Dupuis: Mars Attacks!

Mars Attacking

The movie Mars Attacks by Tim Burton show the president as just a figure-head that does nothing to help the human race. He rarely appears in most of the scenes in which the Martians are attacking to ensure that he stays safe. Mars Attacks almost portrays the president as a coward. The scene in which he dies opens with him crying in the situation room. Also throughout the movie the president is shown to present no ideas about the aliens. He listens to the scientist and just does what the scientist says; whereas, in other science fiction movies the president is seen as the savior through his courage and wisdom. Jack Nicholson counters acts that view by being a coward that just follows what he is told by the person he deems the smartest. In the opening scene of the movie in which the president is talking with all his advisers he gives the scientist all the power in the scene and the president is just seen as a man sitting behind a desk asking “what should we do?” Burton does this to parody the role of the president by showing that the men Americans are supposed to look up to in times of danger are just as scared as the citizens and really have no idea what to do, so they pass the task on to others.

               Burton also parodies the view of American nationalism through Richie’s family. The family is represents the “normal” red-blooded Americans, rednecks, that are not afraid to fight for their land, or in this case a trailer. The manner in which they die also plays a role in Burton making fun of them. They die by the aliens picking up their trailer and running it into another trailer which is meant to show that just because you pick up a shotgun in the science fiction movie does not mean you going to survive it, like it is shown in most typical science fiction movies. Burton uses these stereotypic roles to poke-fun at what Americans see as a sacred institution that will never fail…unless the Martians take over!