Life Under a Cloud - UCSB Department of History

Life Under a Cloud:
American Pop Culture during the Atomic Age
Lee Merlin
AKA
Miss Atomic Bomb, c. 1957
lecture 22 - 2005

How to Deal with Nuclear Fear
lecture 22 - 2005

• Idea of pollution
Fear of Contamination
• Why were people scared?
• This fear can be especially seen in the genre of
1950’s monster movies.
lecture 22 - 2005

Atomic Childhoods
• Civil defense one way children exposed to the
dangers and wonders of the nuclear
era…another was through playtime
lecture 22 - 2005

Atomic Robot Man (1940s)
lecture 22 - 2005

Uranium Rush Board Game (ca. 1955)
lecture 22 - 2005

Dagwood Splits the Atom (1949)
lecture 22 - 2005

Atomic Bunny, First Issue (1958)
lecture 22 - 2005

"Nuclear War" Game (ca. 1970/1980s)
lecture 22 - 2005

lecture 22 - 2005

The Simpsons Nuclear Waste Truck (early 1990s)
lecture 22 - 2005

Con-Cor's Three Mile Island Model (ca 2000)
lecture 22 - 2005

“A Preview of the War We Do Not Want”
• Lavish treatment of the
nuclear apocalyptic in
October 1951 issue of
Collier’s.
• An example of the
perversely detailed
descriptions of life after the
Bomb that appeared in the
1950s
lecture 22 - 2005

lecture 22 - 2005

Writers Envision Atomic Warfare
lecture 22 - 2005

Walt Disney’s 1956 Booklet “Our Friend the
Atom”
Power
Food & Health
Peace
lecture 22 - 2005

Atomic Comics
• Consider this: When did
Superman become
vulnerable to
kryptonite?
– 1946 -- It’s revealed that
his home planet Krypton
was destroyed by atomic
war.
lecture 22 - 2005

Has genetic engineering become the equivalent
of “nuclear fear”?
lecture 22 - 2005

The Atomic Bomb Goes to the Movies
• Apocalyptic Cinema and sometimes not…
lecture 22 - 2005

The Beginning or the End
• MGM, 1947.
• Docudrama of the
Manhattan Project.
• Final version
whitewashes history.
lecture 22 - 2005
Promotional still for movie

Invasion USA
lecture 22 - 2005

An aside: Bomb as phallus
is a common theme
lecture 22 - 2005

Slim Pickens as Major Kong in Dr. Strangelove
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lecture 22 - 2005

Taming the Unthinkable
lecture 22 - 2005

The Atomic Kid (1954)
lecture 22 - 2005

Canadian Mounties vs
Atomic Invaders (1953)
lecture 22 - 2005

Dig That Uranium (1956)
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Nuclear Desecration
• Idea of Nature perverted by humans and
nuclear power.
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• Creatures and mutants
warped by radiation
becomes a common
theme.
Monster Movies
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Them! (1954, Warner Bros.)

The Day the World Ended
(American International Pictures,
1956)
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lecture 22 - 2005

The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
lecture 22 - 2005

And, of course…Godzilla.
Still from Godzilla, King of Monsters (1956 US release)
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One Interpretation…
• Susan Sontag’s 1965 essay “Imagination of
Disaster”
lecture 22 - 2005

Movies with a Warning
• The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
• On the Beach (1959)
• Dr. Strangelove (1964)
• Fail Safe (1964)
lecture 22 - 2005

lecture 22 - 2005

Still from The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
Failsafe
lecture 22 - 2005

One of my favorites…scene from the film-noir
classic Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
lecture 22 - 2005

Nuclear Power, Nuclear Fears
lecture 22 - 2005

Later Interpretations
lecture 22 - 2005

Recent Atomic Bomb Cinema
• Can you think of other examples?
lecture 22 - 2005

Is the Bomb Back?
lecture 22 - 2005