Screen Enemies of the American Way : Political Paranoia About Nazis, Communists, Saboteurs, Terrorists and Body Snatching Aliens in Film and Television

American films, like America itself, have long been fascinated by the threat of outsiders posing as citizens to destroy the American way of life. This book tracks real-world fears appearing in the movies--Nazi agents, Japanese-American spies, Communist Party subversives, Islamic sleeper cells--as well as the science-fiction threats that play to the same fears, such as alien body-snatchers and android doppelgangers. The work also examines fears inspired by World War I German spies, the Japanese-American internment and the McCarthyite witch-hunts and shows how these issues, and others, played out on screen. German fifth columns: the Hun, the Third Reich and the rise of the Fourth Reich The yellow peril and the fear of Japan The red menace: Bolsheviks, commies and atheists in America Red scare: Fifth column anticommunist films from 1949 to 1960 Communist fifth columnists after 1960 Muslim fifth columns in America Invasion of the body snatchers Brain eaters, human duplicators and other science fictional fifth columns Invaders, X-files and dynamators: alien fifth columns on television Sexual politics and the war between men and women The master race Satanic and supernatural infiltration in film and television Miscellanea: corporate takeovers, secret societies and the JFK assassination Appendix 1: film credits Appendix 2: television series credits and synopses. Tracks real-world fears appearing in the movies – Nazi agents, Japanese-American spies, Communist Party subversives, Islamic sleeper cells – as well as the science-fiction threats that play to the same fears. It also examines fears inspired by World War I German spies, the Japanese-American internment and the McCarthyite witch-hunts and shows how these issues played out on screen. "American films, like America itself, have long been fascinated by the threat of outsiders posing as citizens to destroy the American way of life. This book tracks real-world fears appearing in the movies and shows how these issues, and others, played out on screen"--Provided by publisher.