci Fi Channel... apparently embodied with
the spirit of X-Files' Fox Mulder... has started lobbying the
U.S. government for more UFO disclosure. It's even considering
going to court to have certain top secret documents
declassified.

(Somewhere in the Zeta Reticuli, a long distance telepathic call
is being placed to Johnnie Cochrane.)

An anecdote, apocryphal or not, that has circulated through UFO
circles for years concerns a 1982 screening of E.T. at the White
House, where president Ronald Reagan was reported to have told
director Steven Spielberg: "There are probably only six people
in this room who know how true this is."

In the documentary Area 51: The Real Story, which aired on
Discovery Civilization this week, we learn U.S. military
officials were asked to consult on Independence Day. They asked
that all references to "Area 51" be excised from the script and
then declined to participate when their request was rejected.

And people wonder how conspiracies get started.

It's interesting to note how alien portrayal on television and
film has swung like a pendulum since World War II when people,
for obvious reasons, started gazing into the sky while expecting
the worst.

In the '40s and '50s, government conspiracies played only a
marginal role in the stories. The emphasis was on the Unknown
Alien.

By the '60s, as the counterculture surged to life, aliens were
less prevalent, but had become somewhat menacing and
treacherous: Dangerous Alien. In general, the '70s ushered in an
age of the God Alien... gossamer beings imbued with quasi-
religious qualities.

This would hold true in the '80s, only now the government seemed
to know everything and maintained a deadly force policy of
telling us nothing. There was a new emphasis on abduction, as
seen in films like Fire In The Sky. Abduction books such as
Intruders and Communion were also creating pop cultural waves.
(Can the abduction phenomenon be traced back to the Flash Gordon
comic of the '30s? Just wondering.)

Predictably, the blockbuster, special-effects '90s brought a
return of the Evil Alien, hell-bent on obliterating the world.
(To get the full pendulum effect, watch Close Encounters Of The
Third Kind and Independence Day back to back.)

But, dear aliens, what you should find most offensive is the
physical stereotyping that has survived the ages: Those wrap-
around insect eyes. The matte gray skin tone. The ridiculously
oversized heads. The tiny bodies neatly outfitted in silver
jumpsuits.

You should also consider starting a petition against "alien
sitcoms"... My Favorite Martian, Mork & Mindy, My Parents Are
Aliens, Third Rock From the Sun... a subgenre that created the
regrettable Comic Alien.

Because hearing "ShazBot" or "Nanoo Nanoo" one too many times
would prompt even the most peaceful alien to wipe out
civilization as we know it.