Picturing Extraterrestrials: Alien Images in Modern Mass Culture.(Book Review)

Picturing Extraterrestrials: Alien Images in Modern Mass Culture. John F. Moffitt. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Press, 2003.

It is rare in academia to discover an author who writes with passion and humor. John F. Moffitt, a professor emeritus of art history at New Mexico State University, accomplishes this feat in his witty and informed Picturing Extraterrestrials: Alien Images in Modern Mass Culture. Even some popular culture scholars might look askance at a work that seriously examines extraterrestrial images, and this realization partially explains Moffitt's rather tongue-and-cheek approach. For example, he writes, "If ... their primary goal is, as so many abductees claim, 'breeding,' then why don't the ETs abduct Miss Americas, Miss Universes, Olympic athletes, even Leonardo di Caprio or (my choice) Kim Basinger? Get serious, ETs: at least pick somebody good-looking!" (182). Yet for all of his often offbeat humor, Moffitt takes his work seriously, a fact that infuses his work with a sense of scholarly passion for his subject, a strong element of this book's appeal.

Moffitt argues that contemporary fascination with alien images is rooted in commercial interests, and he treats the popular marketing of alien images as big business. Although he is an occasionally severe critic of postmodern culture, Moffitt nonetheless incorporates elements of a postmodern critique. This is evident in his ironic stance toward his subject: "... irony is politically correct when it is employed to attack consumerist manipulations and profiteering, and that is my larger target ..." (21). Moffitt admits that he is enraged by what he terms the "induced seriousness" of the popular literature about aliens which, he suggests, authors and promoters design to invoke fear in those who are interested in extraterrestrials, and he deliberately uses levity to ensure that his work does not fall into this genre (21). Moffitt persuasively documents how marketing a book about alien encounters as a "true" account is lucrative for both author ...