Stranger in a Strange Land

When Smith’s arrival on Earth becomes public knowledge, his “otherness”—as both human and Martian--prompts a combination of fear and intense curiosity. The government keeps him under wraps—both fearing his mysterious power and trying to decide how to exploit him—but they are aware that the public will demand to see this mysterious newcomer before long. The government’s public relations ministers claim, “If we don't show the Man from Mars in the stereo tanks pretty shortly, you'll have riots, Mr. Secretary” (7). A representative for a magazine even sneaks into Smith’s hospital room and offers him $60,000 for the exclusive rights to his story, although Smith doesn’t understand money or even speak English. Smith’s otherness is a source of exotic fascination as well as suspicion. Representatives of government and law enforcement track his movements even though he's not under arrest and he’s a citizen of Earth, free to come and go as he pleases. His foreignness precludes the authorities from assigning him the same rights as any other human. In the early stages of the novel, Smith finds himself exoticized and objectified as an emblem of otherness, his freedom of movement restricted by the proprietary gaze of the Terran culture around him.

Over time, Smith subverts this power dynamic, turning his otherness into an advantage that allows him to see his oppressors more clearly than they see themselves. When Smith and Gillian are fired from the carnival, the owner tells them they lack showmanship, and the ability to take advantage of the “marks.” This simple concept, while dishonest, is one most adult humans not only understand but have so internalized, it requires no consideration or forethought. It is Smith’s failure to understand jealousy and shame, however, that makes his philosophy so attractive. While most humans are saddled with some degree of guilt and shame—indoctrination from a repressive society, Heinlein would argue—Smith permits them to let go of it and act as their heart would urge them, for pleasure and happiness. If an average human had founded a church based on sexual pleasure and inner divinity, it might be labeled a sex cult and prosecuted. Smith’s otherness, however, gives him the unique insight of the outsider, an insight that lends authenticity and ethos to his message.

When Smith, at the invitation of Senator Boone, attends a Fosterite service, he begins to understand how he can use the power of the spectacle to his advantage. The service deploys theatrical rhetoric, dancing, “possession,” and speaking in tongues, and even a light show to dazzle attendees into unquestioning acceptance of the church’s authority. The entire service resembles a Broadway musical more than a meditative communion with God. Reverend Foster and his successors understand the human need for spectacle, to be wowed. Smith takes these lessons to heart when he founds his own religion, giving his supplicants a magic show before preaching his message of love and sexual freedom (although in a subversive twist, congregants are just as free to take money from the basket as put money into it).

In this regard, religion is no different from a carnival sideshow, and Smith also incorporates lessons learned from his time as a traveling magician. When he heads out to confront an angry mob outside Church headquarters, he dons his best attire, arguing, “the star has to show up for the show…The marks expect it” (425). While the carnival owner utters such words cynically, Smith simply parrots his old boss—sans cynicism—acknowledging the importance of showmanship without fully understanding the connotation. And taken in a literal context, he’s correct. The marks do expect a show and would be less open to persuasion without it. Spectacle supersedes the need for critical thinking, and subsumes it in fact, until all that’s left is a vulnerable hive mind waiting to be filled with any content the creators of the spectacle choose.