The 1950s and the 1960s: a time of war, technological
advancement, music, film, art, racial issues, and political insanity; there
wasn’t much that the United States in the 1950s and 1960s didn’t take on in a
full-force manner. From standing as a
major superpower and taking control of various countries around the world as
proxies in the Cold War all the way to bringing forth the biggest music craze
to sweep the world (rock-n-roll), the United States made the most of the
fifties and sixties. The great thing
about all that went on in this era of hype and variety is that there was one
show, better than any, that came along at the transition of the two decades and
captured the essence of the time in not only a disguised accuracy, but also in
a mind-provoking, entertaining manner that no other television program has done
since. The wonderful creation is known
as The Twilight Zone.
The
Twilight Zone, created in 1959 by Rod
Serling, was a deep-seated show that, better than any other show on the air,
took its time of residence and commentated any social changes that seemed
relevant—whether miniscule or maximum.
Meredith Brenner (2004) stated:
Imagine a nation under whose seemingly
conformist and conservative surface dramatic social changes were brewing,
changes as obvious as integration and as subtle as fast food. And imagine, if
you will, a radical television show that scrutinized, criticized, and most
importantly, publicized these changes, making the social turmoil of a nation
apparent to its post-world war, self-contented middle-class citizens. But what
if this television show was not as it appeared? Let us examine how such a
television program can become a defining force in the culture of a nation, a
force that remains just as powerful almost forty-five years after it first
appeared. Let us investigate the secrets of... The Twilight Zone
(Brenner, 2004, P. 1).
The show, with its
myriad of impressive special effects (for its time) and never-fail-to-amaze
twist endings, caught America’s attention and held onto it with complete ease
through episodes that not only entertained (and still do entertain) the general
public while hitting on a variety of emotions, but that also touched upon
serious matters throughout the fifties and sixties. First, for example, one of Serling’s most
blatant speculations on racial issues shines through when the sun fails to do
as such in the episode “I Am the Night—Color Me Black.” The episode shows the story of a man, Jagger,
who is supposed to die by hanging after he has been mistakenly convicted of, in
self defense, killing a man who exhibits bigotry. On the day of his execution, the sun refuses
to shine in the morning. Thus, the sky
is black, and Jagger hangs despite the lack of a conclusion as to whether or
not his is guilty of the murder. After
Jagger’s hanging, the reverend of the town puts in his own view and says that
the sky has become black due to all of the hatred in the world, especially such
surrounding Jagger’s death.
Another episode—ever popular amongst almost
every fan of The Twilight Zone—that
more subtly deals with social issues is “Eye of the Beholder” (originally aired
11/11/60). The episode shows a woman (we
are allowed to assume due to the character’s voice and the way that the other
characters address her) who has her whole head bandaged (as though she has just
undergone major surgery). Throughout the
episode, she remains in one hospital room and doctors and nurses pass in and
out to check on her, but she never seems to make improvements or take to the
surgery in the way that the doctors expect.
So they continue to operate on this poor girl whose self-esteem has
surely hit the ground and dug itself a grave.
The entire episode is harshly lit with great contrast of black and
white, so there is a sense of limits and boundaries. There is some speculation that the episode
actually goes as far as hitting racial prejudice on the head with a view on
beauty as a major component in how we view one another.
With its theme of bodily identity in
conflict with dominant social standards of beauty, the story might be taken as
a closeted meditation on racial prejudice, the most important domestic
political issue of the early ‘60s, and one that several Twilight Zone scripts directly evoked (Worland, 1996, P. 106).
Another example of true historical relevance
in an episode is easily found in “The Monsters are due on Maple Street.” The story presents an all-American suburban
community—the residents of “Maple Street, USA”—on a nice Saturday afternoon
when, all of the sudden, all of the power ceases to work. Immediately, the great, friendly bunch of
people transition into a mob/gang mentality and completely portray the attitude
of society during the Red Scare. The
people of Maple Street take all of their energy and waste in on trying to
figure out whether or not the “strange” man on the street is an alien and if
he’s causing all of the issues on the street.
Notwithstanding the apparent relationship to political fear during the
time, “The Twilight Zone often
[pointed] out that perhaps the greatest thing we have to fear is ourselves” (Telotte,
2011, P. 117). The characters in the episode
all become so obsessed with putting the blame on some sort of “monster” that
they, themselves, turn into monsters.
There were other
episodes, as well, that hinted on the idea of communism and how terrifying the
idea of it encroaching on our society was back during the fifties and sixties
especially (due to the Red Scare).
“Several episodes of The Twilight
Zone capture the essential anxieties of the Cold War period. ‘Third From the Sun,’ which originally aired
on January 8, 1960, perfectly articulated the angst and desperation caused by
the widespread fear of nuclear annihilation” (Wright, Jr., 2010, P. 13). The episode, “Third From the Sun,” is about a
scientist, Will Sturka, who works at a government-run military base. Sturka was producing a large amount of
hydrogen bombs to prepare for nuclear war that was just around the corner. Due to the impending doom, Sturka and a
fellow employee, Jerry Riden, plan to take their families on a ship to another
planet in order to escape their awaiting deaths. The end of the episode has a happy twist
because the group escapes their fate, but the planet that was 11 million miles
away (to which they were traveling) is the third from the sun – Earth.
What the members on
that shuttle should have known, however, was that the same problem was present
on Earth at the exact same time. One
episode of The Twilight Zone in
particular, “Time Enough at Last,” presents more of how drastic of an effect
the H-bomb would have on the world rather than the terror that said bomb struck
in the people of that time. The episode
shows Henry Bemis, a bank teller and enthusiastic bookworm, constantly trying
to find time for his books but he has to deal with everyone around him
criticizing his love for the written word.
One day, he decides to take his lunch break in the bank’s vault in order
to read in peace. Almost as soon as he
lays eyes on his newspaper, which reads: “H-Bomb Capable of Total Destruction,”
a huge explosion goes off outside of the vault.
As soon as he gets the courage to leave the vault, Bemis finds himself
in a barren wasteland—or so it appears—left with no one else around. The H-bomb had completely destroyed
everything… except a plethora, a myriad, an abundance of books, books, and more
books. Bemis spent plenty of time
organizing the books so he knew when to read what. At the end of the episode, however, he drops
and breaks his glasses and is left with nothing but sheer loneliness. The bomb may as well have taken him anyway.
More than anything
else, The Twilight Zone provided a
charming, intelligent, entertaining presentation of events through the fifties
and sixties, and “Serling used the show to critique society, reflecting the
fear and paranoia that existed in the 1950s and 1960s as a result of the Cold
War” (Wright, Jr., 2010, P. 9) as well as the existent prejudice against
differences in people as a whole. The
prevalent theme in the most popular episodes of this captivating show was and
is fear of difference, whether that difference be physical, mental or emotional. In one way or another, the differences
between people that showed in their interactions with one another in the series
put a frame around society’s skepticism of everyone around them. It’s sad that society had (and still has)
such fears of differences in their peers, but that’s the truth.
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