Posthuman Perspective
Thinking along the lines of conformism versus non-conformism, the humans, specifically Becky and Miles, struggle to keep the liberal humanist idea alive that “the human essence is freedom from the wills of others” (22). On the one hand, the non-conformist idea that agency and autonomy lie within human individuality is embodied by Becky and Miles, who struggle to keep it alive.
Whereas, on the other hand, the idea that there agency, desire or will that belongs to the self and is clearly distinguishable from the “wills of others” is undercut in the posthuman (23). For, as Hayles argues, the posthuman’s quality of collectivity and heterogeneity implies an allocated cognition located in different parts but that are in connection with one another. As is clear, the alien community is a collective with the goal of assimilating all humankind in its ranks. Their intelligence is shared as fast as possible, through either personal communication or over the ether, just like in the scene where all police are called to look out for Becky and Miles leaving Santa Mira.
Thacker might argue that the aliens in Invasion represent a kind of zombielike initiative; an emotionless, almost mindless collective with the sole purpose of assimilating humanity into their ranks (and in the meantime feed themselves)(24). He analyzes the concept of a zombie as life-after-life. In his analysis of modalities of change he assigned the zombie both a passing-away and a coming-to-be, a modification of substance(25). The same happens to humanity in Invasion, their substance is inherently changed to serve a greater purpose.
Moreover, Thacker notes that in popular culture zombies are portrayed as either a contagion or in legion(26). How at first the malady of Santa Mira is ascribed to a manageable mass hysteria, which was considered contagious in the postwar era, the threat becomes legion once the contagion is consciously being spread.
Indeed, the threat only becomes legion the moment Miles wants to inform the authorities, the F.B.I. – coincidentally the ones performing most of the Communist witch-hunt investigations – that an alien force is taking over. Only when the operator keeps Miles on hold and repetitively informs him that all lines to any F.B.I.-office in the entire United States are busy or unreachable, that it dawns on him that the external threat has become legion. It is no longer a case of individuals, the threat has taken over key positions in society.
By using a zombielike motif to portray the aliens, the idea of consciousness is undermined. The implication is that consciousness is a significant aspect of the human condition.
And yet, a point may be made how both humans and aliens preserve their consciousness. Becky and Miles choose to run away from the aliens, they choose to protect their humanity rather than fall prey to the legion and conform. In their turn, the aliens consciously wish to persuade, verbally or forcefully, the human to join them. “It’s not so bad once you go through it” Becky tells Miles.
Nonetheless, Hayles would argue that neither of them need consciousness to prove that they are alive. In Hayles’s perspective, consciousness is an epiphenomenon, it’s “cheap trick” that is an emergent property that adds functionality to the entire system but is not a prerequisite for the system’s architecture(27). The posthumanist perspective once again reinforces the idea that boundaries are blurred in Invasion and that is how the movie greatly appealed to the fear and interest of postwar era Americans.