Seminar: They Live

 

“I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass… and I’m all out of bubblegum,” warns L.A. drifter John Nada (wrestling superstar Rowdy Roddy Piper) after discovering a plot to enslave the American masses. Special glasses show him subliminal messages (“Submit!”) that reptilian aliens (disguised as Gordon Gekko-esque yuppies) are transmitting through TV, magazines, billboards and movies. It’s up to Nada and friend Frank (Keith David) to expose the conspiracy.

 

 

Nathan Blake is a Teaching Professor for the Program in Media & Screen Studies at Northeaster University. Blake’s research addresses the intersections of image and information systems in medicine and warfare. His work explores the representations and discourses of masculinity, disability, and the technologically-altered body. He has written on boxing films; disabled veterans and athletic competition; the mechanical prostheses of French physiologist Jules Amar, as well as the motion studies of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth; the “aesthetics of dismemberment” in Dada and Surrealist montage; combat video games such as America’s Army, KumaWar, and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2; and contemporary therapy systems for PTSD and amputee rehabilitation.