Thirty Minute Reality Check: How The Twilight Zone Reflected
American Society in the 1950s
© 2004, Meredith Brenner
Imagine, if you will, a time that seemed innocent... almost too innocent.
Imagine a nation under whose seemingly conformist and conservative surface
dramatic social changes were brewing, changes as obvious as integration and as
subtle as fast food. And imagine, if you will, a radical television show that
scrutinized, criticized, and most importantly, publicized these changes, making
the social turmoil of a nation apparent to its post-world war, self-contented
middle-class citizens. But what if this television show was not as it appeared?
What if it masqueraded as simple science fiction, and did not reveal its true
agenda until viewers took a closer look? Let us examine how such a television
program can become a defining force in the culture of a nation, a force that
remains just as powerful almost forty-five years after it first appeared. Let
us investigate the secrets of... The Twilight Zone.
With ominous opening monologues, mind-bending special effects (at the time,
anyway) and totally unexpected-twist endings, The Twilight Zone captured
the attention and imagination of America at the end of one of the most
influential and change-inspiring decades of the century. During the fifties,
Americans experienced vast changes not only in our country's position in the
world, but also in our own culture -- and one of the leading vehicles for this
change was television. In a time when situation comedies and game shows
dominated the air waves, Rod Serling's science fiction anthology program stood
out as an example not only of the artistic potential of television in terms of
writing and special effects, but also of the power television had as social
commentary and a thought-provoking medium. Seeing television's potential not
just as a circus for the masses, but as an opportunity to challenge the
conscious, penetrate the subconscious, and make people think without realizing
it, Serling used this new window on America to showcase the prominent issues of
the time, as well as to reflect Americans' fears of the consequences of some of
our actions. The Cold War, the Bomb, space travel, aliens, technology -- even
morality in general -- are all themes that appear frequently in The Twilight
Zone. What sets The Twilight Zone apart, however, is the way in
which these topics were presented. In a time of Communist witch-hunts and
finger-pointing, it was difficult to present objectively the flaws in American
culture without putting oneself at risk. So, Serling disguised his social
commentary as science fiction; he hid the shocking facts behind even more
shocking fantasy. Radical in its own time and still admired and emulated today,
The Twilight Zone set the standard for thoughtful television and
inspired a generation to think differently about the changes it was witnessing.
There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man.
It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the
middle-ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and
it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is
the dimension of imagination. It is an area we call the 'Twilight Zone.'
(Engel)
With these words, and some famously eerie music, Rod Serling ushered America
into The Twilight Zone. The show aired for five seasons from 1959 to
1964 (Vahimagi), and although this is a little after the fifties, many of the
fears and anxieties prominent in the show had their basis in events during that
decade. There were 156 episodes of The Twilight Zone, and an amazing
92 of them were written by Serling himself (SciFi.com). The show, which aired
on CBS, was considered to be the first adult science-fiction anthology on
television. Serling once described the show for TV Guide in this way: "It's an
anthology series, half hour in length, that delves into the odd, the bizarre,
the unexpected. It probes into the dimension of imagination but with a concern
for taste and for an adult audience too long considered to have IQs in negative
figures." (Vahimagi)
As an anthology, each episode dealt with a different storyline and different
characters; one did not need to watch all the episodes to understand what was
happening in any one. There were some constant features, however -- every
episode opened with a monologue that provided basic background information and
hinted at the mysteries to come, and each show ended with a monologue that,
like a closing argument to a jury about to vote on its own fate, summarized the
events of the story and made a point about the underlying themes of the
episode. These monologues were performed by Rod Serling himself in his
authoritative, teacher-with-a-sense-of-impending-doom voice. In addition to the
eerie mood-setting opening, the show became extremely well known for its plot
twists -- each story would end by revealing some sort of shocking,
unpredictable, totally unexpected secret to the viewer, often a secret that
completely altered the meaning of the story and hinted at the message Serling
was trying to get across -- a message that, if stated more directly, would have
been preachy if not unpopular and politically incorrect.
