Fear of an Alien Planet: Public Functions and Framings of Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life

Abstract

This paper explores popular representations of extraterrestrial intelligent life in their cultural context. How does the cultural environment affect these representations? How does the political economy of the mass media industry shape these representations? With Edward Said’s Orientalism (1976) as a guide, I will examine a sampling of commercially produced and globally marketed television and film content featuring extraterrestrial intelligent life – that is, “aliens.” Why are aliens such a common subject on television and in film? What do these make-believe aliens do, and mean, for viewers? I posit that these popular representations provide arm’s-length, safe encounters with the Other. These encounters may feed our yen for the new and different. On the other hand, and perhaps at the same time, they may be a manifestation of our fear of it. In fictional encounters with alien invaders, humans tend to end up exterminating the would-be exterminators. Post-Cold War, post-9/11, post-Gulf Wars I and II, in the 21st Century of Terror, the Western world has identified a new enemy, and it is anybody “different.” While bigotry, racism, sexism and xenophobia are not socially acceptable in Western “society,” they are all operative in contemporary culture. In the real world, vilifying and abusing people because of their origin, skin color, appearance, or beliefs is taboo. In the make-believe world of mass-media science fiction movies and “infotainment” TV, however, it is not only all right but encouraged. There, extraterrestrial intelligent life is routinely slaughtered en masse to save the (Western) world.