Walking in Someone Else's Shoes: The Cult-TV Body Swap

After a fashion, all of science fiction television concerns the concept of identity, and a human individual's desire to protect, preserve, and nourish that identity.  

When you break down that assertion to specifics, it isn't difficult to discern how the genre is dominated by threats to the inner "self."  From evil twins, impostors and doppelgangers to alternate dimension counterparts, heroes in cult television almost constantly face challenges to identity Superheroes, for example, often suffer from amnesia: the total loss of memory and awareness of "who they are" or who they are destined to become. 

The Borg -- arguably Star Trek's greatest villain -- rob humans and other races of personal identity, assimilating individuality into a colorless collective. 

Similarly, vampires in Buffy the Vampire Slayer are demons who inhabit your (dead) body, but lack your human soul.

From one end of the genre to the other, villains in the pantheon might accurately be described as body thieves or identity robbers/identity corrupters.

Perhaps the most common genre convention in cult television is the idea of the "body swap."

In body swap tales, two individuals change bodies, and in the process overturn the order of the status quo.   In sci-fi TV history, villains have swapped bodies with heroes, men have swapped bodies with women, and sane men have swapped bodies with mad-men.

And in each example of this template, the great struggle in the drama is to re-assert personal identity and reclaim a life that might have been lost.  We cling to our identities. Without it, we are nothing.

The Joe Stefano, Leslie Stevens anthology The Outer Limits (1963-1965) featured an early "body swap" story during its first remarkable season.  

In "The Human Factor," by David Duncan, a scientist named Dr. Hamilton (Gary Merrill) has invented a device for treating the mentally-ill that can join the therapist's mind to that of the patient. This machine can not only share thoughts, but emotions as well...even the emotions "down deep...below the intellect."    

Hamilton has cause to test his mind-joining machine on an engineer named Major Brothers (Harry Guardino) at a military base in Greenland.  Brothers has gone mad with guilt over the death of a fellow officer, and believes that some kind of icy monster has infiltrated the facility.  His goal now is to destroy the facility, and everyone in it. 

But during a therapy session using Hamilton's mind-device, an earthquake occurs and Brothers and Hamilton switch minds and bodies.  Naturally, no other officer believes Hamilton's crazy story that he is actually the good doctor, now trapped in the body of a lunatic; and that a lunatic is now acting as the calm, steady psychologist.  

Disaster is ultimately averted but only because Hamilton's assistant, Ingrid (Sally Kellerman) is able to detect Hamilton's true, good self, inside Brother's body.  The idea of greatest importance in this body swap story is that man is more than a simple machine; that he exists as more than a physical presence, and boasts a soul or spirit (independent of physicality) that can be recognized as distinct and special.  

We would all like to believe that others would recognize our "essence," even if we seem different, or inhabit a different physical form. The Control Voice's ending narration dwells on the machine that made this particular body swap possible, and notes that it is neither good nor evil; that it is man who will always control his machines, and make such choices.

The final episode of the original Star Trek (1966-1969) "Turnabout Intruder," also concerns a body swap.  

This time, another mentally ill individual, a female scientist named Dr. Janet Lester (Sandra Smith), discovers mind-transference technology at on archaeological dig on the distant world of Camus II.  

A former lover of Captain Kirk's (William Shatner), Lester didn't make the cut at Starfleet Academy, and has since developed a deep  and abiding self-hatred.  She has blamed her failure not on her own instability, but on an exclusive world of Starfleet captains that refuses to "admit women."

In the course of the episode, Dr. Lester forces a body switch on Captain Kirk, and then assumes command of the Enterprise.  However, Dr. Lester's capricious, cruel nature soon becomes evident to the Enterprise crew, including Mr. Spock, Scotty and Dr. McCoy.  

When these officers attempt to relieve Kirk of command, Lester tries Mr. Spock for mutiny, and attempts to have Kirk (in her own body) executed. In this version of the body swap tale, the restoration of order again depends on a person -- a friend -- who can recognize a person's true essence outside of physical appearances.

In this case, the Spock-Kirk friendship proves paramount, and Spock makes use of a Vulcan mind-meld to prove that Captain Kirk's true self is trapped in the body of Dr. Lester.  Again, the idea of the soul is raised, if not named directly.  In "Turnabout Intruder," Captain Kirk speaks of the things that make him "special," "only to himself."