A key example of such a plot twist is evident in the show's pilot episode,
which quickly set the tone for the 155 stories to follow. Titled "Where is
Everybody?", the pilot aired on October 2, 1959 (Sander). The story followed a
man as he wandered around a seemingly deserted town. Although he (and the
viewer) saw no one, objects would appear to have been moved by someone else,
and telephones would ring only for there to be no one there when our hero
answered. Eventually, the man is driven insane by the loneliness and the
puzzling events, and collapses while frantically pushing the crossing button on
a stoplight. The twist is that the man is actually an astronaut in training for
a solitary flight -- he has been living in solitary confinement for days, and
the entire town was merely a hallucination he was experiencing. The crossing
button, as it turns out, is a panic button in the solitary confinement chamber
(Zicree).
The originality of the show earned it a great deal of attention from critics,
writers, and actors at the time. It was critically acclaimed and, although it
was never a ratings winner, it had a large cult following and was especially
popular with teenage viewers (Sander). Additionally, the show won three Emmy
Awards -- one in each of the show's first two seasons for Outstanding Writing
Achievement in Drama, and one for George Clemens in Outstanding Achievement in
Cinematography (Vahimagi). Other notable awards the show won in its five year
run include a Directors Guild Award, a Producers Guild Award, and three World
Science Fiction Convention Hugo Awards. Well-known and soon to be famous actors
flocked to the show because of its reputation for providing meaningful roles,
due mostly to its outstanding writing. Stars such as William Shatner, Burgess
Meredith, Ron Howard, and Agnes Moorehead among others all appeared on episodes
of The Twilight Zone (SciFi.com); some, such as Burgess Meredith, even
had roles written specifically for them (Zicree).
The success of The Twilight Zone comes, in large part, from the
brilliant writing of Rod Serling. He was the backbone of the show -- its
creator, producer, and head writer for all five seasons. It is estimated that
more than 200 of his screenplays were produced over the course of his
twenty-five year career (Vahimagi). Rod Serling was born on December 25, 1924,
in Syracuse, New York, and he grew up in Binghamton (Cochran). He served in the
U. S. Army 11th Airborne Division, and saw action in the Philippines during
World War Two, where he was wounded by shrapnel. After his discharge from the
Army in 1946, Serling attended Antioch College in Ohio on the GI Bill. He
enrolled as a Physical Education major, but quickly changed his focus to
Language and Literature and began writing his first stories. He also wrote his
first television script, "Grady Everett for the People," and sold it to the NBC
anthology series Stars Over Hollywood for $100 while still an
undergraduate (SciFi.com). He married Carolyn Louise Kramer in 1948, and
graduated with his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1950. They moved to Cincinnati,
where Rod began working as a writer for WLW Radio, a local station. He
eventually switched to writing for a regular series called The Storm that aired
on WKRC-TV Cincinnati (Vahimagi).
In 1952, Serling decided to write freelance full-time, and it was at this
point that his career began to gather momentum. From 1951-1955 more than 70 of
his scripts were produced (SciFi.com), some of them on nationally recognized
programs like Lux Video Theatre, Hallmark Hall of Fame, and
Kraft Television Theater (Vahimagi). It was one of Serling's screenplays
for Kraft Television Theater that won him the critical acclaim and
success that he deserved. "Patterns," a critical look at the world of big
business, aired on ABC on January 12, 1955, and was an instant success. Critics
loved it, and they quickly dubbed Serling the next Arthur Miller (Engel). It
also won him his first of six Emmy Awards, this one for Best Original Teleplay
Writing, as well as a Sylvania Award for Best Teleplay (Vahimagi). Remarkably,
"Patterns" was so popular it was even remounted live and aired a second time on
February 9, an event that was unheard of at the time (Sander).
