The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street - The Twilight Zone

"The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" is an episode I have shown many times in my television courses. Rod Serling is an artistic force, especially when you consider the TV anthologies he wrote in the 1950s, such as Patterns and Requiem for Heavyweight. Although the term "showrunner" was not used during the time when The Twilight Zone aired, Serling arguable meets all the traits of a television auteur.

The plot of "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" is simple: neighbors conversing on a sun-drenched suburban street are suddenly disrupted when a strange-sounding object flies over with a loud roar and a flash of light. Some think it might have been a meteor. No one really knows for sure. No need to panic. But when they discover they have no electrical power, and lawn mowers and cars no longer work, a meeting is called on the street as the paranoia begins.

 

The episode offers a number of insights into late 1950s America (albeit allegorically).

 

As residents of Maple Street gather together, young Tommy references his comic books as a source of explanation for the strange occurrence. He says aliens may have already sent their people to earth, who look just like humans, a possible reference to Invasion of the Bodysnatchers (1956). 

 
Of course, this film and others of the 1950s are often discussed as allegories of an outside threat such as communism or McCarthyism and the Red Scare, which speaks to the height of the Cold War era.

The neighbors blow Tommy off, saying that he's been reading too many comic books. It is interesting to note that in 1954 the Comics Code Authority was established as a way for the comic book industry to police itself.

The Comics Code Authority was created because of the concern of graphic content and its impact on the youth. Poor Tommy is certainly a target.

Although the episode suggests social harmony before the strange thing flew by and knocked out their power, the neighbors, in fact, were already aware of their peculiarities. Thinking aliens have infiltrated Maple Street, the neighbors scrutinize all idiosyncrasies.

These differences are brought out into the open as a way to see who's an alien and who's not. At one point, one of the neighbors points out that Steve is always using his ham radio at night. 

Steve's ham radio takes on qualities of what Jeffrey Sconce terms a "haunted media." But in this case, the radio is not identified as communicating with a supernatural being or the undead as depicted in Poltergeist (1982), but to communicate with aliens. Of course, Steve laughs at this assertion. 

Rodney Hill's excellent article, "Mapping The Twilight Zone: Cultural and Mythological Terrain," notes that “A chief character found in all of these issues [such as threat of nuclear war, the red scare, and the ever-present danger that suburban conformity might deteriorate into fascism] is fear."

Steve's calls the neighbor's inquisitions a kangaroo court, which is an appropriate description of the situation. But it is also a reference to fascism, a topic that Serling also explored in "Eye of the Beholder."

And it is fear that causes Charlie to shoot and kill Jim, thinking he was one of the aliens. It is at this point where logic and rationality collapses as a mob of violence ensues on Maple Street. What they do not know is that aliens are responsible for cutting their power and electricity.  But can we assign the paranoia of Maple Street to the aliens?

 

The closing narration of Serling demonstrates why he is considered one of television's best writers: "The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices. . . to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill. . . and suspicion can destroy. . . and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own – for the children and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone."

 

Reading Lost's Walkabout

In my television theory class, we watch the episode "Walkabout" from the series Lost as an approach to studying semiotics - the study of signs. This posting contains spoilers!!

Roland Barthes:

Using semiotics is the basis on how to conduct a close analysis of a film or a television series. Roland Barthes's work on Mythologies is one of the founding texts for this type of analysis. And to keep things simple, I will focus on the terms: denotative and connotative. 

Denotative Meanings:

Denotative is the surface level of a sign. For example, if I see a stop sign while driving, I know to stop my car. It is a sign that we can all agree upon - at least I hope we do.

Connotative Meanings:

Connotative is the secondary level of a sign. This means there can be multiple meanings of a sign. For example, I could read the sign "snake" not only as a slimy reptile, but as "sin." The surface reading (denotative) of a snake means a reptile and it slithers. The secondary reading (connotative) of a snake could mean "sin," or it could mean "friend." I preferably would not like to think about snakes at all! But you get the point...

Rhetoric: Making Your Case Convincingly

Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. A connotative approach to studying film or television involves how well you can argue your case. This means when you unpack secondary meanings (connotations), you have to make your case convincingly. To do this, you must inventory the signs of a film and or television episode.

"Walkabout" Example

Lost is a television series about the survivors of Oceanic 815 stranded on a mysterious island. "Walkabout" is an early episode in the first season that focuses on John Locke (Terry O'Quinn), a mysterious man who decides to hunt for a boar after learning the survivors had ran out of food.

"Walkabout" involves Locke's journey into the mysterious island. This odyssey entails a physical component (find and kill the boar), and an interior component (Locke's re-birth). We can track these two registers by inventorying the episode's signs.

Locke's Wheel Chair

The wheel chair is more than simply a means of transportation; it is also about Locke's backstory and his internal struggles before he crashed on the island, which is told through flashbacks. His wheel chair has an added charge of meaning when we learn that Locke can walk after surviving the airplane crash at the end of the episode.

Movement and Stillness

Locke is shown a number of times lying on his back, looking at his feet. Movement has multiples meanings, especially when you consider the title of the episode: "walkabout." It is a spiritual renewal for Locke.

Re-Birth

Locke is re-born as he learns to walk again. The fire framed by his wheelchair at the end of the episode helps to communicate this at the connotative level. He is no longer the same person we saw in the episode's flashbacks.

There are many connotations I could have discussed in this episode. But I chose signs that are tied to a specific theme: Locke's re-birth as a "walkabout" in his hunt for the boar. At the end, he successfully kills the boar and provides food for the survivors. At the same time, Locke's soul is nourished by the hunt in the form of a walkabout.