Stephenie Meyer, author of the Twilight book series about teenaged vampires and werewolves living in a small Oregon town, is a pop idol to the teenaged girls who grew up taking sides between “Team Edward” and “Team Jacob” as they debated whether the books’ high-school protagonist, Bella, should marry the vampire (Edward) or the werewolf (Jacob). (See my review of Breaking Dawn in Liberty, August 2008.) Talk about a step backward in the evolution of women’s opportunities!
The Host represents Meyer’s foray into legitimate science fiction, with its alien ganglia traveling from a distant planet that take over human bodies by inserting themselves surgically into the necks of unsuspecting hosts. (Wait! Wasn’t that already done in Invasion of the Body Snatchers [1956 and 1978] and Invaders from Mars [1953 and 1986]?) What made those two films and their remakes so powerful is that the invaders could be interpreted as a metaphor for alien ideas and philosophies that often overtake a community.
In the end, the problem is resolved when the aliens and the humans decide to be friends.
Unfortunately, The Host does not resonate with any philosophical relevancy. The opening scene teases the audience with the hint of a satisfying idea when the narrator says, “We are at peace. There is no hunger, no poverty, and no violence. The world is perfect. But it is not ours.” In this seemingly perfect world there is no violence or dishonesty, but peace has come at a price: there is no free will. Humans are forced by their invaders to do good. This “goodness” is represented in the lack of corporations and commercialism, of course; food is packaged in nondescript containers with labels that simply identify the contents in block letters, and obtained from a large box building called “STORE.” Notice I used the word “obtained,” rather than “purchased”; in this utopian world there is no money.
How food is produced and transported with neither profit motive nor coercion and distributed with neither money nor violence could have provided an interesting story. However, once again Meyer quickly moves away from addressing any philosophical problem so that she can focus on the romantic interests of her young protagonist, in this case Melanie (Saoirse Ronan). When Melanie is injected with a space-traveling “Soul” named “Wanderer,” her sense of will is somehow strong enough to enable her to keep fighting to control “their” body. She (or they) escape to the desert, where a community of humans, including Melanie’s brother, uncle, and boyfriend, has been hiding in underground caverns to avoid being injected by aliens. Melanie is still in love with Jared (Max Irons) but doesn’t want “Wanderer” to experience kissing him. Another buff young survivor, Ian (Jake Abel), falls for “Wanda,” and Melanie doesn’t want her (or their) body kissing Ian. A lot of slapping goes on as a result.
That’s the philosophical conflict we are forced to consider. We’re back to Team Edward and Team Jacob, but with a bizarre Siamese-twin kind of twist.
In the end, the problem is resolved when the aliens and the humans decide to be friends. Wanda shows them how to coax the aliens’ ganglia out of the hosts’ necks, without hurting either one. The aliens are placed in space-travel containers and shot into outer space, where they can terrorize another planet; but that’s OK because, as Wanda reassures them, “by the time they reach another planet your grandchildren’s grandchildren will be grown up.” That’s a little like saying, “The national debt doesn’t really matter because we’ll all be long gone before our grandchildren’s grandchildren have to pay it.” And if you don’t have children, then heck! You’re home free!
One qualification: the aliens are allowed to stay in their human host bodies if the human psyche or soul or essence cannot be revived after the alien is removed. In other words, if you sufficiently overpowered your host’s body, you get to keep it. So Melanie gets Wanda out of her system, Wanda gets a new body, and Ian gets a new girlfriend. And somewhere out in the distant universe, an unsuspecting population is getting some uninvited visitors.
Just so it isn’t us.
Let’s all sing a chorus of “Kumbaya.”