Rod Serling followed the success of "Patterns" with a variety of other
screenplays, but it was not until he began writing for CBS' Playhouse 90
that he once again achieved the critical acclaim he had experienced with
"Patterns." The premiere episode of Playhouse 90, an anthology series
of ninety-minute dramas, was Serling's adaptation of the novel "Forbidden
Area." The first ninety-minute script ever written for television, "Forbidden
Area" debuted on October 4, 1956; it was not terribly well received by critics,
however (Engel). It was the second production of Playhouse 90 that
solidified Serling's status as one of the greatest television writers of his
time. "Requiem for a Heavyweight" debuted live on October 11, 1956 to immense
critical acclaim. It won Serling his second consecutive Emmy, another Sylvania
Award, and the first-ever George Foster Peabody Award for writing, among other
awards. His third script for Playhouse 90, "The Comedian," aired on
February 14, 1957, and won Serling his third Emmy Award for Best Teleplay
Writing (Vahimagi).
It was in 1957, following his immense success with Playhouse 90, that
Serling decided to do something a little different. He had an idea for a
science fiction anthology series and, following the success of his earlier
scripts, CBS offered him a joint production agreement for a weekly show whose
stories' only common link would be their dependence on the viewer's imagination
(Engel). Serling quickly wrote a pilot called "The Time Element," which was
based on an idea that grew out of his experiences in war. In the story, a man
suffers from a recurring dream in which he wakes up in Honolulu days before
Pearl Harbor. He tries desperately to warn everyone of the impending attack,
but no one believes him until it is too late. CBS rejected the story as a pilot
episode, however, out of fears that it was too long.
Serling then sold the story to the Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, and
it aired on November 24, 1958. The network got more mail in response to "The
Time Element" than to any other drama it had ever shown (Engel). The
surprisingly enthusiastic reception added to Serling's desire to get his own
anthology show off the ground, so he submitted a second pilot script. This one,
titled "The Happy Place," imagined a society where all adults are taken to the
"happy place" on their sixtieth birthdays. This is, of course, supposed to
symbolize death, and the story was meant to be a parable for Nazi Germany.
However, "The Happy Place" was never aired -- it was rejected by the network
out of fears that no advertiser would want to back it due to its Nazi overtones
(Engel).
As a result of his troubles with the first two potential pilots, Serling was
quite discouraged about the prospects of what would become The Twilight Zone.
It was at this time that a teleplay he wrote called "A Town Has Turned to Dust"
aired on Playhouse 90. The experience, however, was not a good one.
The teleplay was based on the story of Emmett Till, a young black boy brutally
murdered for allegedly whistling at a white woman. Unfortunately, the strict
corporate censors butchered Serling's version of the crime in order to protect
their own interests. The script was changed so that the victim of the crime was
not black but was Mexican instead, and so as not to offend any Hispanics, all
potentially offensive terms were eliminated. The fact that the boy had made
advances to a woman of a different socio-economic class also was eliminated; it
was made to seem as if he had simply gotten out of line (Cochran). When all was
said and done, the story had been changed to a completely different time and
place, which caused it to lose its power as a criticism of contemporary society
in a pre-civil rights era.
Serling's disgust with the way "A Town Has Turned to Dust" was handled
rekindled his interest in writing a pilot for The Twilight Zone.
Serling wanted to write compelling dramas that pointed to flaws in our society;
however, he was having a difficult time doing that because of the censors'
dominance in the industry and their concern not to offend advertisers or the
mass market of viewers. During a promotional interview for The Twilight Zone
with Mike Wallace in 1959, Serling made his opinion known:
I think it's criminal that we are not permitted to make
dramatic note of social evils that exist, of controversial themes as they are
inherent in our society. I think it's ridiculous that drama, which by its very
nature should make a comment on those things which affect our daily lives, is
in a position, at least in terms of television, of not being able to take that
stand. (Sander)
Part of the beauty of The Twilight Zone, as a science fiction show,
was that Serling could get away with social commentary by disguising it as
harmless fantasy. He was allowed to be critical if he was allegorical at the
same time. As he himself put it, "You know, you can put these words into the
mouth of a Martian and get away with it." (Neary) Thus, The Twilight Zone
became Serling's chance to write meaningful, thought-provoking scripts, all
while neatly sidestepping the censors. In addition, he was creating a show that
potentially could be highly critical of the status quo and those who promoted
it during a time when such actions were thought of as traitorous. By writing
scripts like "A Town Has Turned to Dust," Serling was putting himself at a
great deal of risk of red-baiting. Once again, it was the show's reliance on
fantasy that provided Serling with a shield against such finger-pointing
(Cochran).
