We are here to serve

 

"The Monitors" is an absurdist comedy from 1969. Think Monty Python but without the actual Monty Python. So absurdist, in fact, that it´s a borderline turkey. Or maybe I just don´t "dig it". It was 1969, after all. 

Earth has been occupied by a mysterious race of aliens known simply as Monitors. They are a kind of utopian galactic brotherhood and only wish the best for humanity. Or so they say. War, crime, poverty and bullying are abolished. Of course, the utopia turns out to have authoritarian traits: elections are cancelled, the aliens monitor every street corner, and some humans are spying on their behalf. Even the Communist Russians hate them! The Monitors are also rather puritanical. They frown on sex, love, drinking and sweets. The latter are bad for your teeth, after all. The alien do-gooders look like a strange cross between Mormon missionaries and the Men in Black. Or is it supposed to be Gestapo? Not sure how well-known the MIBs were in 1969...

The resistance movement (called SCRAG) are a bunch of bungling fools and cowards. I mean, half of them seem to turn coat back and forth. The main character, Harry, is an old-fashioned sexist surrounded by lush females. One scene features a transvestite. In a strange plot twist, the Monitors actually leave planet Earth voluntarily, deeming humanity too impossible to ever reform. The moment the aliens disappear, Homo sapiens simply reverts to its old ways: wars, corruption, and so on.

"The Monitors" looks like a parody of Cold War science fiction movies in which the space aliens are evil Communists. In this film, the aliens are more similar to liberal social engineers and the problems they abolish seem to include the Vietnam War and the Cold War. It´s almost as if the Monitors really are the good guys. Conversely, SCRAG looks like a parody of the US military and militant anti-Communism. Are they actually the *bad* guys? In the end, Harry walks away from it all together with one of the blondes. 

Perhaps that´s the real message of the film: that both establishment politics and anti-establishment activism really suck. Or maybe it´s just an absurdist comedy...