{"id":1858,"date":"2026-08-11T03:17:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T08:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/?p=1858"},"modified":"2026-08-03T14:22:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T19:22:26","slug":"%c2%a7-9-18-maquila-planetaria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/2026\/08\/11\/%c2%a7-9-18-maquila-planetaria\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00a7\u00a09.18. Planetary Maquila"},"content":{"rendered":"

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One of the most lucid expressions of how the media and the market replace the polis<\/em> is John Carpenter\u2019s They Live<\/em> (1988). In the film we witness the awakening of an itinerant worker named John Nada, who having just arrived in L.A. looking for a job, happens upon a pair of sunglasses that allow him to see that reality is a facade and that the world is being controlled by an alien species that shows itself when seen through the glasses. As if this were not enough, he also discovers that advertising is riddled with subliminal messages such as OBEY, CONSUME, MARRY AND REPRODUCE, SUBMIT. Upon encountering the small resistance that opposes the status quo<\/em>, Nada learns that all television networks broadcast a continuous signal designed to induce conformity in the population. The rebels\u2019 signal, which manages to get on the air only intermittently, declares:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

They are turning our atmosphere into their atmosphere. The earth is just another developing planet, their<\/em>Third World. We are like a natural resource to them. Deplete the planet, move on to another.1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

They Live presents a planetary maquila (8.20<\/a>), which is maintained mainly through the fictions sold by the media. In a promotional interview Carpenter explained that \u201cthe premise of the film is that the \u2018Reagan revolution\u2019 is run by aliens from another galaxy, free enterprisers from outer space who have taken over the world, and are exploiting the Earth as if it\u2019s a third world planet.\u201d Through a narrative device as simple as a pair of sunglasses, Carpenter reveals the terrible place of neoliberalism (8.8<\/a>, 8.11<\/a>, 8.14<\/a>) that lurks behind advertising and the media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n
  1. They Live<\/em>. Dir:John Carpenter. 1988. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  2. Steve Swires, \u201cJohn Carpenter and the Invasion of the Yuppie Snatchers\u201d, Starlog Magazine<\/em>, Noviembre 1988,136. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Una de las expresiones m\u00e1s l\u00facidas de c\u00f3mo los medios y el mercado reemplazan a la polis es They Live (1988) de John Carpenter. En la pel\u00edcula asistimos al despertar de un obrero itinerante llamado John Nada, que reci\u00e9n llegado a Los \u00c1ngeles buscando trabajo encuentra unas gafas de sol que le permiten ver que […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":274836558,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"[{\"content\":\"They Live<\/em>. Dirigida por John Carpenter. 1988.\",\"id\":\"89324b2b-da78-45e3-b76f-8e77457b6691\"},{\"content\":\"Steve Swires, \u201cJohn Carpenter and the Invasion of the Yuppie Snatchers\u201d, Starlog Magazine<\/em>, Noviembre 1988,136.\",\"id\":\"83c735b5-8fa4-43a1-b5fa-ea8ce4b8b56e\"}]","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[786109670],"tags":[786109710,786109713,786109711,786109709],"class_list":["post-1858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-capitulo-9","tag-john-carpenter","tag-maquila-planetaria","tag-planetary-maquila","tag-they-live"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgYHfz-tY","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/274836558"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1858"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1862,"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1858\/revisions\/1862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}