Strangelove Attitudes Towards The Atomic Bomb And Cold War

The Cold War was a period from 1947 to 1991 that adhered erratic tension and constant threat of nuclear conflict between the two remaining superpowers that emerged from WWII, the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The 1964 film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, directed by Stanley Kubrick, depicts the overlying themes of the Cold War in a comedic fashion. This film’s full embodiment of the Cold War is seen through its representation of the time period, and the sheer competitiveness between the United States and Russia. Additionally, due to many of Kubrick’s movie decisions, the film has helped society

Stanley Kubrick’s sexual parody, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, illustrates an unfathomed nuclear catastrophe. Released in the midst of the Cold War, this 1964 film satirizes the heightened tensions between America and Russia. Many sexual insinuations are implemented to ridicule the serious issue of a global nuclear holocaust, in an effort to countervail the terror that plagued America at that time. Organizing principles, such as Kubrick’s blunt political attitudes about the absurdity of war and the satirical genre, are echoed by the film style of his anti-war black comedy, Dr. Strangelove.

Strangelove are anti-war movies, although they portray it in very different ways. WarGames depicts this by showing the consequences of the war via simulation, while Dr. Strangelove showed the consequences of the war simply through discussion, and implied that those repercussions actually occurred after a bomb was dropped at the end of the movie. In WarGames, the famous line “the only way to win is not to play” was first uttered, which completely captures the spirit of the Cold War - any move by any party would have caused the extinction of the human race. Kubrick embodied this in Dr. Strangelove with the plot point of the doomsday device, showing that if the United States engaged the Soviet Union at all that it would assure their own destruction. Overall, while WarGames made the statement that tensions during the Cold War were so high that a teenager playing a videogame could set off a nuclear war, Dr. Strangelove simply ridiculed the attitudes of those involved in the Cold War and mocked those who took it seriously, under the pretense that mutually assured destruction would prevent any real war from breaking out. It’s clear that WarGames was written to show that a worst-case scenario, which we consider today to be highly unlikely, was actually quite the possibility during the peak of the Cold War. In Dr. Strangelove, the director Stanley Kubrick showed that no sane person could possibly believe that the Cold War could have come to fruition in a way

The splitting of the atom in 1917 by Rutherford [1] brought with it an unimaginable amount of rapid advancements leading up to the world’s first successful atomic bomb explosion on July 16 1945 at Trinity Site near White Sands Air Force Base [3]. This bomb proved that the atomic bomb was a possibility definitively which led to two more bombs, of similar properties and destructive power, being dropped on Japan in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th and 9th of that year. Following these attacks was a huge political debate that probed the question of; was it the right thing to do?, was it really worth the death toll?, and many other questions from those on the fence of atomic

Atomic bomb and nuclear war have been in the minds of the American citizens, ever since the Cold War with Russia began. For several occasions, the world was brought to the brink of a total nuclear annihilation. In response to the fear of destruction, popular culture had altered the portrayal of the Atomic Bomb throughout the 2 most prominent periods when the opinions are the most contradicted: 1950s and by the end of 1950s, leading up to the 1960s, with the youth being the most affected.

Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the bomb was a satirical film which was published in 1964. The movie was about the fears of the cold war and detonation of a nuclear weapon between the United States and the Soviet Union. The film was produced, directed, and co written by Stanley Kubrick, Terry Southern, and Peter George. Kubrick won director of the year award because of this movie as its’ idea and way it was played was cleverly executed.

Post World War II, fear and anxiety consumed the subconscious of many Americans. Many feared atomic matter and the mystery of what it really was. Under the Atomic Energy Act, all information regarding the matter was classified. “The Big Secret,” as it was called was both a point of interest and pillar of anxiety for many. Everyday life was consumed by thoughts and worries but driven by the curiosity of this new science (Osteen 1994). The ability to split the uranium atom was discovered in 1938 in Berlin, Germany. The energy released when this atom split was remarkable. The fission of this atom could power a bomb and later would be used to do so. There were many issues to solve in regards to how the actual bomb would function. In 1939, President Franklin Roosevelt was informed that the atomic bomb was a strong possibility. With fear of the Nazis building the atomic bomb before the United States, The Manhattan Project was conceived in 1941 (AMNH 2016). On August 6th 1945, American’s learned of the bombing of Hiroshima. This event sent shocks around the world and seemingly unanswerable questions were quickly evolving around the topic of atomic matter.

The Atomic Bomb “The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on

Dr Strangelove , on the other hand, reflects the Cold War sensibility in its state of tension and precariousness. In this film, an almost psychotic military mindset shows the audience how dangerous

The Cold War was a different type of war that the world has never seen before. Instead of deploying troops, there was the threat of the deployment of nuclear bombs. This development in technology was an invisible threat which had the potential to wipe out an entire population in mere moments. If the U.S. was unable to harness the power of nuclear weapons first, then they feared that they would be annihilated and life as they knew it would forever change. The United States saw this nuclear arms race as a ticking time bomb. If it were to explode, then not only would the U.S. be wiped off from the face of the Earth, but liberty and freedom would vanish along with it. This fear would sweep across the nation to the point that the word

In 1947 the Cold War, one of America's most dire wars began. This war was not one of weapons and on foot battles, but of a bigger threat. Nuclear fallout in a weapons war against the powerful countries the Soviet Union and the United States of America.

“Dr.Strangelove” is an 1964 film based on the argument of rational; deterrence theory by Kenneth Waltz. Many of the events that occurred during the film also complimented many of the critiques of rational deterrence theory later made by Scott Sagan. Nuclear weapons have been an important issue for debate for years. The spotlight of nuclear weapons was an important factor during the cold war nevertheless the question of nuclear weapons remains afterwards. The question of both the spread and contraction of nuclear weapons remains a strong issue because of the opposing theories that argue against the question of the spread, contraction furthermore the total dissolution of nuclear weapons.

The Cold War was a pretty insane time. I remember some of it from my childhood in the 80s--the Soviets were pretty much the “boogie-man” from the 1950s-1990s. Go watch some 80s era Twilight Zone—Nuclear holocausts and Soviet attacks where plot points for many episodes. And the fear was well-founded: the USA and USSR had developed the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (I'll link to UF 75 in the

This exciting film was about the struggles of the U.S. administration under President Kennedy who faced the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962. At that time, the U.S and the Soviet Union were nearly involved in the war, which is a nuclear war could turn into leading towards World War III.

The movie Dr. Strangelove is a comedic movie but the issius it brings to light were very serious at the time and issues concerning nuclear war are still very present in our lives today. The cold war was a scary time for the world people and it's speculated to be the closest humankind has ever come to becoming obsolete. There was lots of fear and suspension expression in the movie and that was similar to how it was in real life during the cold war. Although there are some ridiculous aspects of the film Dr. Strangelove it underlines something that could have happened extremely easily during this time.