Culture during the Cold War

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The Cold War was reflected in culture through music, movies, books, and other media. One element of the Cold War often seen relates directly or indirectly to the threat of nuclear war. Another is the conflict between the superpowers in terms of espionage. Many works use the Cold War as a backdrop, or directly take part in fictional conflict between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. The period 1953-1962 saw Cold War themes first enter mainstream culture as a public preoccupation.

The Cold War was also reflected in the attitudes of people in their every day lives. The Hollywood blacklist determined who would create, work on, and star in motion pictures; in politics the House Un-American Activities Committee questioned those thought to be communist sympathizers; in the US Senate, Joseph McCarthy created difficulties for many as well.

Contents

[edit] House Un-American Activities Committee

Main article: House Un-American Activities Committee

The House Un-American Activities Committee interfered in American cultural life through its questioning of actors, directors, and others who produced movies in Hollywood. The effect of this questioning was the Hollywood blacklist, and was felt far beyond Hollywood.

Jackie Robinson was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee, specifically stating that he was not a Communist. [1]

[edit] Books and other works

  • Masters of Deceit -- a non-fiction work written by the FBI, through J. Edgar Hoover's office, extolling the vices of Communism, and the virtues of Americanism. [2]
  • Glasnost radically changed Russian culture, as books that had been forbidden suddenly became available, and people were reading them all the time, everywhere. [3]

[edit] Movies and Television

[edit] TV Shows

[edit] Television commercials

Wendy's Hamburger Chain ran a television commercial showing a supposed "Soviet Fashion Show", which featured the same large, unattractive woman wearing the same dowdy outfit in a variety of situations, the only difference being the accessory she carried (for example, a long, police-style flashlight).

Apple Computer's "1984" ad.

[edit] Daisies and mushroom clouds

Daisy was the most famous campaign commercial of the Cold War.[1] Aired only once, on 7 September 1964, it was a factor in Lyndon B. Johnson's defeat of Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential election. The contents of the commercial were controversial, and their emotional impact was searing.

The commercial opens with a very young girl standing in a meadow with chirping birds, slowly counting the petals of a daisy as she picks them one by one. Her sweet innocence, along with several mistakes in her counting, endear her to the viewer. When she reaches "9", an ominous-sounding male voice is suddenly heard intoning the countdown of a rocket launch. As the girl's eyes turn toward something she sees in the sky, the camera zooms in until one of her pupils fills the screen, blacking it out. The countdown reaches zero, and the blackness is instantly replaced by the thunderous flash of a nuclear explosion, followed by a billowing mushroom cloud.

As the firestorm rages, a voiceover from Johnson states emphatically, "These are the stakes! To make a world in which all of God's children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we must die." Another voiceover then says, "Vote for President Johnson on November 3. The stakes are too high for you to stay home." (Two months later, Johnson won the election in an electoral landslide.)

[edit] Bear in the woods

Bear in the woods was a 1984 campaign advertisement endorsing Ronald Reagan for President. This campaign ad depicted a brown bear wandering through the woods (likely implying the Soviet Union) and suggested that Reagan was more capable of dealing with the Soviets than his opponent, in spite of the fact that the ad never explicitly mentioned the Soviet Union, the Cold War or Walter Mondale.

[edit] Films depicting nuclear war

The 1959 film On the Beach, depicted a gradually dying, post-apocalyptic world in Australia that remained after a nuclear Third World War. Other films include:

  • Duck and Cover -- A 1951 educational movie explaining what to do in the event of a nuclear attack.
  • Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) -- A black comedy film that satirizes the Cold War and the threat of nuclear warfare.
  • Fail-Safe (1964) -- A film based on a novel of the same name about an American bomber crew and nuclear tensions.
  • The War Game (BBC, 1965) -- Depicts the effects of a nuclear war in Britain following a conventional war that escalates to nuclear war.
  • Damnation Alley (20th Century Fox, 1977) -- Surprise attack launched on the United States, and the subsequent efforts of a small band of survivors in California to reach another group of survivors in Albany, New York.
  • The Children's Story (1982) short film, which originally aired on TV's Mobil Showcase, depicts the first day of indoctrination of an elementary school classroom by a new teacher, representing a totalitarian government that has taken over the United States. It is based on the 1960 short story of the same name by James Clavell.
  • The Day After (1983) -- This made-for-television-movie by ABC that depicts the consequences of a nuclear war in Lawrence, Kansas and the surrounding area.
  • WarGames (1983) -- About a young computer hacker that hacks into a defense computer and risks accidentally starting a nuclear war.
  • Testament (PBS, 1983) -- Depicts the after-effects of a nuclear war in a town near San Francisco, California.
  • Countdown to Looking Glass (HBO, 1984) -- A film that presents a simulated news broadcast about a nuclear war.
  • Threads (BBC, 1984) -- A film that is set in the British city of Sheffield and shows the long-term results of a nuclear war on the surrounding area.
  • The Sacrifice (Sweden, 1986) -- A philosophical drama about nuclear war.
  • The Manhattan Project (1986) -- Though not about a nuclear war, it was seen as a cautionary tale.
  • When the Wind Blows (1986) -- An animated film about two people in a post-nuclear war world.
  • Miracle Mile (1988) -- A film about two lovers in Los Angeles leading up to a nuclear war.
  • By Dawn's Early Light (HBO, 1990) -- About rogue Soviet military officials framing NATO for a nuclear attack in order to spark a full-blown nuclear war.
  • On the Beach (Showcase, 2000) -- A remake of the 1959 film.

[edit] Films depicting a conventional US/USSR war

In addition to fears of a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union, during the Cold War, there were also fears of a direct, large scale conventional conflict between the two superpowers.

