How The Nuclear Agenda Influenced American Popular Culture History Essay

How The atomic order of business Influenced American touristed Culture History Es labelAugust 6th, 1945, ushered in the beginning of a unfermented era, cardinal to be for of all condemnation so know as the Atomic Age. The dropping of the worldly concerns first corpuscle neglect over Hiroshima signalled a defining moment in human history. From that moment on the atomic schedule would come to entice not al ane external affairs, further the e genuinelyday lives of people all roughly the world. The 17 twelvemonth fulfilment from 1945-62 saw huge swaps for American society, in particular the growing and expansion of favorite culture. How in fact usual culture was regularised by this unexampled-fashi angiotensin-converting enzymed thermo atomic agendum h archaics the basis for this strain. It impart focus on both(prenominal) the at once influences of a natural atomic culture, as noticeable as the in condition influences that a vernal-made atomic wo rld had on the ordinary arts. For the pur beget of this essay it is essential to stick a functional definition for common culture, in this instance public culture will be defined as a commercialized culture ground on popular tastes. From Hollywood scenes to comic books, a new atomic technology became an important characteristic in portraying the lives of everyday Americans. along with a new kind of atomic diplomacy theses influences would show themselves in or so of the greatest pieces of twentieth century popular culture. What this meant for a nuclear generation and how it showed the signs of a pagan revival will be additional themes to explore.The atomic flunk revolutionised American life. In all areas economic, social, political it challenged old assumptions and forced recon nerveration of accepted standards (Winkler, 1999 9). The dropping of the first atomic go on that historic day insured at least one thing, a changed world. Rosenblatt neatly describes it, as a moment where nothing has ever been the same since. From that moment everything changed subsequent struggles, subsequent peace, art, culture, the position of intuition, the role of the military, worldwide politics, and the conduct of lives all changed. different ages in history were characterized by heroes or by ideas. The atomic age is characterized by a implement and a threat. (Rosenblatt, 20051)The end to fighting in World war II brought a period of congener peace in which popular culture was allowed to flourish. Boyer (1985) reveals that this new popular culture encompassed hearty-nigh areas of recreational life, although there were many alterations in by-lines and tastes. During the 50s and 60s particularly, popular culture appealed to a younger generation who had produce an increasingly crucial social group. Rock nRoll had become the main focal direct for a young generation, and the novel realization of breaking a management from childhood, caused the teenagers to become a defined social group in their own right. Teenagers began to cull the old fashioned attitudes and conventions of their parents and rebel against conformity. As stated by Shapiro (2002) this new generation of teenagers started developing a culture from the American teenage authority of life, and alongside the behaviour got themselves part- beat jobs to help them earn money to lapse on movies, fashion, music and other entertainment. Boyer (1985) agrees adding that teenagers could now secure a vertical follow of money for their destinys and needs like making trips to the movies and the purchasing of commercial goods, which became big business for the advertisement and snap industries, which duly swooped in on their opportunities. Films which were produced and targeted by the teenage audience solely served to unite the teenage see much extensively. With films like Rebel with stunned a Cause (1954) and The Wild unmatchable (1953) movies presented a separate image for t he teenage rebel. The indirect effect of a growing nuclear schedule, seemingly allowed a world free from direct military conflict to find its voice again. War time popular culture had been heavily centred around the war effort, yet in this draft period popular culture begun to revolutionise. It became increasingly important for a stock World War II America to enjoy this time of relative peace. Subsequently this saw a huge rise in a new consumerism in which trends and fashions that had seemingly been put on hold during the war geezerhood, could dominate popular culture once again.The changing dynamics of a nuclear agenda began to have a more direct influence on popular culture, this period created what Zeman and Admundson (2004) call the proterozoic atomic culture. This decided period saw an escalation in the nuclear agendas influence on the organization of popular culture. Both the en consequentlyiasm and awe surrounding new nuclear weapons would be portrayed in this expansi ve new arena. From the secrecy of the Manhattan pop to its introduction on a world stage in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this new technology offset an atomic culture. It would be wrong to say that later its first military use the pelt became a subject for worship and anxiety. In truth the majority of Americans at that time were unaware nuclear weapons blush existed. For many this was the weapon that had ended the war, saved thousands of American lives and brought front a longed for epoch of peace. As Winkler agrees, Americans first reaction overwhelmingly was one of euphoria and the break down became celebrated in popular culture in a nearly-liked country western song, When the Atom dud Fell, recorded in December 1945, which attested to this view as it declared the bomb the process to our fighting prayers boys(in Zeman and Amundson, 20043).Many Americans set aside lurking guardianships of the new nuclear weapon as they contemplated the golden age of abundance that beckoned aft er World War II. They were further