Despite his lofty goals for the show, critics were initially skeptical of it.
Serling was considered television's one great writer, the conscience of the
industry, and the announcement that he was going to quit writing for series
like Playhouse 90 and create his own show was seen as something of a
sellout. During promotional interviews for the show, Serling seemed to
purposefully push the show as being inoffensive, even going so far as to tell
Mike Wallace that he had given up on trying to delve into current issues in his
television writing (Sander). This was obviously not true, but it only added to
the camouflage the science-fiction format provided for the real issues.
So, following the disappointment of "A Town Has Turned to Dust," Serling
penned the script for "Where is Everybody?" Not only did the network like it,
but more importantly, the sponsors did as well. General Foods signed on as
principal sponsor in February of 1959, and soon after Kimberly-Clark joined as
an alternate sponsor. Serling signed a contract giving him total creative
control of the show, and he also agreed to write ninety percent of the first
three seasons. On Friday, October 2, 1959, at ten o'clock, eighteen million
viewers tuned in to witness the beginning of one of television's most
distinctive and powerful programs (Sander).
One of the most common themes tackled in The Twilight Zone is the
fear of nuclear weapons. In the late fifties and early sixties, when the show
got its start, America was in the midst of the Cold War with Russia. There was
a great deal of anxiety over how far Russia's nuclear weapons programs had
advanced, not to mention the fear of the bomb's power. This terror affected
everyone, from elementary school children learning to "duck and cover" under
their desks to their parents building bomb shelters in the backyard. Needless
to say, Serling's take on the bomb -- both the fear of it and the consequences
of its use -- found its way into several notable episodes of The Twilight
Zone, particularly during the show's first season.
"Time Enough At Last," which aired on November 20, 1959, is one of the most
famous episodes of The Twilight Zone, and also one that deals most
prominently with this theme. Burgess Meredith stars as a meek bank clerk who
wishes that he could be left alone to have time to read. As he hides in the
bank vault one afternoon in search of peace and quiet, there is a nuclear
attack, and he is left as the sole survivor. He is thrilled when he finds a
library and realizes that he now has all the time he wants to read. However,
just as he opens the first book, his glasses slip off his nose and shatter,
leaving him nearly blind (Zicree). Although the ironic plot twist of this
episode does not deal directly with the bomb, the episode still makes a point
about the destructiveness of nuclear weapons and the total disruption of life
they could cause. Interestingly, this episode was the first time the bomb was
ever detonated on television (Sander). Serling uses this particular story to
point out the absolute destructive power of the bomb. The entire world has been
left in ruins by the back and forth bombings that occur in this episode,
leaving Burgess Meredith's character as the only man on earth. This is a
reflection of society's fear of the absolute power of the bomb, and what would
be risked if it was ever used. Thus, "Time Enough At Last" does more than just
tell a well-written, clever story -- it also reminds viewers of the dangers of
the bomb itself. The meek may inherit the earth, but the bomb could leave
little worth inhabiting or inheriting. In a rush to equal power, there will
only be losses.
A similar point is made in the episode "Third From the Sun." Originally aired
on January 8, 1960, shortly after "Time Enough At Last," this episode tells the
story of two families desperately trying to flee the planet because it is on
the brink of nuclear war. They develop and put in action an elaborate plan to
steal a government spaceship and fly to another world they have heard of, a
world that is supposedly peaceful and safe. The twist in this episode is that
they are not fleeing from the Earth -- they are fleeing to the Earth (Zicree).
