One of my favorite horror films of all time is John Carpenter’s The Thing. It is a remake of the 1951 classic The Thing, also known as The Thing From Another World starring James Arness, best known for playing Marshall Matt Dillon in Gunsmoke and mountain man Zeb Macahan How The West Was Won.

The 1982 version adapts the 1938 novel Who Goes There? as a research team working in Antarctica discovers an extraterrestrial body thrown from a spacecraft. Excited about their find of the century, they transport it back to their basecamp, and begin to dissect it, chomping at the prospect of the Nobel Prize for Science, million-dollar grant funding, and widespread literary exaltations from the scientific community.

But as all things go in the world of science fiction horror, their brightest prospect becomes their darkest nightmare.

Unlike the 1951 original version that featured one monster, the alien life form is actually parasitic in nature. It attacks and absorbs each host, becoming them in the process. The camp quickly descends into mistrust and madness, as no one knows who is who.

Helicopter pilot R.J. Macready starring Kurt Russell of Escape From New York fame, becomes the unwilling leader who battles each creature to the end. As the camp burns to the ground, he and fellow antagonist Childs played by Keith David stare at each other as they drink whiskey and slowly freeze to death, determined that the creature will freeze with them.

For an 80’s horror film the visual and special effects were incredible. Special make up effects’ genius Rob Bottin and his crew undoubtedly pioneered much of what followed in horror cinema. Carpenter once again demonstrated his ability to assemble the best in creating horror classics, and solidified his iconic status as a master storyteller.

What was brilliant was that although on one level it was a monster movie, it was also a mystery, and a treatise on how ethical codes break down in the midst of crises. It also showed how a virus can rapidly spread and completely overtake populations. In the film, Blair, played by A. Wilford Brimley, discovers through his computer calculations that the entire world population would be infected by the intruder organism in 27,000 hours, or in 3 years.

Will cancel culture overtake our society at the same rate?

Well, not exactly. Cancel culture roughly began around the mid-2010’s, gaining speed and momentum in the last three years. However, it has shown its ferocity and toxicity at alarming rates, going after everyone from celebrities to ordinary kids. It is parasitic in nature, infecting the minds of citizens using social media, and spilling out into the streets, ready to invade any host nearby.

As if Invasion of the Body Snatchers did not tell us enough about the power of foreign invaders, Carpenter shows us how our fragile social cohesion can be ripped apart, and the plethora of fingers pointing outward quickly commences. Soon, everyone is afraid to speak their minds for fear of being canceled by the infected ones.

Who will point at me? Will it be my Instagram friends? My neighbors? The kids at school? The person who overheard me saying something remotely disagreeable?

It has taken the better part of a decade to get us where we are in this toxic cancel culture, but like a virus, it is with us now, and more people are being politically and socially maimed and killed as a result. No wonder there is an escalation of depression, anxiety, and panic in our society – aside from of course the pandemic and the economy. Our fingers and mouths have become weapons of mass destruction, and the impact is devastating.

I am appalled at those who would rather shut down people with dissenting voices than to engage in debate and dialogue with them. It is not only an infringement of free speech, it is one of the signs that a free and open society is about to crash. It has infected political arenas, university campuses, and now comedic stages.

When the court jesters are canceled, the society as we officially know it, is over.

The media enjoys this dissent into madness; their ratings could never have been better. Long form conversations are antithetical to their capital gains. It is not even clear that most media personalities could sustain such logical and reasonable discourses. Insults and baseless accusations spewing from talking headed split screens, and the host has once again quenched the thirst of those living in the rhetorical dungeon.

Those who produce the long form conversation format are independent, their podcasts living on streaming platforms, with growing audiences hungry for such critical thinking and analysis, and reasonable debate that displays decency, dignity, and respect. Such two to three-hour programs are a delight, an intellectual feast of whole food interdisciplinary topics. Those who treat themselves walk away enlightened and refreshed.

Meanwhile, social and cable news media are battle cages harkening to cinematic portrayals of Mad Max, or perhaps the days of the Roman Coliseum, the audiences salivating for the next victim, over talking and shouting down each other and apprehending them with verbal razor wires, throwing pejoratives like balls of fire, waiting for the next body to fall so they can pound their canceled carcass into dust. The participants leave gorged and infected, their bodies leaking with pus.

We would like to believe that the pendulum will swing back, and a semblance of sanity will be restored. Does this follow the natural trend of things, or is this wishful thinking? Matter can not be created or destroyed, it can only be transferred. Maybe this virus is an evolution of viruses throughout human history. Maybe it can be managed, or maybe, this virus is a precursor of more horrific ones to come.

You step outside your door. You see your neighbor approaching you. You stop to engage in conversation. They point at you and shriek. Other neighbors descend upon you. You realize that you were a bystander when cancel culture was taking over America. Then, just as they are about to invade your body, you hear the ghost of Martin Niemöller. “…then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.”