Michael Mercadante
English 199–001
Film Analysis One
22 September 2011
Men In Black (1997): What it Really Means
The science fiction film, Men In Black written by Barry Sonnenfeld in 1997, has a lot more meaning to it than people notice when they watch it. Yes there are aliens, guns, and spaceships in the film, but it goes deeper than this and it can be connected to our society today. To start off what does science fiction actually mean? I never did know just what “science fiction” meant (Sobchack 18). There really is no definition everyone has their own opinions. Many people today have different stories that go from being abducted by aliens to seeing a UFO in the sky and all of this gives people ideas of science fiction stories. There was supposedly an alien space ship that crashed in Mexico in the year 1971 and this is probably the most known government conspiracy. All of this leads people to think, where do they hide it all? Area 51 is thought to be the place where everything gets covered up by the government. No one has found this top secret government base, but many people still believe that it exists. A possibility is that if aliens do exist, maybe they could help humans create a utopia. They could also cause much more chaos than there already is. There is also something ironic about this movie, the setting is in New York City and this is where the MIB fight the undercover aliens. This is not much different than how we are trying to stop terrorism in today’s world. The attack on 9/11 in New York City is a huge part of history in the world today and it will never be forgotten.
Before this gets into detail, MIB the movie came from a comic book called “Men in Black” written by Lowell Cunningham. History is a large part of our life, but the present is even more important. When I look up in the sky at night and see the stars many things go through my mind. I think to myself, it is impossible that we are alone, there has to be other life out there. MIB really brought this thought to life and made the possibility of other life become even more fact than fiction to me. There are billions of solar systems in each galaxy and there are billions of galaxies in the universe. The numbers are so large that it is impossible to grasp. As of right now we do not have technology to reach far enough out in space to discover other life. If we do ever come in contact with anything it will most likely be them coming to us. This means that they will be much more advanced. Hopefully that whatever it is that comes will bring peace to our planet earth. In MIB there were aliens that were peaceful and aliens that were the opposite. It gives the viewer a little taste of what the outcome could be if aliens did exist and if they were good or bad. As of right now everyone in the world is basically separated by their country, race, sexuality, opinion, etc. If aliens were to come then I think everyone would have to unite as one and forget about all of their petty little differences and work together if the outcome was bad. In the movie it is a different situation, the MIB take care of the alien threat and no one on earth besides them knows what is going on. This shows how oblivious the human race is to everything that is going on around them and how the government can easily hide important information from the general population.
Our species is very complex, but one thing in particular that is very clear is how we do not always think or care enough about what is happening in the real world. It is like we just plug ourselves in and block everything else out and live in our own little fantasies. This, in my opinion is how dystopia is formed and the world becomes chaotic. In the face of a hostile world, retreat, escape, or simply a compensatory fantasy to cheer yourself up may be reasonable and humanly valuable responses (Baccolini and Moylan 14). What this quote says is that once we are in a dystopian world we do not want to realize what is really happening. In other words people seem to block out the bad stuff and just try to think happy thoughts to get away from it all. If people stick to this method then nothing will ever get fixed and the world will just stay as it is. In MIB the men who know about the aliens being on earth work together with them to try and fight off the extra-terrestrials who do not have good intensions. If no one ever questioned the possibility of aliens existing then the MIB movie would not exist. It is good that the film maker produced a movie like this; I know it sounds far-fetched, but who knows it could actually be happening right now. It puts the idea in everyone’s mind and gives them something to think about. If E.T. arrives here one day since they are going to be more advanced, maybe they could help the human race fix all of the issues that we have in present day. For example our pollution on mother earth is probably the biggest issue to this day and will not move from a top priority because our lives depend on how we treat our home. We are yet to figure out a way to not use diesel fuel or any type of toxic gas to run our machines, at least in a global wide situation. There are a select few companies and citizens who have gone green, but not many. Maybe there is life out there that has the solution to this problem which would lead to our atmosphere being stronger. A stronger atmosphere adds up to to a huge decrease in global warming. A disadvantage that could arise from aliens coming to our planet is if they come to take our resources. In MIB one specimen comes for one purpose and one purpose only, to get O’ Ryan’s belt and he kills anything that gets in his way. This shows on a smaller scale how it could be if aliens did not care about the human race, but came for our planet. There are many other advantages and disadvantages that could arise from coming in contact with another species and MIB does a good job of showing this.
