Semiotics: Who Goes There & The Thing

Semiotics: Who Goes There & The Thing

Comparing Infections

Kaitlin Gomez

Who Goes There (1932)

Syntagmatic	Paradigmatic
Relationship between Blaire and work men	Antarctica vs. small rural population (environment change)
Relationship between Blaire and alien	Alien (non-human visage vs. human like qualities
Way of infection	Blood vs. Egg (think Prometheus)

Who Goes There, a science fiction novella by Campbell, was the launching point for John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982). The second movie produced followed the plot points of the story better than its counterpart in 1951. While there are similarities when it comes to both formats, the relationship that Blaire (the scientist) has with the rest of the twelve at the research station is different. In Campbell’s version Blaire is described as a small man and his way of viewing the alien places him as being odd or different from how the other’s view the alien as being dangerous. He views the Alien as being a low life form but having different experiences that would cause it to ‘produce different facial expressions’ and he wishes to study it(Campbell). His argument being that the alien’s experience would translate differently than their own on Earth.

Campbell wrote Who Goes There in the 1930’s. During that time, you had events like the Great Depression, a round of new immigrants showing up as well as Mexican Americans making an appearance. It could be argued that the Alien was supposed to represent the immigrants coming to the United States but there is no document that I found for this just my thoughts on it.

Who Goes There leans heavily on science and the rules that should be followed regarding it. Blaire believed that because the Alien was a ‘low life form’ they would thaw it and it would be dead. He believed that it would obey the laws of science according to the planet Earth, never thinking that it would have different ‘rules’ of its own. Campbell probably found some inspiration during the 1930’s because of discoveries happening in space, for example when Pluto was discovered (Wikipedia).

           

The Thing (1982)

Syntagmatic	Paradigmatic
Blood symbolizes aids	Blood vs. possession of mind

In the second movie adaptation for The Thing there is still a want of knowledge except now the context has changed. It’s important to know if they want to survive, where in Campbell’s novella it was more to learn to understand. The movie leans more towards science-fiction horror which fills the movie with more suspense where the very first movie was lacking.

During the 1980’s there was the identification of the Aid’s virus in the United States and the way that it was contracted between two people. Due to how strongly the movie placed the fast rate of infection from alien to human, it shows how quickly Aids could/did spread during that time of the 60/70’s. Followed by the actions taken to prevent its further spread. The movie shows several instances where the characters have to test their own blood for infection, again, putting symbolism on the blood carrying the infection.