Based on your viewing of The Outer Limits episode “The Bellaro
Shield” and understanding of Jeffrey Sconce’s essay on the show,
explain how The Outer Limits expresses and potentially
intensifies particular anxieties prevalent during the early 1960s.
"The Bellaro Shield" episode definitely plays on Cold War anxieties of weapons and invasion. There is constant fear of a communist invasion or threat of a nuclear war during this point of American history. When television or cinema has aliens in it, it channels that fear of an invasion from overseas, to a fear of an invasion from the the skies. It not only plays on a familiar fear but aliens are some what symbolic of the possible invaders from Europe. Also that sense of "arms race" is present here. They want that shield for military purposes. This shows how Americans felt the need to be prepared for a possible war, that every military advancement they have is one step ahead of the Soviets. Alas, this is a deep historical reading that would make this show extra terrifying.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, the television set being the window to the world suggests that this is a portal to the scary dimension on television. If this was viewed at a movie theatre, the audience could leave the theatre and leave the room in which they were afraid. The television set is in the house making that room haunted, but also it acts as a door for the monsters and aliens to enter. As the Sconce article mentions, the transmission aspect of the program makes the audience feels that some dimension is in their home taking complete control of their television. Coupling a science fiction narrative with the unknowns of new technology combines a fictional fear with the everyday appliance: the television.
The climate in America during the 1960s was tense to say the least. The Cold War posed an unpredictable and very real threat. Constantly on the edge of a nuclear war, Americans took every possible precaution to prepare for such a war of devastation, and were also on a continuous search for something to give them a leg up on the opposing side. This concept of the “arms race” is a very clear connection between The Outer Limits episode “The Bellaro Shield” and the real world in the 1960s.
ReplyDeleteIn the episode, the alien possesses a device that creates an impenetrable shield, one that could protect the whole world if used correctly, and this is something that the lead woman in the episode desperately wants. This is representative of America’s desperate need for secure protection from a nuclear war. If the Soviet Union were to launch a nuclear attack the United States had no sure fire plan for defense, which is of course a troubling thought. This discovery of an impenetrable shield in the episode speaks to the public’s desperate want for a similar discovery in real life, and perhaps helped to sooth anxieties in some way.
We could also view the alien in this episode as the Soviet Union, and the humans as the United States. Just as the Soviet Union posed a threat of invasion, destruction, and of communism, so do aliens in most sci-fi contexts. This spoke to the audience of that time, and the immediate threat of war.
As the show and this episode in particular presents the encounter with an extraterrestrial life, it brings up the topic about the unknown and the paranoia of surveillance. For instance, following the period of the Red Scare several years beforehand, there was a tension in the United Stated with the Soviet Union and communism. This paranoia of having communist spies infiltrating the US caused an increase in security and surveillance of anyone suspicious. Friends, family, neighbors, coworkers would even turn on each other for being suspected. These series of events in US history influenced the demand for privacy and censorship of information.
ReplyDeleteMoving towards this show, the apprehensions that existed from surveillance paranoia was played out in science fiction television. As noted by Jeffery Sconce, “Surveillance technology has long been a fixture of science fiction, of course, and The Outer Limits made frequent use of this device” (Sconce 31). In the episode, the fears of extraterrestrial life became a reality as contact was made with an alien who appeared in the home. This fear was established with the screams and laser shooting at the alien who appeared to be a threat. In the real world of the 1960s, the space race occurred as a competition to send the first man to explore space and other outer-Earth treks. Besides the competition, there was a desire to explore outside of what was known on earth and make sense of the unknown.
ReplyDeleteThe Outer Limits both expresses and intensifies prevalent 1960s anxieties about space travel, atomic warfare, communist invasion, the television as an electronic eye on the home and “the emotional limbo of suburban domesticity” (p. 151). In the “The Bellaro Shield” episode these anxieties are all expressed in some form. Laser technology easily brings the alien from the depths of space into a place that looks like our world suggesting that although space is infinite we are still vulnerable and the Bellaro Shield, a perfect device to defend against atomic warfare, malfunctions which also plays on vulnerability in the way that it suggest that even a “Bellaro Shield” would be useless since it is flawed. The shield also represents and even resembles the TV and the emotional nothingness of domesticity in the way that the television is used to as a tool of domestic asylum to contain women in the home where they can experience suffocating effects and feel trapped or claustrophobic even just like Judith. The “The Bellaro Shield” episode of The Outer Limits also addressed fears about television as a tool for surveillance on the home through, again, the transmission of the alien to Earth. The fear of television as an electronic eye comes from the idea that if television, for us, is a window onto other worlds why can’t the reverse also be true that television is a window for others onto our world. In the episode the alien is somehow able to tune into the frequencies of the laser beam technology and is transported to the lab. The 1960s anxiety, which sounds ridiculous today, comes from people thinking that television could also be capable of this and it too could be a portal from other worlds.
