It’s that time of year again. Black Friday. That time when we’re all full of turkey, looking forward to the holiday season, and ready to trample some old lady at Best Buy to steal the Playstation 5 from her withered hands. Well, maybe we can’t participate in those events verbatim this year since we’re still in the midst of a global pandemic. In spirit though, today is still a day of rampant Capitalist spending with every digital shopfront in existence running their own deals and specials. That’s why I thought that today might be a good time to look at one of the most influential and persistent takedowns of consumerism in popular media, They Live.

Based on the 1963 short story by science fiction author Ray Nelson, They Live is a 1988 cult classic by director John Carpenter. The screenplay is credited to one “Frank Armitage”, but this is a pseudonym used by Carpenter himself taken from a character (Henry Armitage) in HP Lovecraft’s The Dunwich Horror. It’s the story of a drifter who finds a pair of sunglasses that reveal the truth of the world when worn. That truth being that all of our media is subliminal messaging intent on brainwashing us and that the elite ruling class are actually alien creatures. 

“Rowdy” Roddy Piper plays the nameless drifter, referred to as “Nada” (aka “nothing”) in the credits, which is a nod to the title of the comic book adaptation of the original story. I won’t say that he’s the best actor, but there’s a certain “working class” vibe to him that we may not have gotten with a more seasoned film star. Given the themes of the movie and the specifics of the character, I think that’s more important. Keith David and Meg Foster round out the rest of the major players here and provide some of that experience and gravitas that Piper may not have had.

Hitting theaters a mere two years after Big Trouble in Little China failed to make a dent in the box office, Carpenter was back working on a much smaller budget. As such, there aren’t a ton of crazy special effects in this one. Still, the visual language presented in this movie is instantly recognizable and has become some of the most iconic of his career. The stark black and white of the “real” world that Nada sees when wearing the glasses was a stroke of genius and the aliens themselves are a totally unique and specific design, looking like corrupted versions of human beings.

While They Live isn’t quite as well-known or regarded as some of Carpenter’s other work like Halloween or The Thing, it’s definitely still a movie which has cemented itself in the public consciousness through its influence. Duke Nukem has been quoting, “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass… and I’m all out of bubblegum” since 1996. South Park dedicated a long stretch of the episode “Cripple Fight” to recreating the almost 6 minute alleyway brawl shot for shot. The strangest piece of notable influence however comes from the OBEY clothing brand, started by illustrator and street artist Shepard Fairey.

On the one hand, this whole thing started as a street art sticker campaign, featuring the word OBEY along with a black and white image of Andre the Giant’s face. Fairey calls it an experiment in phenomenology and says on his website, “The obey sticker attempts to stimulate curiosity and bring people to question both the sticker and their relationship with their surroundings.” So in that regard, I find this incarnation of the whole Obey Giant thing to be very fitting and totally in line with the overall themes of the film. On the other hand, expanding it to a popular clothing brand feels kind of wrong.

By and large, They Live is Carpenter’s response to the Reagan era and rampant consumerism of the 1980’s. If we’re being completely honest though, not a whole lot has changed and this film rings just as true thematically now as it did then. I would actually say that as time has gone on, the ideas presented here have only been revealed as closer and closer to reality. In 2020, the thought of ghoulish beings from a totally separate world to our own controlling our media and our lives through subliminal messaging just sounds like… Tuesday. How many times have you seen relatives sharing misinformed articles or memes with no actual evidence to back them up, clearly created to push an agenda? Unless this election cycle has caused you to go on a blocking spree, then I’d say probably quite a few.

They Live is a movie that manages to juggle a fun and campy tone with a poignant and possibly even prophetic message. It’s not Carpenter’s best work, but an argument could certainly be made for it being his most important. If you haven’t seen it, do so. If it’s been a while, maybe this is a good time to revisit. If you’re really itching for some Black Friday deals, maybe seek out some small local businesses. Jeff Bezos doesn’t need any more of your money.