Abstract

This article reflects on science fiction cinema as a film genre that shows other ways of understanding social “reality,” using imaginary and scientific narratives that project the present and future of humanity. This cinema reflects the political, cultural, and social contradictions of events that threaten the survival of humanity on the planet. Among the most recurring stories are space exploration, time travel, supermachines, and alien invasions, which have given rise to a utopian and dystopian sphere of life on the planet. This work emphasizes alien invasions in fiction cinema within two historical contexts: the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union and the new geopolitical scenario of tension between the United States and China, using the films Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1955) and Arrival (2016). Methodologically, this essay is divided into the conceptual construction of fiction cinema, arguing its political and pedagogical meaning, using an empirical and descriptive-historical analysis of the films under investigation, which allow us to weave together the ideas that this cinema is not just fantasy, but provides an opportunity for social debate about human life on the planet and how to deal with this situation, which would change all cultural forms.

Keywords: fiction | ideology | pedagogy | cinema | aliens