Nudity, moral panic, and the Blob

A historical look at how groomer panic and social media crusaders represent an altogether new kind of threat to family naturism

Collage art by Katie Heart, 2023

When The Blob hit theater screens in the early fall of 1958, a culture of paranoia had taken hold in America. The Cold War was in full swing. The previous summer months had seen President Eisenhower sign the National Aeronautics and Space Act into law, creating NASA. The United States and the Soviets were escalating their arms race by launching satellites into space, and school kids were tested with air raid drills and taught how to prepare for nuclear fallout. The campy sci-fi film about an extraterrestrial glob of gelatinous pink goo consuming and growing at a plodding, steady pace until it’s larger than buildings, gobbling up people and vehicles like popcorn, came at a moment in time where its symbolism for the menace of communism was not lost on people.

To this day, the transcendent image of an ever-expanding magenta monstrosity, menacing communities, consuming the youth, and leaving whole towns leveled in its wake, provides a vivid symbol of the exa…