Electric Ghost Magazine: Your thesis that Hitchcock’s The Birds depicts recrudescent “angry nature” forcing civilization into regression is very pertinent at this particular time of COVID-19, as we make bunkers of our homes like those in the Brenner house against the birds. What does Hitchcock’s film teach us about our current moment?
Camille Paglia: The analogy to today’s global virus crisis is very compelling. The Birds demonstrates the fragility and folly of all human artifice. When omnipotent nature turns on mankind, everything falls to pieces — from protective dwellings to personal dignity and social cohesiveness. Unleashing the birds like a black plague, Hitchcock attacks the sentimental illusions that allow us to survive and thrive in our daily routines. The film has a metaphysical sweep, exposing the terrifying great unknowns at the heart of human existence.
As for the present time, Western developed nations have become too smugly complacent about their advanced technology and prosperity. Our electronic systems and intricate international supply and distribution network function so smoothly that they have become invisible to the affluent upper-middle-class, comfortably working from home via computer. These arrogant masters of the machine attribute all human ills to unjust society — from hurricanes to global warming, as if puny mankind is capable of such staggering power. Like Greek tragedy, The Birds shows the grim reality — human helplessness in the face of nature and fate, as commerce, schooling, hospitality, and the pretty dance of courtship are reduced to horror and squalor.
“David G. Hughes talks to Professor Camille Paglia about her work on Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963) and much more”, Electric Ghost, 2020-05-28.
