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Since their dramatic public debut in August 1945, 'nuclear weapons' have been a recurring motif in 'popular culture', to the extent that the decades of the Cold War are often referred to as the "atomic age."

Contents

Images of apocalypse

In fiction, film, and theater

In art

In music

In humor

In computer games

See also

References

External links

Images of apocalypse

The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ushered in the "atomic age", and the bleak pictures of the bombed-out cities released shortly after the end of World War II became potent symbols of the strength of the new weapons (it is worth noting that the first pictures released were only from distances, and did not contain any human bodies — such pictures would only be released in later years).
The first pictures released of a nuclear explosion — the blast from the Trinity test — focused on the fireball itself; later pictures would focus primarily on the mushroom clouds which followed. After the United States began a regular program of nuclear testing in the late 1940s, continuing through the 1950s (and matched by the USSR), the mushroom cloud has served as a symbol of the weapons themselves. Pictures of nuclear weapons themselves (the actual casings) were not made public until 1960, and even those were only mock-ups of the "Fat Man" and "Little Boy" weapons dropped on Japan.
During the 1950s, many countries developed large civil defense programs designed to aid the populace in the event of nuclear warfare. These generally included evacuation drills to fallout shelters, popularized through popular media such as the US film, Duck and Cover. These drills, with their images of eerily empty streets and the seemingly ineffective activity of hiding from a nuclear bomb under a schoolroom desk, would later become symbols of the seemingly inescapable and common fate created by such weapons.
After the development of hydrogen bombs in the 1950s, and especially after the massive and widely-publicized Castle Bravo test accident by the United States in 1954, which spread nuclear fallout over a large area and resulted in the death of at least one Japanese fisherman, the idea of a "limited" or "survivable" nuclear war became increasingly replaced by one in which nuclear war meant the potentially instant end of all civilization. Nuclear weapons became synonymous with apocalypse, and as a symbol this resonated through the culture of nations with open presses.

Nuclear weapons are also one of the main targets of peace organizations. The CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) was one of the main organisations campaigning against the 'Bomb'. Its symbol, a combination of the semaphore symbols for "N" (nuclear) and "D" (disarmament), entered modern popular culture as an icon of peace.

In fiction, film, and theater

Nuclear weapons are a staple element in science fiction novels. The phrase "atomic bomb" predates their existence, back to H. G. Wells' ''The World Set Free'' (1914) when scientists had discovered that radioactive decay implied potentially limitless energy locked inside of atomic particles (Wells' atomic bombs were only as powerful as conventional explosives, but would continue exploding for days on end). Robert A. Heinlein's 1940 Solution Unsatisfactory" posits radioactive dust as a weapon that the US develops in a crash program to end World War II; the dust's existence forces drastic changes in the postwar world. Cleve Cartmill predicted a chain reaction-type nuclear bomb in his 1944 science fiction story "Deadline," which led to the FBI investigating him due to concern over a potential breach of security on the Manhattan Project. (see Silverberg).
Many of the characteristics of nuclear weapons themselves have played on ages-old human themes and tropes (penetrating rays, persistent contamination, virility, and, of course, apocalypse), giving their standing in popular culture and politics a particularly emotional valence (both positive and negative). For example, the book ''Down to a Sunless Sea'' (1979 novel) is set in a post-holocaust environment, as what may be one of the last planeloads of survivors tries to find a place to land.
Nuclear weapons have even featured in children's works: ''The Butter Battle Book'', by Dr. Seuss, deals with deterrence and the arms race. In the fantasy novel, 'Wish Upon A Time' by Indian author Nabila Jamshed, the 'Legendary Scimitar' is said to symbolize a nuclear weapon, described as an object of unimaginable destructive power. The plot revolves around it being stolen by a terrorist organization and being recovered by the protagonists.
Many films, some of which were based on novels, feature nuclear war or the threat of it. ''Godzilla'' (1954) is considered by some to be an analogy to the nuclear weapons dropped on Japan, and was the start of a more general genre of movies about creatures mutated or awakened by nuclear testing. ''Them!'' (1954) (giant ants in Los Angeles sewers) is based on a similar premise. ''The Incredible Shrinking Man'' (novel) ( film, 1957) starts with a sailor irradiated by a bomb test, based on a real incident of irradiation of Japanese fisherman. In ''A Canticle for Leibowitz'', (novel, no film, 1959) the previous war is known as the "Flame Deluge"; ''On the Beach'' (novel 1957, film 1959) is most famous for making the end of humanity a theme in popular thinking on nuclear war; ''Final War'' (Japan, 1960) nuclear war erupts after the USA accidentally bombs South Korea.