  • Invasion U.S.A. (1952) -- The 1952 film showed a Soviet invasion of the U.S. succeeding because the citizenry had fallen into moral decay, war profiteering, and isolationism. The film was later parodied on Mystery Science Theater 3000. (This is not to be confused with the similarly-titled Chuck Norris action vehicle released in 1985.)
  • Red Nightmare, a 1962 government-sponsored short subject narrated by Jack Webb, imagined a Soviet-dominated America as a result of the protagonist's negligence of his "all-American" duties.
  • World War III, a 1982 NBC miniseries about a Soviet invasion of Alaska.
  • Red Dawn (1984) -- presented a conventional Soviet attack with limited, strategic Soviet nuclear strikes on the United States, aided by allies from Latin America, and the exploits of a group of high schoolers who form a guerrilla group to oppose them.
  • Invasion U.S.A. (1985) -- This film depicts a Soviet agent leading Latin American Communist guerillas launching attacks in the United States, and an ex-CIA agent played by Chuck Norris opposing him and his mercenaries.
  • Amerika (ABC, 1987), a peaceful takeover of the United States by the Soviet Union.

[edit] Films depicting Cold War Espionage

  • James Bond first appeared in 1954. Fans loved the beautiful scarcely dressed women, exotic locations, tricky gadgets, and death-defying stunts. The films were based vaguely on the Cold War, but fans probably paid less and less attention to the politics. Bond movies followed the political climate in depicting Soviets and "Red" Chinese. In the 1954 version of Casino Royale, Bond was an American agent working with the British to destroy a ruthless Soviet agent in France, but he worked better as Agent 007, James Bond, of Her Majesty's Secret Service, who was played by Sean Connery until 1971 and by several actors since. Although the first Bond films involved the Cold War as a backdrop, later Bond films during the Cold War had with less and less Cold War and more and more sex and stunt work in each version. However, some of the later Bond films such as The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), For Your Eyes Only (1981), Octopussy (1983) and The Living Daylights (1987) did contain Cold War themes.
  • «TASS Upolnomochen Zayavit...» (TASS is Authorized to Announce...) - a Soviet TV series based on Julian Semenov's novel. The plot of the movie is set around fictional African country Nagonia, where CIA agents are preparing a military coup, while KGB agent Slavin is trying to prevent it. Slavin succeeds by blackmailing the corrupt American spy John Glebe.

[edit] Other films about US/Soviet fears and rivalry

[edit] Arts

The United States and the Soviet Union engaged in a competition in the arts as well, mainly in ballet. The Americans and the Soviets would send previews of their country's ballets to prove their superiority. In America, this caused a dramatic increase in government funding. In both countries, ballet was turned into powerful political propaganda, and they used dance to reflect life style in the "battle for the hearts and minds of men."

[edit] Music

There were many protest songs during the 1980s that reflected general unease with the escalating tensions with the Soviet Union brought on by Ronald Reagan's and Margaret Thatcher's hard line against the Soviets. For example, various musical artists wore military uniform-like costumes, as a reflection of the increased feeling of militarism seen in the 1980s. Songs symbollically showed the superpowers going to war, as in the Frankie Goes to Hollywood song "Two Tribes." This song's MTV music video featured caricatures of US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet President Konstantin Chernenko in a wrestling match.

Other songs expressed fear of World War III, as in the song, "Russians", where Sting eloquently states, "I don't subscribe to his [Reagan's or Khrushchev's] point of view" (that Reagan would protect his people, or that Khrushchev would "bury you"). Other examples include Sly Fox's "Let's go all the way", a song about "going all the way" to nuclear war; The Escape Club's "Wild Wild West" with its various references to the Cold War; the Genesis song "Land of Confusion" expressed a desire to make some sense out of the world, especially in relation to nuclear war.

Probably the most famous of the 1980s songs against increased confrontation between the Soviets and the Americans was Nena's "99 Luftballons", which described the events that could lead to a nuclear war.

Imperiet -- "Coca Cola Cowboys" -- a Swedish rock song about how the world is divided by two super powers that both claim to represent justice.

Roman Palester, a classical music composer had his works banned and censored in Poland and the Soviet Union, as a result of his work for Radio Free Europe, even though he was thought to be Poland's greatest living composer at the time. [5]

[edit] Musicals and plays

  • Chess The game of chess was another mode of competition between the two superpowers, which the musical demonstrates.

[edit] Sports

[edit] Video games

[edit] Protest culture

[edit] Political campaigns

[edit] 1950 defeat of Senator Claude Pepper

A pamphlet was circulated with the title The Red Record of Senator Claude Pepper, [6] which painted him as a communist sympathiser, and cost him the election. He later served in the US House of Representatives.

[edit] Other

  • Barbie -- Barbie represented the American way of life, because she was the ultimate consumer. [7]
  • New Math was a strong reaction to the launch of Sputnik, by changing the way mathematics was taught to school age children.

[edit] References

 This article does not cite any references or sources. (August 2006)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.
  1. ^ Whitfield, Stephen J., The Culture of the Cold War, page 194
  2. ^ Whitfield, Stephen J., The Culture of the Cold War, page 68
  3. ^ Remnick, David, Lenin's Tomb: The last days of the Soviet Empire, page 59
  4. ^ Whitfield, Stephen J., The Culture of the Cold War, page 66
  5. ^ "Profiles: Roman Palester". Adam Mickiewicz Institute. Retrieved on 12 May 2007.
  6. ^ Whitfield, Stephen J., The Culture of the Cold War, page 29
  7. ^ Whitfield, Stephen J., The Culture of the Cold War, page 71
  • Orwell, George. (1949). Nineteen-Eighty-Four. London: Secker & Warburg. (later edn. ISBN 0-451-52493-4)

[edit] External links