The director chose and ironic spot to shoot this film, he chose NYC. The irony comes from 9/11 of 2001 because of what happened when the twin towers came crashing down from the terrorist attacks. post-9/11 that we all have become accustomed to hearing, yet we still grapple with understanding its implications for our lives and our society (Snyder 294). In MIB, NYC is where all of the action happens. The aliens are disguised as humans which can be related to today’s terrorism. Nobody knows when or where terrorists will attack, it is all done by surprise. This is the hardest part of the war we are fighting in right now. We are not standing in lines shooting at each other like the British use to do, the threat is unknown and they use all kinds of different weapons. Some examples are RPG’s, mines, and road side bombs that can be activated by someone hitting a button on a cell phone. Our soldiers can never let their guard down because they have no idea who they can and cannot trust when in hostile territory. All it takes is one wrong decision that could cost the lives of many young men. In the science fiction movie, Agent K and Will Smith make decisions that impact other people’s lives in very drastic ways all the time to contain the alien threat. Maybe not all of the characters have the consequences of death, but some of them do if they fail their mission. Just like our soldiers over in Iraq and Afghanistan, if for whatever reason we never made the decision to put our foot in the Afghani’s door then the random acts of terror would be greater in the United States. Our country would be in a much worse position with not just the economy but also with issues of innocent people dying more often than they already are.
In general, this idea that the writer came up with makes a huge impact on how people view the situation of aliens and the possibility of them actually existing. For me it kind of gave me the chills, but at the same time brought excitement. If there really was an underground layer where everything was hidden, also known as Area 51 it would be a spectacular place where numerous opportunities would arise. If there are people in an actual hidden base right now, I’m sure they are doing their best with trying to improvise new ways of doing things for planet earth. Something needs to be done about pollution as soon as possible before global warming becomes even worse than it already is. It would also be ideal if somehow the world could stop fighting and realize how much worse everything could be if for example an alien attack were to happen and they just came in to try and wipe us out. But for Utopia to be transformative, it must also disrupt the structural closure of the present (Baccolini and Moylan 16). Hopefully one day peace can be brought to the planet and all of the secrets will be revealed.
Before this gets into detail, MIB the movie came from a comic book called “Men in Black” written by Lowell Cunningham. History is a large part of our life, but the present is even more important. When I look up in the sky at night and see the stars many things go through my mind. I think to myself, it is impossible that we are alone, there has to be other life out there. MIB really brought this thought to life and made the possibility of other life become even more fact than fiction to me. There are billions of solar systems in each galaxy and there are billions of galaxies in the universe. The numbers are so large that it is impossible to grasp. As of right now we do not have technology to reach far enough out in space to discover other life. If we do ever come in contact with anything it will most likely be them coming to us. This means that they will be much more advanced. Hopefully that whatever it is that comes will bring peace to our planet earth. In MIB there were aliens that were peaceful and aliens that were the opposite. It gives the viewer a little taste of what the outcome could be if aliens did exist and if they were good or bad. As of right now everyone in the world is basically separated by their country, race, sexuality, opinion, etc. If aliens were to come then I think everyone would have to unite as one and forget about all of their petty little differences and work together if the outcome was bad. In the movie it is a different situation, the MIB take care of the alien threat and no one on earth besides them knows what is going on. This shows how oblivious the human race is to everything that is going on around them and how the government can easily hide important information from the general population.
