They Live
John Carpenter's 1988 science fiction film They Live serves as a powerful allegory for cyborg anthropological themes, particularly the ways technology mediates human perception and social control. The film follows Nada, a drifter who discovers special sunglasses that reveal hidden messages embedded throughout society and expose alien beings who have been controlling humanity through subliminal advertising and media manipulation. While not explicitly about cyborgs, the film explores how technological interfaces - represented by the sunglasses - can fundamentally alter human perception and reveal the constructed nature of social reality.
The sunglasses in They Live function as a critical technological prosthetic that extends human sensory capabilities beyond their natural limitations. Through this device, Nada can perceive the true nature of billboards, magazines, and television broadcasts, which display commanding messages like OBEY, CONSUME, and STAY ASLEEP invisible to the naked eye. This concept aligns with cyborg anthropological ideas about how technology can reveal hidden layers of social and political control. The glasses represent a form of technological enhancement that provides access to information normally filtered out by both biological limitations and social conditioning.
From a cyborg anthropological perspective, the film illustrates how human consciousness and behavior are already technologically mediated, even without obvious cybernetic enhancement. The alien control system in "They Live" operates through mass media, advertising, and consumer technology - the same systems that Amber Case and other cyborg anthropologists identify as extending and modifying human cognition in contemporary society. The aliens' control mechanism works precisely because humans have become so integrated with technological systems of communication and information processing that they cannot distinguish between authentic experience and technologically mediated reality.
The film's famous fight scene, where Nada struggles to force his friend Keith to put on the glasses, serves as a metaphor for resistance to technological awakening and the psychological difficulty of accepting how deeply technology shapes perception. This sequence reflects cyborg anthropological concerns about technological unconsciousness - the ways humans become so integrated with technological systems that they lose awareness of how these systems influence their thoughts and behaviors. The violence of the scene suggests that recognizing our cyborg nature and the extent of technological mediation in daily life can be traumatic and socially disruptive.
They Live ultimately presents a dystopian vision of cyborg integration where technology serves primarily as a tool of social control rather than human enhancement. However, the film also suggests that the same technological systems used for oppression can become instruments of liberation when understood and consciously employed. The sunglasses represent the possibility of using technology to achieve critical consciousness about our technologically mediated condition. This duality reflects ongoing debates in cyborg anthropology about whether human-technology integration represents progress toward enhanced capabilities and freedom, or deeper forms of social control and dependency.
