Films and television shows featuring aliens have been around for years.
Some treat extraterrestrial possibilities as though they are real and others
as if they were purely fantasy creations. Shows like "The X-Files" are stirring
up controversy in the national media because of the realism being portrayed with the sophistication of the modern cinema effects. Emotions can run high
on all sides of the philosophical spectrum, as writers challenge the reading public to consider why shows with aliens are so popular.
We want to know what you think! And to stir up your thoughts and
willingness to write us, we're reprinting a recent newspaper editorial by a nationally syndicated columnist that churns up its own sea of controversy,
just to let you know that we welcome all voices.
Happy reading. . .and writing.
America worships new, alien gods
by Don Feder
Do I believe in extraterrestrial intelligence? Absolutely. It's the terrestrial
kind that's increasingly in doubt.
In its July 8 cover story, Newsweek attempts to put "Independence Day"
(which is breaking box office records) into the context of our national
obsession with little green men and psychic phenomena. "Out There: From "Independence Day' to 'The X-Files,' America is hooked on the Paranormal," Newsweek's cover notes.
Besides "Independence Day," 11 other UFO movies are warping our
way. This fall, the networks will unveil "X-File" clones, to cash in on otherworldly paranoia.
The craze transcends entertainment. A Newsweek poll shows 48 percent
of the American people believe in UFOs. Millions are caught up in cosmic dabbling, from ESP to "shamanic journeying" to "channeling" (which has
nothing to do with your remote control).
Says Newsweek: "We're in a major alien moment, even more intense than
the 'Chariots of the Gods' mania of the '70s." What's interesting isn't how
this could happen (consult the aphorisms of Phineas T. Barnum) but why
it's happening at this particular time.
Aliens are God-substitutes. As a significant portion of the population drifts
away from traditional religion, Americans are finding comfort in salvation or discipline from beyond the stars.
Hollywood aliens either save or serve us-a la "The Day The Earth Stood Still," "Close Encounters" and "Starman"-or punish us, as in "War of the Worlds," "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "Independence Day."
The latter is about an intergalactic Serb militia engaged in campaigns of planetary cleansing. But are we the innocent victims of these Klingons
on steroids?
In the person of Jeff Goldblum, the movie offers a litany of our eco-sins. By the end of Goldblum's global-warming-and-brimstone sermon, the audience
is convinced that we have it coming.
This is a major theme of alien films. With war, hatred and pollution, humanity
has botched things badly. It's up to the spacemen to either save us from ourselves or zap us for our transgressions.
Note the mock spirituality of outer-space religion-the pilgrimages to the sites
of supposed alien landings, the sci-fi version of Genesis and the end of days (aliens created our civilization thousands of years ago and will come again
to judge us), and wish-based belief (in "The X-Files," a poster behind an investigator's desk bears the mantra, "I want to believe").
Here is the perfect religion for a generation too skeptical to accept the faith
of its fathers but which has swallowed whole every bit of mystic hokum and Buck Rogers quackery hawked by transcendental hustlers.
In truth, New Age dogma is more complex that E.T. and crystals, but
equally vacuous. As David Brooks explains in the Weekly Standard, "What is New Age dogma but religion with obligation replaced by flattery, humility by
self-esteem?" Some worship spaceships, others the space between their ears.
Newsweek quotes a bookkeeper who says he attends extraterrestrial seminars because he's searching for an answer to the age-old question: "What else is
there to life beyond this existence?"
He need look no further than a perennial best-seller that graces the nightstands
of most hotel rooms. It has all the special effects of "Independence Day" (seassplits, cities destroyed by fire from the heavens, first-born slain).
More importantly, it's based on firsthand accounts and contains a code that
not only offers hope of "life beyond this existence" but helps us to live
better here.
Strange that so many find it so hard to believe in this book (whose message
has stood the test of time) while passionately embracing alien gods based on
a faith that medieval mystics would have scorned.
Don Feder, whose column appears Monday and Wednesday, is a nationally syndicated columnist and the author of a recent book. He writes for the Boston Herald. By permission of Don Feder and Creator's Syndicate.
