Dr. Strangelove is a satire on the nuclear scare and Cold
War politics that contains many sexual images and innuendos that make
connections between war and gender stereotypes, and also situations/concepts
that relate to material we have studied in class. It is revealed to the war room that the
Soviet Union has created a doomsday machine in response to a notion that the
United States was working on a similar machine.
Dr. Strangelove, one of the president’s advisors, believes the doomsday
machine would not be a “practical deterrent.”
All throughout the film, we see posters and banners that read “Peace is
Our Profession” and a binder in the war room that reads “World Targets in
Megadeaths.” After the strike is called,
the booming voice on the intercom states that the “commie has no regard for
human life.” Similar impressions have
been instilled in Americans when a conflict with various other nations occurs;
American society often promotes our society as superior and humane while the
other is backwards and vicious. General
Turgidson later states that America can recall the attack, but if that doesn’t
work the only other option is total commitment and gives two ultimatums to
post-war environment. The first being
that merely 20,000,000 people are killed, the second, 150,000,000 people
killed. He also lays out six options or
paths they can take in this nuclear scare with option number five being the
path where the Americans catch the Russians “with their pants down.” These choices and predictions relate to
concepts in game theory we have been studying and mirror the attempts to
predict outcomes of war. When questioned
about the doomsday machine, Dr. Strangelove states that “deterrence is the art
of producing in the mind of the enemy the fear to attack, and so, because of
the automated and irrevocable decision making process which rules out human
mettling, the doomsday machine is terrifying, simple to understand, and
completely credible and convincing.”
Another crucial statement in the movie is Dr. Strangelove’s assertion that
the “whole point of a doomsday machine is lost if you keep it a secret.” In the conclusion of the film, Dr.
Strangelove presents an idea that relates to the reading by Kahn that was
assigned earlier and is also discussed in the Kaplan reading on the film. His method of preserving the human race also
reinforces the ideas on sex and gender portrayed in the movie and brings up the
ethical issues of using technology and mathematical reasoning to decide what
will be most beneficial for the survival of the human race.
I can't wait to find the time and the website to watch this movie! By the way you described the plot just made it sound very interesting. The reading helped a lot too. Especially in the beginning how they explained that this whole movie was made on accident (so to speak). How he originally started with a different idea in mind then went off with this after the multiple interviews and reading different books. I also liked how the reading talked about how "real" the movie was. "Real" as in how close it depicted true events. Thinking that people didn't get all the information that is so readily available to us is quite interesting. The fact that people thought this movie was just a comedy when it actually had a lot of true events in it was quite a mind blower. Makes me wonder how many other movies or tv shows we watch is actually true about the government at this day and age.
ReplyDeleteI would not have thought to apply a math concept like game theory to a satirical Hollywood production. I generally view these two ideals as being entirely separate from each other. However, over the last few class periods I have realized how truly relevant this advanced mathematical theory can really be. Game theory played an integral role in the decisions made during the Cold War. Perhaps it is because of game theory that we are still here today, and the world was not destroyed in a nuclear war. The fact that this movie so closely represents reality indicates that perhaps human behavior is more predictable than I may have originally thought. One of the parts I still struggle with most in game theory is the fact that humans do not always act rationally. An irrational decision can throw off what is predicted by game theory. This considered, it is interesting to see how effective game theory can still be in modeling human behavior. Perhaps, we do not act as irrationally as one might think.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, I found it interesting how you mentioned that the binder in the movie is labeled “World Targets in Megadeaths.” This shows war and death as being more of a statistic, and ignores the personal implications. People who make decisions about war often make these decisions looking at the big picture, not considering each individual life that will be lost in the process of reaching the desired end.