Stanley Kubrick's 1964 Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is a black comedy about nuclear combat during the Cold War between the U.S. and Russia. The conflict occurs when a paranoid (und verruckt) General Ripper is convinced of communist plots to infiltrate his "natural bodily fluids" and orders troops to drop various atomic bombs on their targets in Russia. When the Pentagon realizes General Ripper's unauthorized attack, they inform the Russian Ambassador, Kissoff, and Russian President, Dimitri, in hopes of recalling the planes and avoiding a shooting war. However, a confession of an underground "Doomsday Machine" programmed to automatically detonate should Russia ever be attacked changes the course of the movie. In the end, the Doomsday Machine obliterates mankind with a nuclear winter.
It seems natural to presume that a movie about a nuclear holocaust would be depressing and terrible, but Dr. Strangelove is neither of those things; it's funny and you don't feel that bad about anything in the end. In fact, you might download the Vera Lynn song in the end and sing it when no one is around. In chapter 5, "Apocalypse", of Greg Garrard's Ecocriticsm focuses on the nature of "Apocalypticism" that presents itself in Kubrick's Strangelove. The movie illustrates extreme distrust between countries, and an overreaction of the imagined dangers which results in the end of the world that Thompson explains happens in an apocalyptic mindset. As most civilizations agree that society will one day, somehow, end, Stephen O'Leary describes two perceptions capable of coping with the apocalypse: Tragic and Comedic. While the tragic outlook focuses on the "guilt" resulting from punishment that faces mankind, the comedic representation values the "error" that causes the punishment. Although a nuclear war would destroy human and animal life, the planet would survive and regrow. So what do we mean when we say "the end of the world"? We really just mean the end of us.
(P.S. I was already writing about Dr. Strangelove when I saw it was very briefly mentioned in chapter 5).
P.S.S. Peter Sellers is my favorite.
An interesting angle would be to try and look specifically at those "precious bodily fluids" in the film. It's been a while since I've seen it, but that obsession with the body--particularly since the word "pollution" originally carries that corporeal significance--would be quite interesting.
ReplyDeleteThat's also what I mean by "focusing on a specific phenomenon within your chosen text." Otherwise, it's difficult to corral your discussion and keep it from beoming overly generalized.
A great text to cover, for sure.
So I did this wrong?
ReplyDeleteThe "bodily fluid" bits were actually what made me think of it as a toxic text in class. General Ripper talks about liquid fluoridation in the film and his suspicions over communist mind control from foreign products. I just didn't think that had much to do with the chapter.
Not at all. This would be a great text to work with, in terms of its relation to toxic discourse. I was thinking more of finding a way into the text that avoids the more obvious nuclear radiation. Good work.
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