World War III is a common theme in popular culture. Since the 1940s, countless books, films, and television programmes have used the theme of nuclear weapons and a third global war. The presence of the Soviet Union as an international rival armed with nuclear weapons created a persistent fear in the United States. There was a pervasive dread of a nuclear World War III, and popular culture reveals the fears of the public at the time. This theme in the arts was also a way of exploring a range of issues far beyond nuclear war. The historian Spencer R. Weart called nuclear weapons a "symbol for the worst of modernity."
During the Cold War, concepts such as mutual assured destruction (MAD) led lawmakers and government officials in both the United States and the Soviet Union to avoid entering a nuclear World War III that could have had catastrophic consequences on the entire world. Various scientists and authors, such as Carl Sagan, predicted massive, possibly life ending destruction of the earth as the result of such a conflict. Strategic analysts assert that nuclear weapons prevented the United States and the Soviet Union from fighting World War III with conventional weapons. Nevertheless, the possibility of such a war became the basis for speculative fiction, and its simulation in books, films and video games became a way to explore the issues of a war that has thus far not occurred in reality. The only places a global nuclear war have ever been fought are in expert scenarios, theoretical models, war games, and the art, film, and literature of the nuclear age. The concept of mutually assured destruction was also the focus of numerous movies and films.
Prescient stories about nuclear war were written before the invention of the atomic bomb. The most notable of these is The World Set Free , written by H. G. Wells in 1914. During World War II, several nuclear war stories were published in science fiction magazines such as Astounding . In Robert A. Heinlein's story "Solution Unsatisfactory" the US develops radioactive dust as the ultimate weapon of war and uses it to destroy Berlin in 1945 and end the war with Germany. The Soviet Union then develops the same weapon independently, and war between it and the US follows. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 made stories of a future global nuclear war look less like fiction and more like prophecy. When William Faulkner received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949, he spoke about Cold War themes in art. He worried that younger writers were too preoccupied with the question of "When will I be blown up?"
1950s: Fears of the new and unknown
American fears of an impending apocalyptic World War III with the communist bloc were strengthened by the quick succession of the Soviet Union’s nuclear bomb test, the Chinese Communist Revolution in 1949, and the beginning of the Korean War in 1950. Pundits named the era "the age of anxiety", after W. H. Auden. In 1951 an entire issue of Collier's magazine was devoted to a fictional account of World War III. The issue was entitled "Preview of the War We Do Not Want". In the magazine, war begins when the Red Army invades Yugoslavia and the United States responds by conducting a three month long bombing campaign of Soviet Union military and industrial targets. The Soviet Union retaliates by bombing New York, Washington, Philadelphia, and Detroit.
Against this background of dread there was an outpouring of cinema with frightening themes, particularly in the science fiction genre. Science fiction had previously not been popular with either critics or movie audiences, but it became a viable Hollywood genre during the Cold War. In the 1950s science fiction had two main themes: the invasion of the Earth (symbolising the US) by superior, aggressive, and frequently technologically advanced aliens; and the dread of atomic weapons, which was typically portrayed as a revolt of nature, with irradiated monsters attacking and ravaging entire cities.
In The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), a flying saucer lands on the Mall in Washington DC, where it is surrounded by troops and tanks. The alien Klaatu delivers an ultimatum that the Earth must learn to live in peace or it will be destroyed. The War of the Worlds (1953) has a montage sequence where the countries of Earth join together to fight the Martian invaders. The montage conspicuously omits the Soviet Union, implying that the aliens are a metaphor for communists. The most elaborate science fiction films in the 1950s were This Island Earth (1955) and Forbidden Planet (1956). In the climax of both films the characters witness the explosion of alien planets, implying Earth's possible fate. The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1959) is also in the science fiction genre. In it, a man, a woman, and a bigot (the devil) roam New York City after a nuclear war. Only those three characters appear in the film. Also released in 1959 was On The Beach , directed by Stanley Kramer and starring Ava Gardner, Gregory Peck and Fred Astaire. Based on the successful novel by Nevil Shute, the film deals with the citizens of Australia as they await radioactive fallout, a result of a catastrophic nuclear war in the Northern Hemisphere. The French author Stefan Wul's 1957 novel Niourk provided a portrait of New York after World War III.
1960s: Expanding popularity
In the 1960s, media about the threat of nuclear world war gained wide popularity. According to Susan Sontag, these films struck people’s "imagination of disaster...in the fantasy of living through one’s own death and more the death of cities, the destruction of humanity itself." A leading member of the 1960s anti-war movement, singer-songwriter Bob Dylan evoked the topic of WWIII thrice in his seminal The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan , in "Masters of War", "Talkin' World War III Blues", and "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall".
In 1964 three films about the threat of accidental nuclear war were released, Dr. Strangelove , Fail-Safe , and Seven Days in May . Their negative portrayal of nuclear defence prompted the United States Air Force to sponsor films such as A Gathering of Eagles to publicly address the potential dangers of nuclear defense.
Dr. Strangelove is a black comedy by Stanley Kubrick about the nuclear arms race between the US and the Soviet Union and the doctrine of mutually assured destruction. Following a bizarre mental breakdown the C.O. of a SAC base orders the B-52 wing operating from his base to attack the Soviet Union. The title character, Dr. Strangelove, is a parody of a composite of Cold War figures, including Wernher von Braun, Henry Kissinger, and Herman Kahn. The secret code Operation DROPKICK, mentioned by George C. Scott's character, may be an oblique reference to Operation Dropshot.
The 1964 film Fail-Safe was adapted from a best-selling novel of the same name by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler. In it, nuclear disaster is caused by a technological breakdown that mistakenly launches American bombers to attack the Soviet Union. The US president allows New York to be destroyed after the bomber destroys Moscow in order to save the world. The film was made in a semi-documentary style with a montage of the destruction of Moscow and New York at the end of the film.
The War Game (1965), produced by Peter Watkins, deals with a fictional nuclear attack on Britain. This film won the Oscar for Best Documentary, but was withheld from broadcast by the BBC for two decades.
1970s: Fears continue
The American public's concerns about nuclear weapons and related technology continued to be present in the 1970s. The most talked about events in the 1970s were the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, the Iran hostage crisis, the energy crisis, and stagflation. None of these issues easily lent themselves to apocalyptic scenarios. In the 1977 Robert Aldrich film Twilight's Last Gleaming , a nuclear missile silo is seized by renegade US Air Force officers, who threaten to start World War III if the American government does not reveal secret documents that show that the military needlessly prolonged the Vietnam War.
1980s: Belief in an imminent threat
In the early 1980s there was a feeling of alarm in Europe and North America that a nuclear World War III was imminent. In 1982, 250,000 people protested against nuclear weapons in Bonn, then the capital of West Germany. On June 12 , 1982 , more than 750,000 protesters marched from the U.N. headquarters building to Central Park in New York to call for a Nuclear Freeze. The public accepted the technological certainty of nuclear war, but did not have faith in nuclear defence. This worry manifested itself in the popular culture of the time, with images of nuclear war in books, film, music, and television. In the mid 1980s artists and musicians drew parallels with their time and the 1950s as two key moments in the Cold War.
There was a steady stream of popular music with apocalyptic themes. The 1983 hit "99 Luftballons" by Nena tells the story of a young woman who accidentally triggers a nuclear holocaust by releasing balloons. The music video for "Sleeping with the Enemy" had images of the Red Army parading in Red Square, American high school marching bands, and a mushroom cloud. The 1984 hit "Two Tribes" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood had actors resembling Konstantin Chernenko and Ronald Reagan fighting ea
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