In "Turnabout Intruder's" coda, Captain Kirk also notes that Dr. Lester's life could have been as productive and happy as "any woman's," which today is largely and rightly interpreted as a sexist remark.  But the point of his reflection is that if Dr. Lester had not hated her own identity and self, she could have accomplished wonderful things.  

The body swap story is often about a person who wants to change, to be different, and a person upon whom change is forced.  If you are happy in your own skin, you have no need to envy anybody else, or covet their identity.  But Janet Lester considered her identity not a gift (something special to herself, in the words of Kirk) but as a prison. And she sought to escape that prison at her first opportunity.

Chris Carter's The X-Files (1993-2002) took the idea of the "body swap" in a different direction entirely during the sixth season two-part episode, "Dreamland."  

In this tale, an experimental U.S. aircraft reverse engineered from UFO technology emits an energy wave that exchanges the bodies of Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and government bureaucrat, Morris Fletcher (Michael McKean).    

This body swap tale is played largely for comedy, and a highlight of the show is an extended sequence during which Mulder sees himself as Morris in a bedroom mirror.  McKean and Duchovny literally mirror each others moves and expressions -- with perfect timing. 

Although this episode is a bit more fanciful and less serious than your typical X-Files segment, there's again a point to the drama: the idea of what it means to walk a mile in someone else's shoes. 

Here, Mulder is cut off from not just his body, his job, and his best friend, Scully, but from his obsessive, lifelong pursuits.  He finds himself with teenage children, a nagging wife, and no real friends.

Morris, meanwhile -- at least in a certain sense -- does a better job with Mulder's life than Mulder did.  As Mulder, Morris attempts to get frisky with Scully, and enjoys his new, more youthful and athletic body.  Mulder gets moved into a suburban Hell, but Morris makes his time in Mulder's body enjoyable.  

The Farscape canon (1999-2003) also features a variation on the familiar  body swap story.  In "Out of Their Minds" by Ian Watson, a Halosian energy blast strikes Moya and all the refugees and fugitives aboad her (save for Zhaan) are shunted out of their bodies...repeatedly.   

There isn't just one switch among two characters featured in this dizzying, frenetic adventure, but several switches, spread out amongst Chiana, Rygel, John Crichton, Aeryn Sun and D'Argo.  

Like The X-Files installment, "Out of Their Minds" boasts a playful tenor, and doesn't shy away from issues of sexuality (a perpetual strength of Farscape, in general).  

Crichton spends some personal time in Aeryn's body, and Aeryn takes a peek down John's trousers while in his body.  In this sense, "Out of Their Minds" is about curiosity.  In real life, we never have the opportunity to become anyone else, let alone someone of the opposite sex...or a different species.

When the displaced crew members of Moya pull together and defeat the Halosians, the point seems to be that although these characters are all different, they are all alike under the skin. When  they remember that and work together, they succeed.

Walking in someone else's shoes and seeing something through someone else's eyes builds empathy for that person.

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer's fourth season two-parter "This Year's Girl," the renegade slayer Faith (Eliza Dushku) uses a mystical device to swap bodies with the very woman who put her in a hospital (and coma) for the better part of a year: Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar).  

So the visiting Watchers Council actually apprehends Buffy in Faith's body, and Faith -- in Buffy's form -- is left to wreak havoc on the Slayer's personal life, including her romantic relationship with Riley (Marc Blucas).

This episode is another exploration of what it means to walk a mile in another person's shoes.  As Buffy, Faith has sex with Riley out of revenge, out of petty jealousy.  But Faith is upset and deeply-affected after the intercourse because she felt real love...something she had not experienced herself, and was not prepared for. 

 Suddenly -- and literally -- she's got skin in the game. She was affected by what she did; and now can't treat her new body so cavalierly.

Smallville's (2001 -2011) fourth season offered yet another variation on the commonly-seen body swap story, entitled "Transference." 

In this episode -- one of Smallville's finest hours -- Lionel Luthor John Glover) plots to steal Lex's body using a Kryptonian crystal or artifact.  But Clark (Tom Welling) jumps in at the last second to save his friend Lex, and he ends up being the person switched with Lionel.  

In this case, Lionel not only gets a new and younger body...he unexpectedly finds himself in an invincible one.

At this point, Lionel is the undisputed villain of the series, and he returns to Clark's life in Smallville with super powers to go along with his criminal mind.  The kicker in this case is that after order is restored and Lionel is returned to his own body, he feels the after-effects of Clark's presence.  In an instant, Lionel is "born again," a reformed man.  The switch has changed him, but not because of himself, but because his body housed a being of rare, superhuman virtue.