Serling uses this seemingly innocuous episode to reinforce the fact that the
bomb has the power to destroy the world if not used correctly, because the
families' home planet faces that destruction. However, it also forces the
viewer to question whether or not the earth is really that different from the
warring planet in the episode -- is it so peaceful and safe that it could
really be considered a refuge, or is it in just as much danger as the home
planet in this episode? "Third From the Sun" also points out the
socially-distorting evil of our reaction to the dangers of the bomb. The
families in this episode feel so threatened by the impending war that they are
willing to steal and, when it comes down to it, harm others in order to get
away. If we were threatened in a similar way, what would we be willing to do to
ensure our own safety?
The questions of the appropriateness of our reactions to the nuclear threat
are dealt with most directly in "The Shelter," an episode from 1961. In this
story, several families at a birthday party are interrupted by a radio warning
of incoming bombs. As they race home to prepare, it becomes apparent that one
family has built a bomb shelter while the others, derisively critical of the
bomb shelter, have not given any thought to what they would do in such a
situation. Soon, the very friends who were giving them a hard time about
building the shelter are threateningly knocking down the door in an effort to
get in it. Just as the door into the shelter is about to break, however,
another news bulletin announces that it was a false alarm, leaving the
neighbors to consider the gravity of what they were in the process of doing
(Zicree). This episode is especially powerful because it forces the viewers to
question what they would do in the same situation. It does not take long for
the characters in this episode to succumb to their fears and resort to anarchy
and violence; what is to say that the viewer would not do the same thing?
Serling's point is that we should not just be afraid of the bomb itself -- we
should also be afraid of what our paranoia and fears can do to ourselves and
our friends.
Although the bomb held a prominent place in fifties society as one of the
greatest dangers America faced, it was not the only unknown. Space travel,
which was just becoming a reality in the fifties, also was a source of concern.
This anxiety could also be traced to the Cold War and specifically the space
race with Russia, which raised issues of scientific superiority and weapons
technology motivated by issues of national security. Space was the great
unknown at this point in history -- no one knew what we would find out there,
if anything, and no one knew if it was even safe to explore. There was a great
deal of risk involved in exploring space, and Americans were concerned not only
about the safety of the astronauts but also about what threats exploring space
might set into motion. These uncertainties evolved into another common theme in
The Twilight Zone.
One of the episodes that deals with this explicitly is "And When the Sky Was
Opened," which aired on December 12, 1959. This episode tells the story of
three astronauts who are among the first to fly into space. Their ship goes
into space briefly, but soon crash lands back on earth. The creepy aspect of
the episode, however, is what happens to the men and their ship after the crash
landing. One by one the men, and even the spaceship itself, completely vanish.
They literally disappear before each other's eyes, and once they are gone, no
one else remembers that they ever existed (Zicree). This episode capitalized on
the fact that Americans had no idea whether or not space travel was safe. No
one had done it before; for all we knew at the time, astronauts may very well
vanish from the face of the earth, forever lost in space or time or,
eventually, memory. Serling used the unknown in this episode to create a
situation that was particularly chilling because, although it could not be
proven to be true, it could not be proven to be false either.
