2. Them! as a Depiction of Society, Continued
_______________________________________

The suggestion that we are the ants
is brought home throughout the movie
with depictions of America's rationalized modern institutions
as having distinctly antlike characteristics.

The movie shows us three of these institutions,
each based on a form of control -- science, law enforcement, and the military --
and provides a surprisingly complete depiction of the way they operate.
In the course of the movie, we see them relying on
surveillance, long distance communications,
evidence gathering, and air transportation;
as well as on procedures, lines of command and mass mobilization,
which are a more sophisticated version of what the ant societies use.
We also see them using 
case-building, theories, maps and models.

The movie is interested in the way these forms of rationality
make it possible for these institutions 
to solve problems and protect society.
But it is also shows us the way these same forms of rationality
become part of dehumanizing procedures
in which problems are dealt with by being turned into abstractions,
with numbers, cases, models and theories,
thereby making us as soulless as the ants.

Throughout the movie, we see 
scientists, soldiers and police,
who are members of these institutions, 
creating abstractions and following procedures,
often in look-alike uniforms and settings
that give them characteristics similar to the ants.
In some scenes, they are made to look ridiculous;
in others, they seem to be engaging in
necessary forms of problem-solving.

An example can be found 
in the scene at the destroyed trailer
in which Sgt. Peterson's partner, in his dark look-alike uniform,
speaks into a car radio from his gray police car,
as the girl who is in shock as a result of the attack
by the giant ants, sleeps in the front seat.

What Sgt. Peterson's partner and the officer at the other end say
is full of the dehumanizing absurdities of formic culture,
converting a human tragedy into numbers, letters, and a case
in a way that creates a caricature of science:

"Car 5W to KMA628; come in please."

"KMA628 to Car 5W; go ahead."

"We're 12 miles north of the crossroads
halfway up the secondary road to White Butte.
Station wagon and house trailer with Illinois license plates.
Trailer pretty well beat up. Looks like a 914...."

"KMA628 to 5W. Location previously reported by 301A.
Will Dispatch Ambulance."

We see another example of "formic culture'
in the hospital where the girl is being kept,
as a doctor in another uniform
turns her into a case.

The doctor (standing over the chair) explains 
the girl's condition and the hospital's treatment decisions:

"Narco-synthesis would be a useless procedure
until we've overcome the condition of aphonia....
She's a classic case of hysteria conversion.
Only a severe catharsis could jolt her at all."

As with the number-saturated jargon
of the two cops talking on the radio,
the doctor's description is full of linguistic absurdities
that dehumanize the person being described.

The movie shows another similarity
between the ants and their human opponents
by depicting both sides as concealing their activities.
Like the ants, who move around (mostly) unseen
and hide in dark underground nests during the day,
the representatives of humanity's formic institutions
are forever moving about, out of public view,
and gathering in their own nest-like complexes
to plan how to protect their kind.

The movie takes us behind the scenes
and shows us these institutions in action 
at crime scenes that are kept secret
and various centers of command and control.
Here too, it shows numerous similarities
between people and ants to make its point.

Above, for example, we see antlike officials on the left,
gathered in a semicircle in their dark nest,
watching a movie about ants.
On the right, we see the future leadership of the ant society
that is challenging them, in the nest of young queens.

Here, we see another example of the way the movie compares
the concealment used by human institutions
with the way the ants remain hidden from view.
On the left, we again see two characters
standing at the cavelike entrance to the anti-ant headquarters,
that is off-limits to the public,
trying to figure out what is going on inside.
On the right, we see two characters looking into a cavelike opening
of the storm drains, where the ants have their hidden nest,
also wondering what is inside.

Thus, the movie lets us know what it is like to be on the outside
and it also lets us peer into the secret goings on in the two camps,
as the human antlike society and the giant ants make war.

It is only when the announcement is made on television
and the military rides through the streets,
on the way to the newly discovered nest in the storm drains,
that the horror finally breaks into the open.
We then see the fashionable streets of Los Angeles,
giving us a glimpse of the modern consumer culture
that the antlike institutions of command and control make possible.

But even here the pedestrians act almost like zombies 
as they get the message on television
and see the streets turned into a war zone.
It is as if they too are products of formic culture,
without individuality or the normal animation of personality
we associate with human beings.