persuaded by the speeches of President Truman who hailed the atomic bomb as a god given tremendous discovery and one to bring together one human community. Others like David Lilienthal where besides quick to speak out over the measureless beneficial applications of atomic energy (Winkler, 1999 137). The atomic bomb proceed throughout the period to be coatingly linked with its positive degree benefits and government programs attempted to educate the public more or less the experience hobo the bomb. An educational video produced by none other than Walt Disney was commissioned in 1957 entitle Our Friend the Atom, which attempted to demonstrate the benefits of the nuclear age and the inquire of this new technology. This film was shown in schools throughout America and became increasingly significant in showing nuclear power in a booming light. Other videos such as A is for Atom sponsored and paid for by General Electric were also produced to try and help explain the benefits of nuclear technology. This is not to say that the dropping of the bomb in Hiroshima went unnoticed. As rear by Gamson H.V.Kaltenborn, the dean of radio news commentators, warned his NBC audience on the very same day, For all we know we have created a Frankenstein We must look at that with the passage of only a littler time, an im prove form of the new weapon we use today can be turned against us. (198715)The continued promotion of the nuclear agenda also expanded to the American commercial markets, and the wonders of the bomb became tied in with consumerism. 1946 saw the General Mills potbelly expansion into Atomic Bomb Rings with the Kix cereal boxtop. Advertised as a gleaming aluminium warhead, see real atoms SPLIT cried the advert, and some 750,000 American children inundated General Mills for their own Atomic Bomb Ring. Boyer (1985) identifies this move from a promotional premium, to that which actually premeditated several cultural themes t hat would obsess America in the years ahead. Another example from Boyer reveals that only eld after the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima, retail shops were offer atomic sales and products offering atomic results. (1985 9) This type of cultural consumerism seems null of the true fear that would come to surround the nuclear agenda. Instead it highlights the presumable ease into which America welcomed the birth of the atomic bomb although this was not everlastingly the case.This period in American history coincided with attempts at a new world order and the emergence of the United States as a planetary superpower. Political, social, economic and ideological issues became not only domestic barely transnational issues. The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan in particular were set up to help fund an American friendly Europe. The movement of the nuclear agenda began to change with the American foreign policy of Containment, an uneasy separation both geographically and ideologic al, which would see Churchill talk up fears of an Iron Curtain. These international fears would twinkle a concern of a superpower rivalry and after the Soviet tests of 1949 2 countries with conflicting ideologies now had the most destructive weapon ever invented.Hollywood was quick in using the new found nuclear agenda for film ideas. The Manhattan project was dramatized in the 1947 film The Beginning or the End, one of the first of several films on the subject. The film tackled the creation of the atomic bomb and its subsequent use in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Film throw awayrs saw this new nuclear agenda, as a story waiting to be told. unmatched of the trailers produced at the time to promote the film showed an interviewer asking movie goers for their suasions on what theyd just seen. You cant ignore this picture one women express and the most important motion picture I have ever seen said another. These along with taglines such as the men, the magic the machines saw an inc reased interest in the development of the bomb. The subject matter was of course both spectacular and dangerously fascinating to a new generation. It talked somewhat the secrecy bed the Manhattan Project and the destructive power tardily the bomb. It led many to pose questions in particular like that within the films title was this the beginning or the end? The film industry could now see the need and want of the people to know about the bomb. Much of the film was of course a sensationalised view, and alot of what the Manhattan Project was actually about was unknown by those making the films. Although the horizon and an increased interest around the bomb would see that the nuclear agenda would continue to influence film.A particular music genre within Hollywood that would see a rise in popularity at this time was film noir. As Kakutani identifies in the wake of World War II and with anxieties created by the dawning of the atomic age, film noir a sometimes nihilistic genre became galvanised. The likes of Kiss Me Deadly and Fallen Angel found success at the box office. The genre with its partiality to outsiders and deeply rebellious themes inevitably appeared and emblematized at a time of deep stress. (2001 1) These kinds of Hollywood films began to show a public attitude that the nuclear agenda had brought about.Hunner (in Zeman and Amundson) describes the nuclear agenda as a totally new age, one full of promise and peril. People searched for a new way of living under this new age thus creating this new culture. And the reason why the nuclear agenda began to find its way into popular culture had a lot to do with the changing nature of nuclear importance. From the creation of the atom bomb moving to the advances with the first nuclear power plant, the science behind the bomb began to spread to new technologies. atomic powered aeroplanes and submarines were just some of the uses that that the Unites States found for nuclear energy. Even with these new adva nces a key move point for the bomb would come in 