Barbarella came out in 1968 as a film and was directed by Roger Vadim. The movie’s theme is futuristic science fiction. It was a originally a comic book written by Jean Claude Forest, it reflected many of the issues circling in the sixties through imagery; more importantly the sexual revolution. “Pornographic representations of sexuality ranged from profound explorations of desire to highly stereotyped permutations of sexual positions.” Explained Jeffrey Escoffier in his article “The Sexual Revolution, 1960-1980” 
Jane Fonda played the main character named Barbarella. Barbarella was an earth space captain, who was sent on a mission to another world to retrieve scientist Durand Durand. He had created a weapon that the people of Earth were interested in because it could kill humans. While on this adventure Jane Fonda wore skimpy outfits that revealed her breast and highly sexualized her. Later, it is revealed that this is not Jane Fonda sexualized, but this is a movie that embraces women and their sexuality.
Prior to landing on Tau Ceti’s 16th planet, it emphasized that people of earth no longer had intercourse to experience sex instead they drank a pill to essentially have sex. It is noted when she is rescued and is asked to have intercourse with a man she does not know how or what the man means because of the way women experienced sex on earth was different.
In the next scene Barbarella is enlightened by the intercourse. Much like the counter culture of the sixties that expressed that sex was way for women to have control and power. It is also similar to what the Acid Tests showed people; a new way of experiencing the world. As Jeffrey Escoffier in”The Sexual Revolution, 1960-1980″ states, “Throughout this period [1960’s) young men and women engaged in their first acts of sexual intercourse at increasingly younger ages” (Escoffier). Women prior to the sixties would get married and only then intercourse was accepted. The sexual revolution is expressed when Barbarella fixes a angel named Pygar who cant fly, because he lost his inspiration, by having sex with him, then he is suddenly able to fly. Further, when she enters into the city the city is bleak and dead and conforming, which could be representing of people who were complacent with the government and approved the war and marriage before sex.
The parallelism of the way people viewed the government is expressed when Barbarella is captured by the black queen. The black queen explains to Barbarella what the matemos is; living energy liquid powered by evil thoughts, which allowed her to control and oppress the people of her kingdom. Much how people viewed the government that oppressed the minority citizens who were not complacent with the war. Further, Barbarella is captured and trapped when a guerrilla soldier saves her. This guerrilla soldier could be a reference to Vietnam warriors who considered themselves hippies along with the Pranksters, when they were dressed in military style and went to Washington, because they did not agree with the way their government was treating them. This Guerrilla man wants to experience what he believes to have heard the enlightened way of having sex; using the pill. Yet, when Barbarella uses the pill, mentioned earlier, Barbarella’s hair transforms into what the ideal woman of the fifties wore, whilethe guerrilla’s soldier’s face looks very satisfied and his hand remains in the air as if wanting more while barbarella is left unsatisfied. This could be symbolic men of oppressing women and their sexuality.
At one-point Barbarella is stuck in the a room with the Matmos, who, according the black queen, devoured people. However, the Matmos is not able to devour Barbarella due to her innocence. Durand Durand decides to kill Barbarella with a machine the weapon of mass destruction; what it did was to give people pleasure until they die. However, Barbarella’s sexual libido breaks the machine and is able to escape. It’s again paralleled with the sexual revolution happening in the sixties. “The women’s movement and changes in the understanding of female sexuality also played a central role in the sexual revolution.”(Escoffer).
Barbarella beating the sexual machine could be a clear link with the feminist movement and women owning their sexuality.
When I first watched Barbarella I thought that this movie was a high end pornographic type movie. The plot of this movies called my attention and I couldn’t understand why Barbarella wore such revealing clothing, much less why her having sex and defeating the sex machine meant. After taking this class and reading about the sexual revolution, I realized how this movie emphasized women and their growing sexuality and fighting the oppression that women faced.
