First Shot: We are of peace, also

This week’s big out-of-the-blue controversy: Is ABC’s marginally watchable remake of the 1980s alien-invasion miniseries V really a withering anti-Obama allegory?

The Chicago Tribune certainly seems to think so. And it’s not hard to see why, given the show’s basic framework: Mankind gets suckered into accepting a message of hope, peace and personal security proffered by an alien ruler whose attractive exterior obscures a scheming reptilian heart. She and her young, attractive minions ingratiate themselves into our democratic society by promising a multitude of instant advancements, including sweeping improvements in the treatment of injury and disease. “Universal healthcare,” another character summarizes, lest we miss the point.

This wolf-in-savior’s-clothing business is hardly a new concept in sci-fi: Not only is the program, as already noted, a remake, but both it and its predecessor owe a debt to “To Serve Man,” The Twilight Zone’s classic paean to xenophobia. Yet the only counterargument The Huffington Post’s usually excellent Jason Linkins can mount to the Tribune’s interpretation is that V is just a space opera, and nobody on its creative team has a political agenda that’s discernible via a quick scan of his or her resume on imdb.com. So move along; there’s nothing to see here.

It’s a shame, because that sort of lazy pooh-poohing cedes the ground of analysis to the chortling teabaggers. As I mentioned, a low-functioning idiot could spot the similarities between V’s prostrate human populace and the experiencers of Obamamania. (Which is why I’m fully expecting Rush Limbaugh to eat up a couple of on-air hours doing the exact same thing tomorrow.) But what somebody needs to point out is just how effectively the program’s literal dragon lady, Anna, also stands in for a certain other real-world political figure.

You know, the one who has a book coming out. Oh, you betcha.

Here’s just a cursory list of reasons the program’s visitors are equally interpretable as metaphoric Palinistas:

1. Near the beginning of the first episode, a TV broadcast makes reference to a nationwide housing crisis and an economic stimulus plan that’s already underway. The show’s milieu is thus clearly established as our current one, in which the government is attempting to manage a crisis that, on our plane of reality, Palin and her running mate could barely acknowledge. In other words, don’t look to the skies for Barack; he’s already here. The enemy is the other side.

2. The arrival of the aliens in their massive spacecraft provokes all manner of physical aftershocks, including sending a crucifix hurtling toward the floor of a church. The easy interpretation is that the visitors are being submitted as godless threats to our traditional values. Yet the dominant image is of a huge wooden Jesus narrowly avoiding crushing a fleeing priest and a parishioner in a wheelchair. The message: Something is coming that’s akin to blind fundamentalism in its ability to squash us all.

2. The alien leader, Anna, is a dark-haired woman whose first televised appearance earns the ultimate plaudit from some horny kids on the street: “She’s hot.” ’Nuff said.

3. The press is depicted as initially being too suspicious of Anna and the other visitors – too hard on them, too cynical. To turn the tide in her favor, she intimidates a potentially pliable reporter, telling him point-blank that she won’t respond to any queries that’ll place her people in a bad light -- a demand as brazen as (and baldly reminiscent of) Palin’s avowed intention to answer questions her way or not at all.

4. Far from fostering a renaissance of secular humanism (or reptile-ism, as the case may be), the aliens’ landing is depicted as providing a boon to traditional worship, sending people flocking to church for guidance and communion. The Vatican even embraces the newcomers as “God’s children.” 

5. Late in Episode 1, it’s revealed that advance scouts for the aliens have been on our planet for some time, infiltrating our institutions and setting the stage for their takeover by fomenting “unnecessary wars” and guiding religion toward fanaticism. As transformative agendas go, it’s a far cry from volunteering for ACORN.

And even the soon-to-be-notorious “universal healthcare” gag is worthy of exploring in a deeper context. The only reason the aliens can insinuate themselves with such a promise is, obviously, that we’ve failed to bring it about ourselves. Arguably, it isn’t the ideal of healthcare that’s being challenged, but the cost of dithering about it and then accepting it uncritically from the wrong source. (The first episode of V just happened to air on the same day the Republican counterproposal for health “reform” was announced.)

Still, I dearly wish the show’s producers had left the metaphor implied, and not literalized it in a manner that seems destined to appeal to the surface prejudices of a certain type of viewer – or radio host. (One wonders if the “universal healthcare” line was part of the weeks of tweaking that were recently undertaken to make the series suitable for airing.) The atmosphere these days is so noxious – so polluted by the conflation of anti-big-government sentiment with racism, jingoism and barely coded calls for political assassination – that we can’t risk misrepresenting an otherwise bipartisan satire for the sake of a cheap joke. (Likewise troubling: scenes from upcoming episodes that seem to show the alien invaders benefiting from loosened “immigration” regulations.) I’m all for sci-fi that keeps its jabs fair and balanced, but any network exec worth his salt has long since figured out that nuance just doesn’t play in promos.

Posted by Steve Schneider on 11/3/2009 11:15:36 PM Permalink | Comments: 0

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