Precis, They Live

In the movie They Live, Carpenter asserts that the modern age of consumerism is exploiting humanity. Therein, Carpenter specifically aims to targets the basic American audience of the Reagan era in order to mobilize a critical consciousness; his argument, however, is generalized toward the common American consumer, and the deployment of the “action movie” schema as the mode further widens his audience. Therefore, Carpenter employs a Marxist critique founded in mass media in order to prove that consumer exploitation leads to deindividualization.
In order to accomplish this end, Carpenter employs dramatic irony. His film functions as an “agitprop:” it is a form of propaganda within the mainstream mass media as a modern material action movie archetype. However, this mainstream, consumer-aimed mass media tactic is exactly what Carpenter aims to argue against through his film. He critiques this propaganda through his representation of billboards, magazine advertisements, and store signs as truly saying such simple orders such as, “Obey,” “consume,” “conform,” “buy,” “submit,” “no independent thought.” Therein, by emphasizing the irony of employing the very mode he criticizes, Carpenter makes the audience aware of the efficiency and danger of the mode of mass media.
Furthermore, Carpenter utilizes allegory to prove the danger of consumerism. Within the post-coda scene of the woman having sex with an alien that she though was a man, Carpenter satirically emphasizes how the modern mass media, the agency of modern consumerism, is literally “screwing” the public. Therein, he makes a definitive argument against a society driven by consumption.
Finally, Carpenter’s employment of the metaphor of the sunglasses functions to assert that mass media creates a drone-like public where the collective, non-original thought deindividualizes the world. The image of the true consumerist world as a black and white place denounces consumerism to an evacuation of the unique aspects of life such as color and complexity. Therein, he asserts that mass media and consumerism create an indistinguishable public within a boring, anti-individual world.
Overall, Carpenter employs imagery functioning as irony, allegory, and metaphor of modern consumer culture in order to inspire a critical consciousness within the public against believing without questioning that which mass media puts forth, and further to criticize the modern consumer culture which deemphasizes individuality.