Cold War tensions were high during the 1960s. The Cuban missile crises almost threw the world into nuclear war. People during this time had a reason to panic, the American public was reduced to a spectator where they had no control over what was to happen. The Outer Limits played with the anxieties of the time. It would open up with the “control voice” announcing that nothing is wrong with the television set and that from that moment on the program is in control of everything that is to happen. The American public was in that same situation. Nuclear war could breakout at any moment and they would be helpless.
ReplyDeleteThe feeling of helplessness is emphasized in “The Bellero Shield” episode. The American public is helpless to a nuclear attack. The episode provides this anxiety, but at the same time provides the answer to the problem with “the Bellero Shield.” The alien has the technology to protect himself from any type of weapon and the female lead wants to get this technology for her own gain. The existence of this force shield technology also brings up anxieties of countries, like the Soviet Union, having technology that the United States might not have. In some form this explains why the female lead acted the way she did. Not having such technology places you at a disadvantage and having it places you in a position of power and ability to negotiate who may or may not have it.
The Outer Limits really plays with the television and arises tensions that did not seem obvious at the time. The simple fact of not having no control over your programming places the spectator in a helpless situation.
After its introduction into the American home, television still remained somewhat of a foreign and alien technology, according to Jeffrey Sconce. With images and stories brought into the family home, any amount of information, in any capacity could reach American families across the country, which added to the uncertainty of television as a medium. In the case of the television series The Outer Limits, this idea of uncertainty was heightened through the series' terrifying images and threatening story lines. Seeing as the television challenged so many barriers, allowing people to experience what life was like across the world, The Outer Limits, which portrays a scientist’s communication with an alien and its manifestation on Earth, it can be interpreted that many Americans were left with uneasy feelings that this alien "invasion" so to speak would really happen, whether it be foreign powers, or aliens themselves...
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, as the Cold War reached crisis and escalation in the decade between the early 50s and 60s Americans were frightened at the prospect of foreign nuclear invasion. Tensions between the US and Soviets led to large amounts of competition, with the Space Race being one of them, which was led by the Soviets in 1957, as a technological battle between the two powers for the claim of first in outer space. These tensions were reflected in the overall American sentiment of the time, which proved to be an open invitation for The Outer Limits, to heightened these fears.
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ReplyDeleteThe Outer Limits, and specifically the “The Bellaro Shield” episode of the program, clearly air out the primary anxieties of the early 1960s. The obvious issue at the forefront of the United States public's minds through many years of this period was the Cold War. The arms race the United Stated had with the Soviet Union was a constant fear on the minds of American's. Do we have stronger weapons than them, are we defended against their routes of attack, and so on. In the show, the doctor has a very powerful laser weapon on his person. Like the United States, he had a very powerful weapon he thought could handle almost anything on Earth. However, as soon as the alien comes to Earth, he proves to have a shield powerful enough to completely negate his own technology. Even worse, the alien's technology surpasses that of the humans. This potentially intensifies the anxieties of the time by hypothesizing that maybe the weapons of the Soviet Union not only match those of the States, but even surpass them. As well as this fear of the technology and weaponry of the Union, The Outer Limits also touches on another issue prevalent in the Cold War period, the threat of non-human (or communist in real life) invasion.
ReplyDeleteThe first reaction the doctor's wife has when seeing the alien is to shoot it. This can be likened to an invading army; and when human weapons are made moot by its technologies, the alien has the potential to take over the world. If it had the intentions, the alien could wipe out anything it wants on Earth with its powers. Similarly, during the Cold War there was a rampant fear of Soviet invasion on non-communist territories in the world. The nation thought that if they fell behind technologically or mentally then the Soviets would take over the world or wipe out Democracy.