1949. Zeman and Amundson (2004) identify this development from the early atomic culture morphing into the high atomic culture of 1949 to 1963. The following years were seemingly different from the earlier phases, as one key turning point would stress. This period saw the American nuclear monopoly which had been expected to last until the 1960s, come to an abrupt end in August of 1949. The Soviets after Hiroshima had been working from the American design to produce an atom bomb for itself, and the first Soviet test in Kazakhstan steppe signalled a build up of arms. The Soviet atomic test ensured a changing nuclear agenda from the wonder of technology to a characterization of an enemy. A two superpower world would change the very nature of popular culture.The change in nuclear agenda saw an alteration in the types of films macrocosm produced in Hollywood. In the 1950s and 1960s, a number of movies attempted to make social commentarie s on the war. As Day reveals Films like On the B individually, infract Safe and The Bedford Incident all took a grim tone about humanitys future, wagging a finger at world leaders who held the fate of the world in their hands and implying that words like democracy and communism had little meaning when the world was teetering on the brink of Armageddon. (Day, 2004 1). The shift in agenda also introduced the introduction of the B movies which entertained the fear of mutilation. Films such as Them where giant ants mutated by atomic actinotherapy threaten US cities in the South West, and Attack of the Crab Monster were becoming increasingly popular to an American audience. The links to events in the international community such as the nuclear accident in Castle Bravo and Chelyabinsk in 1957 brought about a sense of anxiety. The idea of being open(a) to dangerous levels of radiation further influenced the idea of mutation. One of the most recognised films of this period and one that w ould inspire numerous re-makes was Godzilla. The original Hollywood version in 1954 is considered to be the correspondence of the nuclear weapons which were dropped in Japan. The film unlike its B movie counterparts had a bigger budget and became instantly popular. Other films such as Mickey Rooneys Atomic Kid (1954) which appeared to disassociate the potential of nuclear radiation, failed to do so well at the box office. Later films such as Dr Strangelove would also focus on the idea of a doomsday advice. Other signs that showed the increasing implication of the nuclear agenda were no more spare than in the Laurel and Hardy motion picture Atoll K. A well loved and admire comedy duo choose for their last subterfuge outing to portray a shipwreck on an island rich in Uranium deposits. It was a far cry from there simplistic and popular humour which had served them well earlier in their careers. In truth Hollywood had become infiltrated by a collection of A and B movies each adding t heir representations to the nuclear agenda.As well as Hollywood films the American well-bred Defence began producing advice videos such as Burt the Turtle and Duck for Cover. They were clearly designed to help to combat the fear of nuclear catastrophe, and were used to reassure the prevalent public about the dangers of nuclear weapons. They would usually involve drills for mass remainder to side effect shelters, and popularized the likes of Duck and Cover. The drills with their indications of dissonantly empty streets and the hiding activity from the nuclear bomb under the schoolroom desk, would later could turn into symbols of the expected ineluctable and popular fate formed by those weapons. Most Americans were affected by these videos, oddly amongst those in the richer classes who could afford the back-yard fallout shelters which offered a diminutive protection from the direct attack and could keep away from the wind-blown fallout, for some geezerhood or weeks.Popular cultu re within America increased extensively in the early 1950s and 60s, with widespread tensions growing amongst segregated groups in society. The cultural significance of such movements as the non violent rebellion 1955-60, brought the hope of peace and par for many Americans. The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the influence of charismatic escape leaders such as Martin Luther King promoted the need for non-violence such a belief directly opposed the violent and intermediating prospect of nuclear war. As King himself was quoted in a speech denouncing atomic warfare entitled Time to Break Silence, Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. Whilst King was a strong figure fighting for an end to segregation and civilised rights the effect of the nuclear agenda was still quite evident in all aspects of American life. Fairclough points out if it were not for the nuclear agenda the case an d call for civil rights might have been addressed a generation earlier. (2001 249)The effect of prior atomic tests and the sight of great chemical explosions found itself positioned in kitsch art. Titus (in Zeman and Amundson) recognises how the pick served as symbol for weapons themselves. Pictures on the nuclear weapons never became public until 1960 and even those were only the mock-ups for the Fat Man and the Little Boy. Diagrams of the bombs interior working have been obtainable only for the last few years since design for nuclear weapons became the most strictly guarded secret. These all had an impact of fear on society has well as the nuclear diplomacy that developed amongst the United States and the Soviet Union. The nuclear agenda found itself quickly congenital within American life.The nuclear agenda that followed the end of fighting in WWII took on a life of its own, and yet was not the first time popular culture had embraced nuclear technology. Ironically the first r eference to the nuclear agenda comes not after its first military use but it can be traced back to 1908 in H.G Wells, The War in the nisus as well as his subsequently work The World