Hand in hand with the fears of the safety of space exploration and what we
could face there came fears of who we would find there -- namely, fears of
alien life. Several famous episodes of The Twilight Zone reflect these
fears; "The Invaders" and "To Serve Man" are two of the most well-known. "The
Invaders" is a particularly frightening episode in which we see an old woman,
who lives alone in a rural cabin, fighting off tiny spacemen who have landed on
her roof. Adding to the mood of the episode is the fact that there is no
dialogue until the very end, when the classic Twilight Zone twist is
revealed -– the tiny spacemen aren't aliens invading an elderly American's
home, but they are United States astronauts, who when the silence is broken at
the end are heard to frantically radio back for help even though it is too late
(Zicree). Part of the reason that this episode was so frightening at the time
was because it presented the worst of America's fears about space travel --
that it was dangerous, and that there were Martians or other little green men
out there who would harm us. This theme of fear of the unknown is also seen in
"To Serve Man," the classic episode in which the aliens already have come to
earth, and are luring humans back to their world with promises of peace and
happiness. The aliens refer to a book titled "To Serve Man," and while
translating their language to English, earth scientists discover that the title
doesn't mean that they wish to help us -- it's actually a cookbook. Instead of
taking humans to a world of bliss, they are taking them to dinner -- and humans
are the main course! (Zicree) This episode, like so many others, presented the
worst-case scenario that so many Americans feared would result from space
travel, further showing that The Twilight Zone was a vehicle for
Serling to point out our anxieties and concerns.
Beyond dealing with some of the common fears of the fifties and the Cold War,
Serling also used The Twilight Zone to make statements about some more
general moral issues. One topic that he addressed frequently, and which was a
divisive part of the American social conscience in the fifties, was prejudice.
After his failed attempt at using "A Town Has Turned to Dust" to make a
statement about the evils of prejudice, Serling decided to use The Twilight
Zone instead. Perhaps the clearest example of this can be seen in the
episode "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street," which aired on March 4, 1960.
In this episode, a sudden power outage and some strange events cause a group of
neighbors to conclude that there is an alien among them. Accusations fly as the
situation eventually becomes violent; as the neighbors accuse each other of
being the outsider, one of them is accidentally shot and killed. The situation
worsens, however, as the neighbors then turn on the murderer, and the entire
street quickly dissolves into chaos. The episode's surprise ending reveals that
while there were no aliens among them, there were aliens watching and
controlling the entire situation, marveling at how quickly this so-called
"civilized" society fell apart at something as simple as the lights going out
(Zicree). Serling's closing monologue for this episode states perfectly the
point he was trying to make not only in that episode but the entire series:
The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and
explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes,
prejudices -- to be found in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can
kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a
scapegoat has a fallout all its own -- for the children and the children yet
unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to The
Twilight Zone. (QuotationsPage.com)
The Twilight Zone was a great deal more than a simple science fiction
television show. It was a spotlight on American society in the middle of the
century, showcasing our fears and criticizing our flaws, tricking us into
examining our lives, selves, and society. From aspects of the Cold War such as
the bomb and space travel, to seemingly ridiculous fears of Martians, and even
to difficult social ills like prejudice, The Twilight Zone is a window
into a time when American society was changing drastically. It remains to this
day an example of the power of television, as well as proof that television not
only can be intelligent but also can be a tool for changing our society. Rod
Serling's masterpiece is the ultimate reflection of a time when, in the minds
of many, the real world itself began to look and feel increasingly like a
twilight zone.
Bibliography
Cochran, David. America Noir: Underground Writers and Filmmakers of the
Postwar Era. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000.
Engel, Joel. Rod Serling: The Dreams and Nightmares of Life in The Twilight
Zone. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1989.
Neary, Lynn. "Present At the Creation: The Twilight Zone." Taken from
the National Public Radio website:
http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/patc/twilightzone/
Sander, Gordon F. Serling: The Rise and Twilight of Television's Last Angry
Man. New York: Dutton/The Penguin Group, 1992.
Vahimagi, Tise. "Rod Serling" and "The Twilight Zone." Taken from the
Museum of Broadcast Communications website:
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/S/htmlS/serlingrod/serlingrod.htm
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/T/htmlT/twilightzone/twilightzone.htm
Zicree, Marc Scott. The Twilight Zone Companion. New York: Bantam
Books, 1982.
The SciFi Channel website:
http://www.scifi.com/twilightzone/serling
http://www.scifi.com/twilightzone/episodes
The TV Pilot Guy website, copyright 1997:
http://www.geocities.com/TvPilotGuy/twilightzone59
The Quotations Page website, taken from Rand Lindsly's Quotations:
http://www.quotationspage.com
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