"Transference" points to another aspect of "body swap" stories that proves irresistible. Actors featured in a regular series are suddenly gifted with an opportunity to play a different role; to emulate their co-stars, in many cases.

Smallville proves truly spectacular in this regard, with Welling deftly taking on the gestures, stance and mannerisms of Glover's character, and Glover doing the same for Welling's character.  That's the thing that makes this episode so funny, and it's really a credit to Welling (who gets most of the screen-time) for pulling off a brilliant, funny, and carefully-observed version of Lionel Luthor.

Like many other genre conventions, the body swap isn't going to disappear from cult television anytime soon.  It's too useful a trope, really.  The body swap mixes things up for the performers involved, allowing them to play insane, the opposite sex, or another series regular. But it also reminds us how precious and fragile personal identity truly is.   

It would be terrible, after all, to lose your body to another person.  Especially a person who might be you...better than you ever were.

How Come a Cute Little Guy like This Can Turn into a Thousand Ugly Monsters? The Many Interpretations of Joe Dante’s Gremlins (1984)

Joe Dante’s Gremlins (1984) is a brilliant and wickedly funny horror movie that concerns “corruption and violence beneath the surface of small-town American life,” according to William J. Palmer’s The Films of the Eighties: A Social History.

Yet perhaps Gremlins’ greatest quality involves the fact that the film's central threat -- which Harlan Ellison once termed “The Muppet Chainsaw Massacre” -- can be analyzed or viewed in so many competing ways.

On the surface, of course, the film is all about a small, Norman Rockwell American town -- Bedford Falls -- overcome by violent mischievous critters at Christmas time. One might also view the film as a story of friendship involving a young man, Billy Peltzer (Zach Galligan) and his unusual pet, a Mogwai called Gizmo.

But peel back the onion a little bit, and one can detect how Gremlins might be read from any number of different view-points, or according to a variety of societal critiques. What's a bit amazing is that the film stands up to scrutiny no matter which lens one chooses to apply. 

One monster -- the diminutive, green-skinned, sharp-toothed Gremlin -- stands in, essentially, for many (cultural) monsters.

First, for example, there’s the ethnocentric/technophobic angle, which sees WWII veteran Mr. Futterman (Dick Miller), lamenting the rise of foreign imports, and suggesting that people should only purchase and trust American-made products. 

His (protectionist?) argument is essentially that foreign goods come replete with saboteur gremlins and should thus be avoided.  The Gremlins, essentially then, are the second coming of Pearl Harbor, an attack concocted by "foreigners" to bring America to its knees.

Since the Mogwai do originate with a dealer from the Far East according to the film’s narrative, there’s a certain plausibility to Futterman's stance, one might conclude. But this particular reading grows more complicated when one considers the fact that original masters/owners/care-givers of the same Gremlins are able to control them safely, without violent incident.  Why can’t Americans accomplish the same feat?   The Old Man, Mr. Wing, suggests that we are not ready to control Gremlins/technology. That we are not wise enough.

That the Gremlins are equated with new-fangled technology is established, in large part, by Jerry Goldsmith’s masterful score, which creates a conflict or dichotomy in terms of musical choices.  Much of the film is traditionally orchestral, creating an epic, lyrical sweep.  But the actual Gremlins Theme is electronic in nature, signaling the creatures' origin as something from modernity, from technology.

Also notice that a cold metallic hue is applied or seen in many of the scenes involving Gremlin attacks.  This color equates them either with electricity (again, a technological creation), or the blue static-y glow of television (another technological toy.)  The images below reflect this palette.

Secondly, there’s the economic angle, or critique in Gremlins. 

In Billy Peltzer’s America, the rich are getting richer, even if it means bank foreclosures for middle class families. At the same time, yuppies (represented by Judge Reinhold) reign supreme...plotting to be millionaires by thirty and bragging about their cable TV. Meanwhile, artists and other creative personalities, like Billy, are being shoehorned into “business” jobs that make them miserable. The pursuit of money has become everything -- the gold standard -- in this version of eighties America.

Significantly, absolutely everything is a commodity in this world as it is rendered, even the Gremlins themselves. Consider the old Grandfather’s (Keye Luke) horror upon hearing Mr. Peltzer’s description of Gizmo being “sold.”  It was really a scam, not a fair transaction, wasn't it? The Grandfather had no say in it, no choice.  

