Staying Awake

One of my weaknesses is Sci-Fi movies. Not the ridiculously bloated space operas of Star Trek or George Lucas but those great low budget pieces that get shown at odd times of the day (more likely night). More often than not they're in black and white and invariably comprise a heady mix of acting unknowns, creaky sets and infeasible plots. But there are some pearls all the same. I see the 1950's cold-war classic "The Day the Earth Stood Still" has just had a high budget makeover and been remade with Keanu Reeves. I'll bet the original is far better. One original that may never be remade is a late 1980's low budget feature called "They Live" and directed by John Carpenter. The central conceit is that the earth has been invaded but that we earthlings have been hypnotised/brain-washed so that we now only recognise as "reality"  the fiction that the aliens have created for us.  But all is not lost. A resistance movement has started up and they have developed a way of helping see the "true" reality - via the use of special sunglasses. 

The clarion calls  of the rebels is: "They Live:We Sleep". When  the sunglasses donned we see the subliminal reality that the aliens have created beneath the veneer of "normality" - slogans like "Consume", "Obey" shout out from  otherwise  normal advertising hoardings; innocuous banknotes bear the wording "This is Your God". Like all the best science fiction the purpose isn't to thrill us with hi-tec action but to hold up a mirror to some aspect of our lives -in this case the suggestion that we are so in thrall to material wealth and the untrammelled capitalism of western society that we are incapable of seeing anything else. 

At the start of Advent we are told to remain watchful. Like the freedom-fighters in "They Live", we Christians maybe have to don some dark glasses to navigate our way through the commercial temptations and the pressures to consume ever more  that so characterises the modern Christmas. I occasionally have left mine home this week and the result has been the rise in stress levels that accompany the fear I have forgotten to buy something. I resolve to do better in the next week.    

But then maybe the frail nature of capitalism is being exposed without the need for special eyewear. In town today the shops are full of Xmas goodies and offering plenty of discounts to entice us inside. Some of the discounts make the recent VAT reduction   look a bit mean spritied . Among those discounting most keenly is Woolworth's although in their case it is for  little more purpose than clearing stocks before they close down for good. When they do that will be yet another piece of the High Street landscape and an abiding memory from my childhood gone. Another victim to the changing times and the very deep economic recession. 

Perhaps it need not be all bad though. Dare one hope that without lots of money to spend people may turn their attention to the real meaning of Christmas.