May 20, 1997|By Crispin Sartwell
I AM SICK TO DEATH of aliens. I'm sick of ''The X Files,'' sick of ''Independence Day,'' sick of Heaven's Gate, sick of the ''Star Wars'' trilogy. Sick of action figures, sick of video games, sick of comic books, sick of television, sick of trashy novels: in short, sick of American culture.
What holds us together as a people is not our shared belief in the Constitution or something touching like that; in fact most of us would gladly shred the Constitution if that meant we could arbitrarily impose our views on our friends and neighbors. No. What holds us together is our collective obsession with beings from deep space or, more precisely, with actors wearing idiotic costumes.
Channel-surfing is a disquieting exercise. It's all starlets with alien wigs and weird contact lenses. Has anyone noticed that the various characters on ''Star Trek: Deep Space 9'' have funny pieces of plastic glued to their faces? Man, I can't even bear to watch.
And people devote their lives to this jive: go to the conventions, buy the merchandise, think about aliens day and night, commit suicide so they can hitch a ride on a comet.
It's only make-believe
You know the ''X Files?'' It is just a television show. Really, I assure you. I realize that it's a kind of big, bloated, brooding television show with pretensions to profundity. Nevertheless, it is just a television show. If you want to commit suicide, do it because you're in despair, because everyone you love has died, because you're a drug addict, because you have a chemical imbalance so pronounced that no anti-depressive compound can put it right, because you're terminally ill and in chronic pain. But do not -- repeat, do not -- commit suicide because the ''X Files'' seems so cool and realistic.
I'm trying to figure out something profound to say about the causes of this obsession, but aside from a few general observations about human stupidity or the emptiness of life (observations that might be kind of depressing), I can't think of anything.
What I can tell you is that it's past time for something else. Think how deeply our culture will change if the next alien invasion gets low overnights or flops at the box office. Go watch a soap opera. Buy a CD, whether it's Mozart, Tim McGraw, or Biggie Smalls. But boycott all entertainment products that include aliens.
I don't doubt for a moment that there's life out there somewhere. I just doubt that it's ever been here or that it looks like people in chartreuse makeup or talks like James Earl Jones.
And I believe this: The world, our world, is beautiful and magical enough. We do not require giant silicone spiders from space or even actors with prosthetic foreheads in order to live meaningful or interesting lives. There are trees here, animals. Even people are interesting until they steep themselves in alien schlock. Immerse yourself in your own life for a while, in actual people, neighborhoods, situations. When the aliens arrive in their computer-animated spaceships, there's nothing you're going to be able to do about it anyway.
Crispin Sartwell lives in Harford County. He is the author of ''Obscenity, Anarchy, Reality.''
Pub Date: 5/20/97