Similarly, Mr. Peltzer seems to view Gizmo primarily as a commodity, noting that he bets “every kid in America would like to have one….this could be the big one.” A unique, un-classified animal --  La life form -- is no more than a get-rich quick scheme. It's something that be used to help one acquire vast amounts of wealth.

The picture-perfect Rockwellian appearance of Bedford Falls -- deliberately likened in the body of the film with the cinematic world of It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) -- is thus a contrast to real life there. As Billy learns the hard way, the town is far astray from the American Dream. All the bells and whistles of the holiday season seem empty and cynical when the eighties equivalent of the Wicked Witch -- Polly Holliday’s Mrs. Deagle -- controls the bank, real estate, and the town itself.

Next up, one might consider the season portrayed in the film more closely. Gremlins might actually be considered a “gleeful trashing of everything America holds dear about Christmas,” according to author Mark Connelly in Christmas at the Movies (page 138). Specifically, the 1984 film seizes on the dark, unsettled emotions some people feel during ostensibly the most joyous time of the year.  Once more, Dante's film presents a powerful dichotomy: the appearance (of happiness) and the reality (danger and sadness).

For instance, Mrs. Deagle threatens to throw a family of renters out on the street, informing a mother (Belinda Balaski) and her children that they should wish for Santa Claus to pay the rent.  And late in the film, Kate (Phoebe Cates) shares a haunting story about a family Christmas gone horribly wrong.

All the symbols of the holiday, ultimately, prove dangerous or threatening to Americans. The Peltzer family dog is strung up or hanged in Christmas lights. A Gremlin eats Christmas cookies and is killed in the blender along with the cookie dough…which turns green. 

And a Mogwai even hides inside a Christmas tree, ready to strike an unsuspecting suburban mother. Few Christmas “symbols” survive the movie intact. We get a dead Santa stuck in a chimney, Gremlin carolers, and more holiday-themed atrocities.

When I reviewed Gremlins in my book, Horror Films of the 1980s (2007), I considered the environmental aspects or argument of the film too. The film seems to concern, generally, how something innocent, beautiful and unspoiled (in this case Gizmo) can be perverted, or destroyed by its irresponsible use. The Gremlins are harmless creatures if a certain set of rules are applied and obeyed, but if those rules are ignored, the creatures become a hazard.

Yet when I screened Gremlins for the first time since 2007 last week with my eight year old son, Joel,  I noticed another aspect of the film I hadn’t really considered fully. On some level, the film seems to involve responsible parenting. 

Billy and Mr. Peltzer take stewardship of an innocent life: Gizmo. He will grow up to be happy, healthy and well-adjusted if the three Mogwai rules are obeyed. These rules are: no bright light, no water, and no feedings after midnight. 

All three rules are violated in short order, and the Peltzers soon find themselves contending not with innocent, cuddly babies, but rambunctious, mischievous creatures who crash cars, tear up the town, and make life miserable for them.

Being a father myself, it’s impossible for me not to view the film as an argument directed at irresponsible parents.  If you want to raise a kid “right” you have to establish responsible parameters (the equivalent of the film’s rules), and then stick to them. 

If you don’t do so, those babies don’t transform into green, scaly monsters, but they transform into something worse: irresponsible, defiant teenagers!  Before you know it, they are listening to loud music, drinking beer, and otherwise acting out. Your baby grows up in a terrible way because you couldn't be bothered to be consistent, or responsible. In the film, the Gremlins go on a rampage that is childishly excessive, like a teenager experiencing freedom for the first time.

Even the film’s discussion of television seems to reflect the parenting angle. Grandfather, or Mr. Wing, returns to find that his wayward child has been allowed to spend his time….watching television.  

And of course, TV is the most common babysitter in the world, right?  Essentially, Gizmo goes from being held in one box (which keeps him safe from the dangers of the world), to being captivated by another box -- the television -- that exposes him to those dangers, at least vicariously.

Gremlins is a manic, unruly film, and one of my all-time favorites The anarchic antics of the wee monsters grant the film its umbrella of unity, but also permit for a series of vignettes which shine a light (or reflect a crack’d mirror) on American life in the 1980s.  

Bruce G. Hallenbeck wrote of Gremlins in Comedy-Horror Film: A Chronological History that “there is a dark and subversive undercurrent that keeps viewers off-guard, wondering in which direction it will veer next.” (page 131)  This is a powerful observation, and helps to explain how one film can be viewed through so many different lenses

Or how one cute little guy like Gizmo can turn into a thousand ugly -- and relevant -- monsters.