2. Them! as a Depiction of Society:
Communism, Science, Dehumanization
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Needless to say, Them! is an extremely effective movie.
It takes the audience from
foreboding to horror to a growing sense of confidence
that the monsters can be overcome. Then, at the end,
it leaves us with an oddly disquieting sense of optimism.

The movie is able to play on our emotions so effectively,
in part, because it tells a number of stories
at the same time. Most are presented in disguised form,
which means we are largely unaware
we are responding to them as we watch.
But as we are carried along by the manifest story,
we simultaneously react to these underlying stories
which depict the human mind, individuals and families,
society and politics, myth and our relation to nature.
The result is a rich aesthetic experience
that lets us vicariously experience a set of issues
that are central to our own lives.

Perhaps the most obvious underlying story 
in the movie deals with communism.
Them! was released in June, 1954, during the McCarthy era,
when, domestically, an effort was underway
to expose alleged communist sympathizers
and spies in positions of power.
There were intense disagreements
over the degree and reality of communist subversion,
amid what came to be viewed as
a witch-hunt atmosphere in which opposition
to anti-communist investigators
could itself be depicted as a sign of complicity with the enemy.

Internationally, America had won the war against fascism
and, about a year before the movie's release,
it had saved South Korea
in a war against the ruthless, collectivist, societies
of communist China and North Korea
in which American soldiers found themselves
up against waves of attackers
willing to sacrifice their own lives
for the larger cause.

Locked in an international stand-off with communism,
the United States had a policy of containment
intended to stop communism from spreading
even if it couldn't be fully defeated.

All of this is precisely what we see in Them!,
which condenses the domestic and international battle
against communism into a single story
by moving the Korean War (as well as World War Two) to American soil,
and converting it into a battle against giant ants.

In place of ruthless and collectivist communist nations,
we see a ruthless and collectivist society of ants
who are trying to replace our order with their own.
They too move around unseen. (We are told
they forage between sunset and dawn when it is cool.)

In place of anti-communists trying to expose subversion
and convince people in authority the danger is real,
we have Dr. Harold Medford, with a group of followers,
trying to expose the ants in their nests 
and convince the nation's leaders 
to take the threat seriously.

In place of America's foreign policy of containing
communism on the world stage,
we see the anti-ant coalition trying to contain the ants
by preventing newborn queens from escaping
and establishing new nests.

In the movie, the military, police, and scientists,
who make up the anti-ant coalition,
are depicted as worthy defenders of society
able to find and defeat the monsters,
which is the way authorities who led the fight
against communism portrayed themselves.

In offering this depiction, the movie
unmistakably tells the audience that
the domestic danger from communism is real
and that our survival is at stake.
The characters who try to explain away the danger
are depicted as being in denial,
and we are told that it is only when prudent leaders
are prepared to see the signs that point to
an unseen menace
and then learn the enemy's nature and hiding places,
that the battle can be won.
The movie thus takes a stand, if only indirectly,
with the nation's anti-communists
and against their detractors.

Of course, the movie is also a replay of World War Two,
with Dr. Medford as Winston Churchill (who he looks similar to),
 warning the world of the danger posed by Hitler,
and the dehumanizing moral monsters of Nazi Germany.

There's a World War Two-like 
naval battle, when the ants take over a ship
which is then destroyed;

there's a D-Day
 and aerial bombardment, 
as the anti-ant coalition attacks 
the first ant nest from across the desert,

with heroic American fighters 
who then move through ant tunnels 
instead of fox holes;

there are gas masks, 
which were used both in World War Two  
and in the 1950s, during the Cold War;

and there's a scene at the end
that looks like another D-Day
and a final battle
 in which the victorious armed forces 
pierce to the heart of the ant headquarters
 in the sewers of Los Angeles. 

At the end, they destroy 
the enemy's fighter pilots,
in a scene that conjures up images
to the war in the Pacific,

and bring about a final victory.

All of this makes Them! a form of propaganda
that allowed audiences to vicariously win the battle
against communism and fascism, enhancing their sense of optimism
in America's ultimate victory and, perhaps,
helping them rally their emotional forces for the fight ahead.

By showing the core of the anti-ant coalition
as worthy of this task, because of its
courage, intelligence, virtue, and competence,
the movie invites us to identify with anti-communists and anti-fascists
and feel of a sense of the power and moral rightness
of their cause.

At the same time, the depiction of the ants
as mindless creatures without compassion,
who are undone by our superior abilities,
makes them worthy of our hate and contempt.
This depiction is a fictionalized representation
of the genuine cruelty of the enemy's the West has faced
but it also an expression of ideology 
in which east Asian communists are depicted as less than human.

So this first underlying story (or domain of meaning)
is about the fight against subversion and takeover,
which is itself a species of a more generic story
about threats to America's social order
and the people who defend it.

We see another example of this same theme, 
when Agent Graham interviews two uncooperative drunks
in police custody, who mock the pretensions of the upper class.

While these characters speak for the movie
and its mockery of a number of pretentious social types,
they also, by no coincidence, look like 
a common stereotype of left wing revolutionaries,
even though their lives are in a state of unmotivated disorder
compared to the regimented and ferociously motivated ants.

Like the ants, the two drunks are outsiders
who are profoundly antagonistic to America's way of life.
But they are harmless because they are under the control
of Agent Graham and the police.

Their brief introduction into the story
reinforces the movie's theme, which is that threats
 from the left and the right have to be contained
by the guardians of society, like Agent Graham,
if America is to be preserved.