Based on your viewing of The Outer Limits episode “The Bellaro
Shield” and understanding of Jeffrey Sconce’s essay on the show,
explain how The Outer Limits expresses and potentially
intensifies particular anxieties prevalent during the early 1960s.
I believe that The Outer Limits episode “The Bellaro Shield” explores many of the particular anxieties prevalent during the early 1960s as identified by Jeffrey Sconce in his article “the ‘outer limits’ of oblivion”. Sconce himself details how the scientist’s wife Judith represents a “suburban Lady Macbeth” (156) symbolically trapped in her role as a domestic housewife. However, this episode also reflects the other major anxieties, such as nuclear annihilation, ‘Frankensteinian’ science, the vast unknown of outer space, and electronic oblivion.
ReplyDeleteThe vast unknown of outer space is expressed through the scientist’s discovery of an alien species quite unlike anything on earth. The alien is at first perceived as a monster and brings with him technology and knowledge vastly superior to those belonging to humans. Human advances in technology are portrayed as being responsible for this frightening visitor’s arrival. The alien also claims to be from “above the universe,” a strange place somehow only accessible through the scientist’s laser beam and thus recalling the idea of an electronic oblivion.
The episode also has a preoccupation with technologically advanced weapons. The scientist’s primary research seems to involve a giant laser. Dialogue indicates also that his father’s corporation builds weapons. The main hint at nuclear annihilation comes when Judith observes the power a nation would possess if it could shield all of its citizens, first calling it a weapon before electing instead to refer to it as an anti-weapon.
It is also worthwhile to observe that in the end, the instability and inner tensions of the family presented in this episode leaves the characters unable to properly deal with either their extraterrestrial visitor or the advanced technology of the shield.
The Outer Limits was able to intensify certain anxieties by drawing attention to the unknown nature of the television during the 1960s. As Jeffery Sconce states in his essay, the television was a “gateway” to the unknown and the idea of broadcast signals/waves could take you to another dimension or that it could hold the souls of things that once lived or existed on another planet. The Outer limits was able to feed off of the anxiety and paranoia of not being in control of the situation. Jeffery Sconce, brings up the idea of going to see a horror movie and that after you are done watching the movie you are able to leave the place where you experienced such fear, yet with television and broadcast like The Outer Limits you were stuck in the experience even after the program had ended. With this and major paranoia happening in the actual world around them (the threat of nuclear warfare) this would only exacerbate the idea of something coming at an unknown point in time to take them away. Families living in suburban neighborhoods were used to control and familiarity so dealing with the supernatural (ghost inside of televisions) or being unknowingly placed in another world or captured by what you don’t expect to see is threatening to what the viewer is accustomed. In relations to the “The Bellaro Shield”, The Outer Limits again provides the viewer with a situation that is unlikely but still not completely unimaginable, yet underneath the idea of an alien being brought into the home, the episode speaks on the typical American housewife during the 1960s that feels entrapped in her own home, which Sconce speaks on in the essay. Once again making the housewife question her role or be uncomfortable with being in the home for fear of being enslaved. The glass shield is also, to me, a case for the husband to showcase his accolades in life, with his wife being one of many to showoff. The anxiety of her being nothing more than a trophy is something that is being pushed here in the episode
ReplyDeleteThe episode “The Bellaro Shield” and the Jeffrey Sconce’s interpretation of The Outer Limits stresses and intensifies anxieties prevalent during the early 1960s by drawing on Cold War fears of nuclear annihilation and xenophobia.
ReplyDeleteSconce focuses on the program’s opening credits as intensifying the anxieties of the 1960s. The credits, which emphasize the “control” the program wields over the television, feature an alarming tone that Sconce compares to “network special reports [that] signif[ied] imminent nuclear annihilation” (Sconce 23). Considering the 1960s marked the peak of the Cold War, the credits similarity to nuclear warnings acted as a constant reminder to viewers that their very livelihood could end instantly and unpredictably, which would follow a warning from the same device that the average family considered ‘entertainment’. Additionally, the heavy emphasis of ‘control’ in the credits resonated with viewer’s fear of spy technology, specifically the USSR’s Sputnik satellite(s), which some believed would result in the elimination of personal privacy. Overall, the credits of The Outer Limits intensified Cold War anxieties present during the 1960s by emphasizing the looming threat of nuclear annihilation and the powers of advancing technology over the average citizen.
The episode “The Bellaro Shield” similarly captures 1960’s anxieties of nuclear annihilation and xenophobia. The episode focuses on an alien bringing an impenetrable shield. This notion of an outsider bringing an innovative but clearly militaristic technology resonates with the xenophobic Red fear of the time. Furthermore, the shield itself initially appears to be a useful defensive mechanism; however, when Judith becomes trapped inside it, the program emphasizes the problematic isolation the shield causes, defying its earlier appearance as a means of safety. With the Cold War brewing, the shield obviously appears to be a defense against potential nuclear annihilation; however, Judith’s portrayal while inside the shield reveals that this ultimate defense still proves problematic by isolating one from the global community around it and leaving one constrained to the resources within the shield, an alarming undermining of a ‘dream’ defense scenario.
Overall, both Sconce’s essay and the episode “The Bellaro Shield” intensify 1960s anxieties by focusing on Cold War fears ranging from nuclear annihilation to the elimination of privacy to xenophobia.
In Sconce's essay, he describes how "The Bellaro Shield" reflects the sense that women were being suffocated by their isolation in the domestic space, literally manifest in Judith's being imprisoned in the Bellaro Shield (pp. 35). However, when viewed the actual episode, though I could relate to Sconce's discussion of it, I also felt that there was a bookend discussion to frame Judith's story as one of a housewife who should know better than to meddle in the affairs of men. Yes, Judith falls into this prison as she is trying to preform the script of devoted wife, putting her husband's prestige above her own, but there is constant commentary about not letting aspiration become ambition which is coded to be a flaw of Judith, but not her husband. (as an aside, ambition is not inherently a negative thing, but it is often coded as negative for women but not problem-itized for men) Mr. Bellaro Sr. is also coded as corruptly ambitious, and nearly as ruthless as Judith. However, Judith is treated as much more of a victim than he is. Her downfall comes at the her own hand, implying that she is not a worth wielder of power, and is very humiliating and dis-empowering. His demise comes quickly, at the slap of Mrs. Dame, the housekeeper, sparing him the prolonged torture that Judith endures while trapped in the shield. Also, Mr. Bellaro Sr.'s death can be seen as an example of the destructive consequences that come when women decide not to follow men's lead.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, the character of Mrs. Dame, interestingly absent from Sconce's analysis, brings up some other problematic elements. Though she is implied to have received abuse at the hands of men (she has a gun that she kept to protect herself from her former husband), she has barely any autonomy, following Judith's instructions even when she very much disagrees.
Though Sconce cites this piece as evidence and acknowledgement of growing unrest and dissatisfaction with women's isolated place in the domestic sphere, there are also numerous ways that this episode conforms with dominant patriarchal discourse.