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I saw the sci-fi movie Forbidden Planet when it came out in 1956. Even though I was just ten years old, it made a huge impression on me.
In it, a team from Earth lands on Altair IV, a planet where aging scientist Morbius and his daughter Altaira are the only survivors of an earlier expedition. Morbius warns that the planet is haunted by a monster with incredible powers. I still recall a scene in which the raging, previously invisible monster is outlined in sparks as it penetrates a force field protecting the visiting spacecraft, and another in which it melts its way through a supposedly impenetrable door.
In it, a team from Earth lands on Altair IV, a planet where aging scientist Morbius and his daughter Altaira are the only survivors of an earlier expedition. Morbius warns that the planet is haunted by a monster with incredible powers. I still recall a scene in which the raging, previously invisible monster is outlined in sparks as it penetrates a force field protecting the visiting spacecraft, and another in which it melts its way through a supposedly impenetrable door.
The Id Monster from Forbidden Planet
Credit: Joshua Meador/United Artists
We eventually learn that the monster isn't real; it's a projection of Morbius' id, amplified and made incredibly powerful by an enormous machine that is all that remains of the Krell, a race of hyper-intelligent beings that disappeared suddenly 200,000 years earlier.
We eventually learn that it was the machine's unleashing of the Krell's own unconscious fears and hatreds that led to their extinction. In turn, it was Morbius' inner demons, manifested by the Krell machine, that destroyed everyone in the previous expedition except for him and his daughter.
Not surprisingly, Morbius strenuously denies the possibility that he is the source of the monster. But finally, when the monster melts through a supposedly impenetrable door and threatens Altaira and him, he confronts it. The confrontation proves fatal, but the moment Morbius dies the monster vanishes.
In retrospect, Forbidden Planet was one of many films--science fiction and otherwise--that gave us a glimpse beneath the shiny surface of America in the 1950s. Movies like Rear Window, On the Waterfront, Strangers on a Train, Rebel Without a Cause, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Them, High Noon and many more expressed the fears, darkness and delusions of postwar American life and culture. On the surface, Ike's America seemed buoyant and optimistic, but those films exposed the hidden fault lines and mounting pressure that lay beneath.
Fast forward five decades, and we find ourselves grappling with our very own id monster in the form of Donald Trump. In his race-baiting campaign, his slimy, hate-fueled rallies, his fox-in-the-henhouse appointments and his draconian immigration policies he voices and acts out the inner demons of our nation--racism, xenophobia, authoritarianism, greed, narcissism, religious intolerance, white nationalism; in fact just about every kind of fear and hatred. And as head of state and commander in chief he controls the mighty Krell machine that amplifies those ugly, destructive drives and makes them dangerously real.
We have a President who demonizes Muslims and Hispanics and would lock them out of the US, who repeatedly labels the press the enemy of the people, who smears and demeans his adversaries, incites violence, has assaulted and is contemptuous of women, lies constantly and shamelessly, embraces conspiracy theories, scorns our allies but loves dictators and uses the office of President and US foreign policy for his own personal and political gain. He's an arrogant, nasty and dangerous bully, now wielding world-shaking power.
There's no doubt that Trump as President and Commander in Cheif amplifies our nation's dark drives and turns them into dangerous and destructive real-life events. There's also no doubt that the darkness was always there, lurking in the shadows and biding its time. As progressives have been pointing out for decades, we as a nation need to acknowledge and confront our history of slavery, genocide, patriarchy, and imperialism--not to mention our current rush towards ecocide--if we are ever to live up to the ideals of liberty and equality that comprise our conscious self-image and that we have at times shown the world.
As Einstein famously pointed out, "We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them." Trump's world is one of towers and walls, with him, his family, and those who are absolutely loyal to him high in their real or imagined castles and protected by walls from what they see as the dirty and dangerous rabble below. If we dream of a different world, we can't hide in our own towers and behind our own walls, physical, emotional or intellectual. As Morbius showed us, unless we accept and confront our own id-monsters, they will break through whatever walls we build.
-----
REA
In retrospect, Forbidden Planet was one of many films--science fiction and otherwise--that gave us a glimpse beneath the shiny surface of America in the 1950s. Movies like Rear Window, On the Waterfront, Strangers on a Train, Rebel Without a Cause, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Them, High Noon and many more expressed the fears, darkness and delusions of postwar American life and culture. On the surface, Ike's America seemed buoyant and optimistic, but those films exposed the hidden fault lines and mounting pressure that lay beneath.
Fast forward five decades, and we find ourselves grappling with our very own id monster in the form of Donald Trump. In his race-baiting campaign, his slimy, hate-fueled rallies, his fox-in-the-henhouse appointments and his draconian immigration policies he voices and acts out the inner demons of our nation--racism, xenophobia, authoritarianism, greed, narcissism, religious intolerance, white nationalism; in fact just about every kind of fear and hatred. And as head of state and commander in chief he controls the mighty Krell machine that amplifies those ugly, destructive drives and makes them dangerously real.
We have a President who demonizes Muslims and Hispanics and would lock them out of the US, who repeatedly labels the press the enemy of the people, who smears and demeans his adversaries, incites violence, has assaulted and is contemptuous of women, lies constantly and shamelessly, embraces conspiracy theories, scorns our allies but loves dictators and uses the office of President and US foreign policy for his own personal and political gain. He's an arrogant, nasty and dangerous bully, now wielding world-shaking power.
There's no doubt that Trump as President and Commander in Cheif amplifies our nation's dark drives and turns them into dangerous and destructive real-life events. There's also no doubt that the darkness was always there, lurking in the shadows and biding its time. As progressives have been pointing out for decades, we as a nation need to acknowledge and confront our history of slavery, genocide, patriarchy, and imperialism--not to mention our current rush towards ecocide--if we are ever to live up to the ideals of liberty and equality that comprise our conscious self-image and that we have at times shown the world.
As Einstein famously pointed out, "We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them." Trump's world is one of towers and walls, with him, his family, and those who are absolutely loyal to him high in their real or imagined castles and protected by walls from what they see as the dirty and dangerous rabble below. If we dream of a different world, we can't hide in our own towers and behind our own walls, physical, emotional or intellectual. As Morbius showed us, unless we accept and confront our own id-monsters, they will break through whatever walls we build.
-----
REA
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