The aliens attack presumably the most vulnerable 'creatures' on earth, women, and use sexual means to do so. This is supposed to make them seem particularly dastardly. Marge looks even more vulnerable as she looks for aid, but finds that more and more men on the earth have been taken over by 'them.' Even individuals in conventional, male authority figures like the police have been infiltrated by aliens. However, the idea of the questionable nature of the law implied in "I Married a Monster from Outer Space" is not confined to anti-communist films. Anti-McCarthy films like the Western "Silver Lode" show how similar themes, even a similar plot, can be used for the opposite ideological purposes. In "Silver Lode," one Marshall McCarty, unjustly accuses John Ballard of murder on the day of his wedding. The townspeople turn against Ballard, trusting 'the law' rather than Ballard true good nature, which they should know. To the townspeople, Ballard, once good, is now 'bad,' and while "I Married a Monster from Outer Space" suggests that people should believe that friends and neighbors can 'change' quickly, as if on a dime, in terms of their ideology, "Silver Lode" suggests just the opposite, that individuals should
One of the markings of the aliens is their lack of emotion (just as the Red Menace was often portrayed as a marching army of faceless automatons from the U.S.S.R.). The overwrought emotion of Marshall McCarty in "Silver Lode" is what 'counts against' the Marshall as a character in terms of the audience's sympathy.
The specificity of the threat is perhaps what makes "Silver Lode" so clearly anti-McCarthy. Because the accusation of murder is concrete, the hero can defend himself against the charge. The vague, invisible alien-like threat is what is so frightening about the aliens in "I Married a Monster from Outer Space." When a threat is vague and shadowy, as was what communism 'really was' to Americans of the 1950s, people are more apt to believe that the accused are capable of anything, and to trust experts who tell them 'the truth' about this strange threat that seems to wear the face of their nearest and dearest, but really comes from the darkest outreaches of an unknown country.
Works Cited
Married a Monster from Outer Space." Directed by Gene Fowler, Jr. 1958.
Silver Lode." Directed by Allan Dwan. 1953.
