Blog Post #1: MacReady as the Repressor of "the Other"

MacReady as the Repressor of "the Other"

Rasif Choudhury

The scene in John Carpenter’s film, The Thing, where R.J. MacReady (Kurt Russell) is testing all the soldiers’ blood in order to see who was infected by the alien that infiltrated their camp, offers many assumptions. Within the scene, MacReady is given great control over the other soldiers. The other men are powerless as they wait to see whom The Thing infected. By observing the different elements of this scene, one can understand why the director had chosen to set up the stage a certain way, in order to give MacReady the duty of repressing “the other”.

            The scene is filled with immense tension as MacReady is standing over the soldiers with a flamethrower threatening to kill them. At this moment, MacReady orders the men to be tied down to the chairs in order to strengthen his control over them. The fact that MacReady has a weapon and is the only one not tied to the chair signifies that the scene intended to assign MacReady full power over the soldiers. The reason for this to happen in this scene can be understood in Robin Wood’s, “The American Nightmare: Horror in the 70s”. Robin Wood’s central idea is that horror films depict the repression of “the other”. Wood describes that the, “Otherness represents that which bourgeois ideology cannot recognize or accept…”(Wood, 27). Wood goes on to explain that the other can be repressed only if it is destroyed, imitated, or by assimilating it into society. In this case, MacReady has authority over the group, and is able to repress “the other” or The Thing in this matter. MacReady will utilize his weapon in order to suppress the monster. MacReady represents the bourgeois that represses anything that is out of the norm in society.  

                                                                                The Vietnam War poster behind MacReady (Kurt Russell)

MacReady’s demand to want all the soldiers’ blood is another example to how he is repressing “the other”. While MacReady is taking blood from all the soldiers, there is a poster that is hanging on the wall behind him. On the poster (see above) it states “They Aren’t Labeled Chum”, and the female on the poster has a tag that states, “I have Vd!”. The prop within the scene is an imitation of a military poster that was utilized in order to warn soldiers to be cautious of their sexual activity as they fought abroad in foreign countries. The fact that the director chose to have this poster in the scene is not ironic. During the time the film aired there was a heightened fear of AIDS in America. This can be explained further in Vera Dika’s, “From Dracula-With Love”. Dika explains how the use of blood in movies during this time symbolized, “The notion of a blood disease and of the plague…” (Dika, 394). The poster in the scene acts as a subliminal message to the AIDS pandemic that was occurring during this decade. After identifying this fact, the scene takes on more of a clinical environment. MacReady seems as if he is the doctor who is testing the blood of those that were infected by the virus, in order to cleanse society from this horrid disease. This is another illustration of how MacReady is repressing “the other” by singling it out, and attempting to kill off The Thing.    

             

Works Cited

Dika, Vera. “From Dracula – with Love” The Dread of Difference: Gender and the

     Horror Film. Barry Keith Grant, Ed. Austin: University of Texas Press, 

     1996. 388-400.

Wood, Robin. “The American Nightmare: Horror in the 70s.” (1979): 25-32. Print.