Despite what you might think after watching the music video, the Men in Black do more than just dance with aliens. The organization is also a stand-in for the government; in fact, it's the ultimate government organization. Its members use their authority and resources to monitor and help the human and extraterrestrial populations of Earth, but they also set the laws that everyone must live by, whether or not you know those laws exist.

Most people appreciate the day-to-day stuff the government does to keep us safe and make our lives run smoothly, but lots of people suspect there's dastardly stuff going on behind the scenes—Big Brother scenarios that manipulate and exploit us despite the guv'mint telling us it's for our own good. Let's see how MiB plays into those two views.

You Da Man (in Black)

The idea that people benefit from relinquishing some of their individual liberty to a government was most famously put forth in Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan. This subject can take up an entire college seminar or two, so here's the flashcard version:

According to Hobbes, life in nature—that is, a state of existence without government to act as a central authority—is "poor, nasty, brutish and short." That's because to survive people are constantly fighting over resources, such as food and land, and to protect themselves. Life in nature is basically like a never-ending Black Friday door buster sale with death your only respite.

In Hobbes' view, people formed government to provide a strong, central authority and willingly gave up certain liberties to enjoy peace and security. For example, if someone steals from you, you can't just shoot them to get your stuff back. You relinquish your ability to do this and have the government seek out justice for you via the police and court system.

When Hobbes wrote Leviathan, absolute monarchies were the only game in town, but we still recognize Hobbes's analysis as true in our modern democracies. In exchange for some of our individual liberties, we give governments certain powers over our lives. These functions include the ability to create and enforce rules, administer aspects of our lives like taxes and trade, and solve conflicts between individuals and groups. But seriously, what does this have to do with a movie where aliens are disguised as pugs?

Well, the Men in Black provide all of these functions for the refugee extraterrestrial community of Earth, and in exchange for that the extraterrestrials give up certain liberties to the Men in Black. They have to stay hidden in human costumes outside of HQ, they can't leave designated areas, and the Men in Black will serve as mediators in conflicts between them and humans or other aliens.

For example, Reggie's restricted to Manhattan and can't leave the island. Also, any alien coming to Earth has to register their comings and goings with the Men in Black. As Zed notes, 

ZED: We're not hosting an intergalactic kegger down here.

The aliens also can't expose themselves to humans because humans would simply freak out, and the agency is trying to keep the peace.

Any extraterrestrial that doesn't recognize and accept the Men in Black's authority is punished. The Bug's the perfect example; he breaks a slew of laws from landing illegally, theft, murder, and more murder. As with government, the Men in Black can't make an exception for one extraterrestrial who doesn't recognize their authority:

EDGAR BUG: You idiots. You don't get it. I've won. It's over. You're milk-suckers. You don't matter. In fact, in a few seconds, you won't even be matter.

KAY: You're under arrest for violating Section 4153 of the Tycho Treaty.

JAY: So hand over whatever galaxy you might be carrying and step away from your busted-ass vehicle, and put your hands on your head.

Speaking on the subject, English Prof. M. Keith Booker (you gotta love the Humanities) notes,

Indeed, as opposed to the tradition that Men in Black are themselves sinister and possibly aligned with alien forces, the film implies that the very existence of the Men in Black organization is reassuring amid the uncertainties of the postmodern world: if complex, clandestine networks constitute the most important threat to the lives of individuals in the 1990s, then it is surely a good thing that a benign secret organization is working to defend and protect those lives. (Source)

In other words, the Men in Black are a postmodern, science fiction version of Hobbes's Leviathan. By relinquishing certain rights, such as the right to know of their existence and have knowledge of their activities, we enjoy the protection of their strong, central authority. But that also brings us to the darker side of the agency.

Check (and Balance) Your Privilege

While the Men in Black ultimately save the Earth and fight for good, there are some pretty disturbing aspects of how they do what they do.

The agency exists outside and above the system. Their power comes not from a social contract, where people choose to give them power in return for certain benefits. The people don't even know they exist. Instead, they make the laws that everyone must live by and they do so without any checks or balances (remember those?) on their power.

When Jay asks Kay what branch of the government they report to, Kay responds it's none of them because "they ask too many questions." This means the Men in Black can do what they want, when they want, how they want, and they don't have to answer to anyone. Rebels without causes might find think this is ideal, but in the hands of government…well, you don't have to have a vivid imagination to see how that could go wrong.

Think about the scene where Jay and Kay find out that Jeebs is dealing black market weapons to unlicensed aliens:

KAY: You sold a reverberating carbonizer with mutate capacity to an unlicensed cephalopoid, Jeebs, you piece of—

JEEBS: He looked all right to me.

KAY: Must have been for an assassination. Who's the target?

JEEBS: I don't know.

KAY: Goddammit, Jeebs!

JEEBS: I don't know!

KAY: All right. That's confiscated, and I want you on the next transport off this rock or I'm gonna shoot you where it don't grow back.

JAY: Yeah, and… And I'm gonna be back to talk about them Rolexes.

Notice how quickly Kay's able to act. He immediately confiscates Jeebs's property and deports him. There isn't any due process and Kay doesn't have to prove that Jeebs committed a crime. Jeebs can't do anything about it. He can't plead his case before a jury of his alien peers. It goes to show just how absolute the power the Men in Black have over the extraterrestrial population on Earth.

Kay dishes out the punishment and Jeebs must take it. We know that Jeebs is a criminal and that Kay's acting in the right, but imagine if someone with less integrity than Kay worked for the Men in Black. Pretty scary stuff.

A giant Observation screen is the "heart of [MiB's] little endeavor" and consists of a "map [showing] the location of every registered alien on Earth and any given time, some of them under constant surveillance." As we later learn, the Men in Black can also spy on any human at any given time, like when Kay furtively checks in on his ex-wife during his breaks.

Adam Roberts compares this to "a high-tech version of Foucault's panopticon (the penitentiary designed by Jeremy Bentham in which one person seated in the middle can observe all the inmates simultaneously, which Foucault saw as an emblem of the repressive aspect of modern life)."

Like the panopticon, Observation allows the Men in Black to have knowledge of what everyone's doing while they themselves operate totally unknown to anyone. In fact, anyone who learns about the Men in Black has their memory erased and false memories implanted. This gives the agency a monopoly on another source of power, knowledge.

When Men in Black was first released in 1997, this made for a comedic explanation of how the agency could keep extraterrestrial activity in check while staying hidden. Then came Edward Snowden, and suddenly it's not so funny anymore. If you're an immigrant here illegally, we imagine it's especially not funny.

In the end, Men in Black's a comedy adventure, and it isn't trying to argue a case for how much individual liberty we should give up to a government for social order, and it's not trying to determine how to best check the power of government. So don't go looking for extra credit in your Government class for watching the film. But it does a good job of laying out some pretty basic questions about the role of government in the lives of Americans. At the end of the film, we feel OK about the Men in Black. In an Alien vs. Earthling smackdown, we want these guys on our side.