Escoffier, Jeffrey. “The Sexual Revolution, 1960-1980” 2004. http://www.glbtqarchive.com/ssh/sexual_revolution_S.pdf
In Public Enemy’s lyrics give reference to the sixties Black Panther’s Ten-Point Program drafted by Newton & Bobby Seale, more specifically number six which states “I think we should deal with Vietnam cause that’s going on and just say straight up – WE WANT ALL BLACK MEN TO BE EXEMPT FROM MILITARY SERVICE. How can you have a black man going over there to fight a yellow man for the white man who stole his land from the red man? That makes a nice rhyme but no political sense whatsoever.” When looking at the Public Enemy’s first couple of stanzas they are very similar, “I got a letter from the government/ The other day/ I opened and read it/ It said they were suckers/They wanted me for their army or whatever/ Picture me given’ a damn, I said never/ Here is a land that never gave a damn/ About a brother like me and myself/ Because they/ never did/ I wasn’t wit’ it.” there is an emphasis here at what happened to African American’s in the sixties, they were asked to do something for a country that oppressed them. Public Enemy, however, was very aware at the fact that White people and the government held the power, whilst it was also known that during the Vietnam War people who refused to participate in the war were considered enemies of the United States and were sent to prison, Public Enemy lyrics state, “but just that very minute/ It occurred to me/ The suckers had authority/ Cold sweatin’ as I dwell in my cell/ How long has it been?/ They got me sittin’ in the state pen” referencing the Black Panther’s Ten Point Program Public Enemys state,”[t]they couldn’t understand that I’m a Black man/ And I could never be a veteran” he exemplifies that because he refused to go to war “the situation’s unreal/ I got a raw deal, so I’m goin’ for the steel” the steel being prison behind the metal bars. Pough explains, “[p]erhaps the most interesting way in which hip hop culture begins to show its sixties roots and indebtedness to the black power movement is in the black rhetorical qualities they share; which include the black rage that Gladney discusses in his work and messages and sayings from the Black Power movement sampled in rap songs.” Public Enemy also states “Four of us packed in a cell like slaves” in this lyric stanza Public Enemy comes to the present to emphasize that situations that people faced in the sixties of injustice that are still reflected today. Public Enemy continues to concoct a way to escape the injustice, and as a result becomes fugitive from the law.
The theme of this science fiction due to the advance machines and science experiments that were accomplished at the time. This film could be viewed through many lenses: Gender, sexuality, culture, time, location/geography, or identity. For this essay the lenses that will be used will be boundaries and borders. Boundaries and borders are usually things that restrict a mass of people; boundaries, borders, and location, and geography will be interpreted as social class stagnation or limitation. In this film there is a clear definition of lower class and upper class and this is a reflection of society in the united states and the world.
The underground city keeps the lights running in the City of lights. This could be an indication of the discomfort that the German people felt toward The Treaties of Versailles. “Virtually all sections of German opinion denounced the treaty” (Tonget). When Germany failed to make a payment in 1923, the French and Belgium army marched in and took control of the Ruhr, a key industrial area of Germany “ (Tonge). Subsequently, “The City of lights” in the film could be a word play to Paris, France, since they had to pay the country back for repairs. The Germans most likely felt like the workers in the film, they kept working and paying off debt for repairs and not retaining of the hard-earned money; almost like slaves with no rest. There is a scene where the Freder, son of the most powerful man in metropolis, takes the place of a laborer and continues the laborerers’ work, during this time the son says to the abyss, “Ten hours father! When will they end?” (Metropolis). That could be a further encouragement of how the people of Germany felt. To add to insult, in April of 1919 one US dollar was equal to 12 Marks (German currency) and by December 1923 4,200,000,000,000,000.00 Marks for one US dollar making it further difficult for the masses to attain money (Tonget). Therefore, leaving Germany discouraged and tired.
“The Mediator Between brain and hands must be the heart!” the epigram shown at the beginning of the movie is the expression about that defines the need to rid of boundaries and borders in social classes. The Boundaries and borders help define class in the movie and in the situations in the 1920’s particularly for Germany but expressed further to the United States. Prior to the United States entering the war “La Follette expressed to the president, [‘The poor, sir, who are the ones called upon to rot in the trenches, have no organized power, have no press to voice their will upon question of peace or war; but, oh, Mr. President, at some time they will be heard.’]”( (Trinaphm, Group 5 WordPress). Metropolis film further expresses this idea. The film is filled with imagery of the vast differences in social classes. The upper social class having the sun and the sky and women while the lower class had work. The upper social class wanting to maintain the lower class while the lower class wants “upward mobility” (celebrity culture). In the film, Joh Freder, the most powerful man in metropolis, finds a woman speaking to the men about what seem to be revolts to the government quickly tries to sabotage the woman’s plan. He seeks the aid of a mad scientist who has his own lucrative plans. They abduct the girl and influence the masses to revolt in an aggressive manner to allow Joh Freder to use force upon the lower-class citizens. During this time Freder realized he is the mediator and falls in love with Maria. At the end of the film, when the lower-class’ underground home is destroyed and the children are saved, one of the workers tries to shake hands with Joh Freder and he negates the handshake so the worker becomes hurt and upset. Maria, the woman goes to Freder and explains that is the moment for him as the mediator to close the gap between the social classes.
In the United States this could have been reflected through the “upward mobility” in the 1920’s. Karen Sternheimer in her book Celebrity Culture and the American Dream explains “by the mid 1920’s many in the working classes experienced modest upward mobility”(Sternheimer, 56). Depicting the lower class and the upper class having a shorter gap. Although, it is further from the truth Steimheimer explains “ [A] majority of Americans identify themselves as middle class, regardless of their income, and haave since the 1920’s. “(Sternheimer,15).
Although many of the workers were ultimately happy with the amount of money they could make the “Euroamerican spectators came, in part, to laugh at what they ostensibly were not: preindustrial, slow, bumbling, naïve, or ‘savage’” (Circus Age, 26). Which conveys the image that people from the circus were indeed treated different from the Majority.
American Culture 
