Andy's Archive: They Live (1988)

Credit: Universal Studios

The 1980's were a time of excess. If you were a rock star, you had to have the biggest hair and the baddest leather jacket. If you were a child, you had to own every He-Man toy and accessory under the sun. If you were a business man, then your goal was to own the fastest sports car and have a wardrobe just like Don Johnson. If you were a woman, then you also wanted big hair but you wore tight leggings rather than leather jackets. It was a culture driven by spending, with the politics being that if the wealthy were wealthier, it would trickle down to the lower class. The beginning of the 21st century was much the same way, but wardrobes were updated and the plastic action figures were replaced with Apple products and Playstations. However, what if all of those trends were fabricated by other-worldly ghouls that wanted to contain us like cattle? 

John Carpenter's They Live is very much in the same vein as RoboCop, which was released to theaters just a year earlier. It focuses on the loss of identity of its hero who lives in a commercialized world driven by big business. The violence and humor is as much of a distraction for us as a viewer, as "consuming" and "obeying" distracts the citizens from realizing they are only serving an agenda. Its not really known what agenda that is by the ghouls because "Rowdy" Roddy Piper blows into town like a wild western drifter and tries to save the day. His weapon is a shotgun and cool sunglasses that reveal these ugly ghouls and their subliminal messages. Perhaps they only came to Earth because they like our fashions, yet they're hideous, so they decided to disguise themselves to blend in. The alien make-up may seem cheesy by today's standards, but it does have its own charm, which is something modern sci fi epics could learn from; sometimes simpler is better.

I enjoy John Carpenter movies because they're really basic storylines, with simple sets and simpler music scores, but somehow he gets the most out of using very little. I've also noticed that the best John Carpenter movies seem to feature a common, "every man" character who has to fight against very large odds. "Rowdy" Roddy's one-liners still crack me up, yet as I've grown older the pacing of the movie still seems a bit slow to start. However once he discovers the sunglasses, its pretty much a wild ride beyond that point. Another thing about getting older is that I'm realizing movies like this are more than just science fiction. The population really does seem as divided like it is within the movie. The rich, upper class flourishes because the politicians are funded by big businesses; the middle class is shrinking; the lower class is growing. Its certainly not as radical as it is portrayed in They Live, where the upper class have condos and the lower class have shanty towns and share canned goods. Yet our society transformed over the past two decades to become more like the setting in They Live, so who knows what the future holds for the next twenty years.