fixate Free. The novels first explored the prospect of a nuclear holocaust and an atomic bomb that would be used in war. Perhaps even more grievous was the influence it would have on one Leo Szilard. The nuclear agenda might have started life as science fiction but its influence would most definitely lead to science fact. At a time of a new found fascination in the science behind the bomb, it would seem inevitable that the science fiction genre would capture an increased popularity, and it did. Suddenly the question of what the future might hold, the question of what if, gained a horrible new importance. Now, instead of looking a thousand years ahead, humanity was looking at the hands of a Doomsday clock that were edging close set(predicate) to midnight. (Plested, 20091). Nuclear weapons would becom e a fastener ingredient in the science fiction novels. The phrase atomic bomb predated their law of continuation when scientist had realized the ending of radioactivity had a potential implication of limitless energy. Until then, the word atomic had been nothing more than a convenient turn of events in science fiction, a buzzword that provided power for everything from pistols to robots to spaceships. Once the atomic bomb had been used, it proved this scientific leap forward, a leap which proved that science fiction authors were not such wild-eyed dreamers as had been thought (Plested, 2009 1). However, the science fiction novels began to follow and treat the threat of potential nuclear fallout and its implications for society. Newman, K. (2000) notes the various popular novels like the Babylon, Alas and On the Beach reviewed the consequence of the nuclear war. Other science fiction novels like A Canticle for Leibowitz exposed the long-standing consequences of a nuclear war. Han d in hand with the immediate perils of thermonuclear death, science fiction introduced the public to the other horsemen of the new Apocalypse Fallout, Nuclear Winter, and Mutation. The latter provided heady fare for the filmmakers of the 1950s, with screens filled with shambling monstrosities of every shape, coat and species. (Plested, 20091)The crisis of the iciness War coincided with the emergence of the Television, it grew in stature and with the growth of consumerism by the 1950s the TV quickly became a technological novelty an inescapable medium that quickly rivalled the power of movies, radio and mass circulation magazines (Whifield, 1991153). In 1946 around 7000 American owned their own television set and by 1960, 50 million sets had been purchased and over 530 stations were available by 1961. Yet the naive realism of nuclear weapons haunted not just photographs and newsreels of Hiroshima and Nagasaki but visions of the future. In 1950 feel predicted the growing likelihoo d of World War III in the essay How U.S. Cities Cab Prepare for Atomic War. Colliers described a hypothetical atomic attack on New York in Hiroshima U.S.A Can anything be through with(p) about it? (Boyd, 1985 23) Nuclear anxieties boosted the popularity of psychoanalysis an probed the subconscious.Signs of the impacted nuclear agenda also found their way into the music industry. Many songs such as snub Stanleys Satellite Baby pleaded Nuclear baby dont fission out on mewere gonna rock it, were gonna rock it.Isotope daddys found out what you are worth. As well as the likes of Bob Dylan with his 1962 song A Hard Rains Gonna fail which was thought to have alluded to an upsurge in the possibility of a nuclear fallout. by the progression of the nuclear period protest songs in particular became more frequent, such as 99 red balloons, and Relax by Frankie Goes To Hollywood. These songs became rivalry against a nuclear build up and warning songs while others utilised the theme like allus ion to a huge destruction in general. This period also began to see the rise in the popularity of tranquillity organizations such as the CND. Newman, K. (2000) said the CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) was one of the principle organizations campaigning in ambition to the bomb. Its symbol, a grouping of the semaphone symbols for D (disarmament) and N (nuclear) came into the modern culture as icon for peace.1962 saw a flashpoint in the course of the Cold War, a socialist revolution in Cuba would bring the world closer to nuclear war than ever before. The Cuban Missile Crisis illustrated how fragile the fit between a nuclear war and peace had become. The period of time saw a shift in public opinion towards the bomb, how close the world had come to catastrophe had shown Americans the true terror of a nuclear attack. Popular culture moved into a new era of fear and more open criticism of the nuclear programme (Zeman and Amundson, 2004 4)The scale of influence the nuclear agenda h ad on popular culture became elevated as the threat of nuclear war become more possible. The time arrange saw a great deal of change within America. It becomes bare that the early atomic culture had a huge influence on popular culture, but the ways in which it affected it were various to say the least. From civil defence videos to sci-fi b movies, the period generated a phenomenal amount of popular culture. The significance is perhaps the diversity of the materials and the changes the nuclear agenda brought into popular culture. The strength of the nuclear culture insured it was impossible for outlets to ignore, instead the bomb in sorts became commercialised and the threat of apocalypse became a somewhat side point. In truth, it would appear in an era of progression and change the nuclear agenda became quite dominant in popular culture. It affected the lives on not only Americans but those in a global community. The turning point perhaps comes at the end of this period during the 13 days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, where the nuclear agenda hatched up the fear and tensions of an American society who had been blissfully unaware of the true dangers happening behind closed doors.