Our species is very complex, but one thing in particular that is very clear is how we do not always think or care enough about what is happening in the real world. It is like we just plug ourselves in and block everything else out and live in our own little fantasies. This, in my opinion is how dystopia is formed and the world becomes chaotic. In the face of a hostile world, retreat, escape, or simply a compensatory fantasy to cheer yourself up may be reasonable and humanly valuable responses (Baccolini and Moylan 14). What this quote says is that once we are in a dystopian world we do not want to realize what is really happening. In other words people seem to block out the bad stuff and just try to think happy thoughts to get away from it all. If people stick to this method then nothing will ever get fixed and the world will just stay as it is. In MIB the men who know about the aliens being on earth work together with them to try and fight off the extra-terrestrials who do not have good intensions. If no one ever questioned the possibility of aliens existing then the MIB movie would not exist. It is good that the film maker produced a movie like this; I know it sounds far-fetched, but who knows it could actually be happening right now. It puts the idea in everyone’s mind and gives them something to think about. If E.T. arrives here one day since they are going to be more advanced, maybe they could help the human race fix all of the issues that we have in present day. For example our pollution on mother earth is probably the biggest issue to this day and will not move from a top priority because our lives depend on how we treat our home. We are yet to figure out a way to not use diesel fuel or any type of toxic gas to run our machines, at least in a global wide situation. There are a select few companies and citizens who have gone green, but not many. Maybe there is life out there that has the solution to this problem which would lead to our atmosphere being stronger. A stronger atmosphere adds up to to a huge decrease in global warming. A disadvantage that could arise from aliens coming to our planet is if they come to take our resources. In MIB one specimen comes for one purpose and one purpose only, to get O’ Ryan’s belt and he kills anything that gets in his way. This shows on a smaller scale how it could be if aliens did not care about the human race, but came for our planet. There are many other advantages and disadvantages that could arise from coming in contact with another species and MIB does a good job of showing this.
The director chose and ironic spot to shoot this film, he chose NYC. The irony comes from 9/11 of 2001 because of what happened when the twin towers came crashing down from the terrorist attacks. post-9/11 that we all have become accustomed to hearing, yet we still grapple with understanding its implications for our lives and our society (Snyder 294). In MIB, NYC is where all of the action happens. The aliens are disguised as humans which can be related to today’s terrorism. Nobody knows when or where terrorists will attack, it is all done by surprise. This is the hardest part of the war we are fighting in right now. We are not standing in lines shooting at each other like the British use to do, the threat is unknown and they use all kinds of different weapons. Some examples are RPG’s, mines, and road side bombs that can be activated by someone hitting a button on a cell phone. Our soldiers can never let their guard down because they have no idea who they can and cannot trust when in hostile territory. All it takes is one wrong decision that could cost the lives of many young men. In the science fiction movie, Agent K and Will Smith make decisions that impact other people’s lives in very drastic ways all the time to contain the alien threat. Maybe not all of the characters have the consequences of death, but some of them do if they fail their mission. Just like our soldiers over in Iraq and Afghanistan, if for whatever reason we never made the decision to put our foot in the Afghani’s door then the random acts of terror would be greater in the United States. Our country would be in a much worse position with not just the economy but also with issues of innocent people dying more often than they already are.
In general, this idea that the writer came up with makes a huge impact on how people view the situation of aliens and the possibility of them actually existing. For me it kind of gave me the chills, but at the same time brought excitement. If there really was an underground layer where everything was hidden, also known as Area 51 it would be a spectacular place where numerous opportunities would arise. If there are people in an actual hidden base right now, I’m sure they are doing their best with trying to improvise new ways of doing things for planet earth. Something needs to be done about pollution as soon as possible before global warming becomes even worse than it already is. It would also be ideal if somehow the world could stop fighting and realize how much worse everything could be if for example an alien attack were to happen and they just came in to try and wipe us out. But for Utopia to be transformative, it must also disrupt the structural closure of the present (Baccolini and Moylan 16). Hopefully one day peace can be brought to the planet and all of the secrets will be revealed.
Works Cited
Baccolini, Raffaella, and Tom Moylan. “Dark Horizons: Science Fiction and the Dystopian Imagination.” New York: Routledge, 2003. Print.
Bragg, Rick. "Men in Black Come From His Galaxy - New York Times." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. Web. 21 Sept. 2011.
Snyder, Mary H. “Analyzing Literature to Film Adaptations: a Novelist's Exploration and Guide.” New York: Continuum, 2011. Print.
Sobchack, Vivian Carol., and Vivian Carol. Sobchack. “Screening Space: the American Science Fiction Film.” New York: Ungar, 1987. Print.
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