The Incredible Shrinking Man: Genre Vs Iconography in Classic Film

The film The Incredible Shrinking Man can be described as a science fiction film which makes it a genre picture. The genre of the science fiction film can be interpreted strictly on the basis of key elements of the genre or on the basis of key, iconographic images that are commonly associated with science fiction. In Judith Hess Wright’s article, “Genre Films and the Status Quo,” she writes about the impact of genre films in modern society based on the fact that they allow the audience an escape from the normality of everyday life. Vivian Sobchack’s article, “Images of Wonder: The Look of Science Fiction,” gives a detailed analysis of some of the typical iconographic images associated with the genre of science fiction, and describes how these visual elements are rarely interpreted in great enough detail. While both articles make a good case for methods of analysis, I believe that Sobchack’s method is the much more effective of the two. 

Judith Wright writes; that “genre films serve the interests of the ruling class by assisting in the maintenance of the status quo (Wright 1).” She is arguing that genre films allow people to confront the complexities of society and dominate them. Films allow characters to defeat conflicts in very simple ways based on their own nature. Wright addresses different genres such as the Western, the horror film, the gangster film and science fiction films and addresses the ways in which each different genre works towards this goal of maintaining the status quo. She mentions that science fiction films,
in particular, have a way of putting their characters in a very simplistic, ideal society only to have that society disturbed by some complex being. In the end, it is the character’s natural instincts to overcome this being, whatever it may be, in order for the society to return to its simplistic, peaceful nature. Her overall argument ends with a statement about how genre films work to maintain the current political structure (Wright 5).