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The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street is a classic episode of the Twilight Zone that aired in the early 1960s. It is about what happens when a bunch of citizens hear that human looking aliens have invaded their neighborhood and paranoia strikes. They start pointing fingers at each other, believing anyone who is different must be one of them, the others. Until the others literally have no voice.
This is a common trope in horror, Stephen King did it in The Langoliers, The Mist, and in Storm of the Century, where the people themselves become far more frightening than any demon in their wake. And it is a common theme in social psychology - the group or tribe mentality. And it has not just happened in sci-fi, the Zimbarda Prison Experiment showed what happened when people are placed in certain roles. War World II demonstrated what happens when we start demonizing others - both in the US and abroad. Italians, Germans, and Japanese-Americans were placed in internment camps in the US during WWII, believed to be the enemy. And during the 1950's, McCarthy imprisoned numerous Americans for potentially being Communist traitors. Today, the US detaines and tortures people who it suspects of being terrorists, many of whom are not. I know, one of my co-workers husbands at the video developer company in which I worked last year, had her husband detained, with threat of deportation, and torture, because he was Arabic, from Egypt. He was told he would be set free if he agreed to join the US and go to Afghanistan or Iraq, and act as an interpreter. If he refused, he'd be cast out and deported back to Egypt, even though his American wife resided here, in New York.
Often science fiction will find a way of presenting real nightmares in a story format, as a means of understanding the moral complexities of what we've done. Battle Star Galatica, the most recent version, has devoted an entire series to exploring the themes discussed above.
Midnight - the most recent Doctor Who episode shown in the US (not shown in UK or downloaded online), directed and written by Russell T. Davies, concentrates on this issue. It's not quite as innovative or layered as Steven Moffat's episode, but it is a memorable one.
( cut for major spoilers )
This is a common trope in horror, Stephen King did it in The Langoliers, The Mist, and in Storm of the Century, where the people themselves become far more frightening than any demon in their wake. And it is a common theme in social psychology - the group or tribe mentality. And it has not just happened in sci-fi, the Zimbarda Prison Experiment showed what happened when people are placed in certain roles. War World II demonstrated what happens when we start demonizing others - both in the US and abroad. Italians, Germans, and Japanese-Americans were placed in internment camps in the US during WWII, believed to be the enemy. And during the 1950's, McCarthy imprisoned numerous Americans for potentially being Communist traitors. Today, the US detaines and tortures people who it suspects of being terrorists, many of whom are not. I know, one of my co-workers husbands at the video developer company in which I worked last year, had her husband detained, with threat of deportation, and torture, because he was Arabic, from Egypt. He was told he would be set free if he agreed to join the US and go to Afghanistan or Iraq, and act as an interpreter. If he refused, he'd be cast out and deported back to Egypt, even though his American wife resided here, in New York.
Often science fiction will find a way of presenting real nightmares in a story format, as a means of understanding the moral complexities of what we've done. Battle Star Galatica, the most recent version, has devoted an entire series to exploring the themes discussed above.
Midnight - the most recent Doctor Who episode shown in the US (not shown in UK or downloaded online), directed and written by Russell T. Davies, concentrates on this issue. It's not quite as innovative or layered as Steven Moffat's episode, but it is a memorable one.
( cut for major spoilers )
