Oh, the horror. As I write this column we’ve been four days without an internet connection. It’s the rain. Still, there are benefit’s to this periodic outage. I almost said “outrage” but the AT&T techs are always kind and patient with our frustration. Also, I’ve had time to read five novels during that period. My wife buys books on Amazon and stores them for later. Smart. Even though I have a novel on Amazon in the Kindle format, I simply can’t read e-books. I get queasy. As a fan of horror fiction, the paperbacks led to my topic; Boogeymen.

Stories are just socially accepted lies. But what is the truth? The oral tradition was the only way to explain what early bi-peds saw and interpreted their existence. Next came cave drawings. My first reading assignment in college English was Plato’s Allegory of The Cave. The narrator sat behind a rock at the mouth of a large cave. He could not see the bonfire inside and could only determine what was happening by the shadows roaming the inner walls. Plato felt this was how humans saw reality; subjectively.

Fiction and movies are social commentary as well as attempts at art. What’s happening in the world colors our view of things. Artists create fibs in order to make a point about what they see. The operative word is “they.” The John W. Campbell, Jr. novella Who Goes There? was published in 1938. It is a chilling story of earth’s invasion by a protean alien. I see it as a metaphor for one of the great Boogeymen of all time; Communism. In 1951, Hollywood adapted the story into a movie called The Thing From Another World. The Kurt Russell remake came out in 1982. Both movies gave me nightmares but also left me with one glaring question; why were the movies so different? I read the novella and discovered that the 1982 remake was faithful to the original story while the 1951version was a complete departure.

Why? Politics: Joe McCarthy’s commie witch hunt and the House of Un-American Activities search for Boogeyment. A seminal work from the Golden Age of Sci-Fi was turned into a warning of an impending communist destruction from over the polar icecaps. Remember the hero of The Body Snatchers running down the freeway warning people to look to the skies? For what? Soviet ICBMs. The first The Thing movie altered the novella to fit the political climate of the 50’s commie-paranoia. Socialism was passé. The new Boogeyman was Communism and Hollywood, under fear of being Black Listed, geared up for the Reign of Terror (no pun intended) that the anti-communists would rain down (pun intended) on the grand liars of that time; writers and film makers.

We fought, or financed, to defeat communism. Wars were called “conflicts” but the blood and body bags were just as real. When The Wall came down, Communism was supposedly dead. We needed a new Boogeyman. What about China’s brutal communist purges of their intelligentsia and artisans that left millions dead? Why weren’t they the next target? Where was our righteous indignation then? Ever voracious in our appetite for petroleum products, the Middle East and radical Muslims were the better target. With the inauguration of our first black president We-The-People needed a jump start so Conservatives drug Socialism from the closet. Our so-called democracy, or plutocracy, fragmented into two mighty Boogeymen; Republicans and Democrats.

Documentaries can be as slanted as fiction. The man who filmed my daughter’s wedding had just won a prestigious award for his documentary on Argentina’s fascination with the Tango. He told me point blank that his intent was to show how this form of entertainment was used as a veil to hide the atrocities perpetuated by the military junta in charge. People still quote Reefer Madness as if it is the gospel on drugs. Hitler used the media to teach his twisted speech. Check out Triumph Of The Will some time. Art doesn’t portray life, it imitates and amplifies it, makes the mundane sublime, gives our plodding days meaning and purpose. It is not just entertainment but truth as seen and shared by a single person. My favorite books are To Kill a Mockingbird and Grapes of Wrath. Are their powerful messages invalid because they are not true? They are lessons for all of us all the time.

As a liberal, I am either the boogeyman or the boogeyed. The internet floods us with unfiltered information. It foments fear and hate on a global basis. Personal opinion is taken as fact simply because it is in print. The pen, or pixel, has never been mightier. And never been more biased. I have developed a classic love-hate relationship with it. Yes, I use it to get my point across. I want to sell books and movie scripts on it. Guilty. I assume that the readers understand it is all just my opinion. I also fear its subtle lies as much as I dread the eternal parade of Boogeymen that our government parades before us, real or make-believe.

Jerry Tuck is a retired San Andreas resident and an indie author. Contact him at olwhofan@aol.com or use the Contact Form.