Some nonfiction works of the time had an effect on cultural works. Herman Kahn's innovative non-fiction book ''On Thermonuclear War'', (1961) describing various nuclear war scenarios, was never popular, but the outlandishness of its projections and the possibility of a "Doomsday Machine", an idea Kahn got from the 1958 novel ''Red Alert'', as a way to prevent war were direct inspirations for director Stanley Kubrick to handle '' as a black comedy. (Menand, 2005) The 1964 film was loosely based on ''Red Alert'', and a later novelization of the film was also written by the original author Peter George. ''Fail-Safe'' (novel 1962) (film 1964) (live-tv remake 2000) was a dramatic version of a similar accidental war that came out soon after. ''The War Game'' (BBC tv film, 1965), ''Planet of the Apes'' (novel) (5 films, 1968-1973), ''Damnation Alley'' (1977) features a chilling launch and destruction sequence, followed by a trek across a ruined America; ''Taiyō o nusunda otoko / The Man Who Stole the Sun'' (1979), ''When the Wind Blows'' (British graphic novel 1982, animated film 1986).

''The Day After'' (1983) was a "made for TV" movie that became fodder for talk shows and commentary by politicians at the time due to its depiction of explosions on American soil and alleged political content. ''Testament'' (1983), another postwar vision; ''WarGames'' (1983), features young computer nerds and their mischief; ''The Terminator'' (3 films, 1984, 1991, 2003) features a post-apocalyptic future (all James Cameron films from 1986 through 1994 deal with nuclear explosions); ''Red Dawn'' (film, directed by John Milius) (1984), ''Mad Max'' (3 films, 1979-1985), ''Manhattan Project'' (1986, not about the Manhattan Project), ''Threads'' (BBC TV production made 1984, shown 1985), based on British government exercise Square Leg, ''Project X'' (1986) which deals with animal testing on exposure to nuclear radiation, ''Miracle Mile'' (1988), ''Broken Arrow'' (1996) ("Broken Arrow" is military jargon for an accidental nuclear event, the event depicted in the film would actually be classified as Empty Quiver).
The James Bond films are also known to have plots surrounding nuclear weapons. Films like Thunderball, The Spy Who Loved Me, Tomorrow Never Dies, and The World Is Not Enough involves a plot of nuclear warfare by the enemy, but in a more lighter point on view.
There have been a few fictionalized accounts of historical events relating to nuclear weapons as well. The Manhattan Project itself, for example, was depicted in the 1989 movie ''Fat Man and Little Boy''.

The second season of the television series ''24'' involves Arab terrorists smuggling a nuclear bomb across the Mexican border and planning to detonate it in Los Angeles. The sixth season also involves nuclear weapons as a major theme, with a group of terrorists having access to a series of five nuclear suitcase bombs.
The Tom Clancy novel and movie The Sum of All Fears depicts a nuclear explosion caused by Arab terrorists in Denver(novel) or by neo-Nazis in Baltimore (film).
In the comic "The Invisibles", writer Grant Morrison references Oppenheimer using the "Destroyer of Worlds" quote as a mystic phrase and using the moment of detonation as part of a magical ritual. The roleplaying game GURPS Technomancer repeats this theme, depicting an alternate history where Oppenheimer unwittingly complete a necromantic ritual that releases magic back into the world at Trinity. The CBS Television Drama ''Jericho'' (2006) focuses on a small town that is left without communications and basic necessities after a nuclear attack on major US cities. The film ''The Hills Have Eyes (2006)'' features a group of miner's descendants in the New Mexico desert, who have become genetically mutated due to the radiation caused by the atomic tests, and terrorize travelers in the area, who are lured to their mines in the hills by a gas station owner who profits from the victim's jewelry.
There have also been a number of plays set around the theme of nuclear weapons development. Michael Frayn's Tony Award-winning ''Copenhagen'' (1998), for example, contemplates the ethics and early history of nuclear weapons development through the eyes of the physicist Niels Bohr, his wife Margarethe, and his former pupil Werner Heisenberg. Swiss playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt addressed the question of the responsibility of scientists in a post-Hiroshima world explicitly in his 1961 satire, ''Die Physiker''. The rise-and-fall of American physicist and "father of the atomic bomb" J. Robert Oppenheimer has been the subject and inspiration of a number of plays—Heinar Kipphardt's ''In the Matter J. Robert Oppenheimer'' (1964), Berthold Brecht's ''Life of Galileo'' (1955 version)—and even an opera, ''Doctor Atomic'' (2005).

In art

The power and the visual effects of atomic weapons have inspired many artists. Some notable examples include:

★ Andy Warhol's silkscreen ''Atomic Bomb'' (1965)

★ James Rosenquist's ''F-111'' (1964-65)

★ Gregory Green's mockups of atomic devices

★ James Sanborn's mockups of atomic devices and historic experiments[1]

★ James Acord's efforts to use uranium in his sculptures

★ Tony Price's antinuclear sculpture

★ Eugene Von Bruenchenhein's post-nuclear landscapes

★ Chesley Bonestell's ''The H-Bomb Hits Lower New York''

In music

Along with other forms of culture, there have been many songs related to the topic of nuclear weapons and warfare. Many of them have been protest songs or warning songs, while others use the motif as an allusion to great destruction in general.
Some of the more famous nuclear war songs include: ''99 Luftballons'' (1983) by the German group Nena, which depicts accidental nuclear war begun by an early-warning system identifying a group of balloons with enemy bombers or missiles; and Bob Dylan's ''A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall'' (1963), which premiered shortly before the Cuban Missile Crisis. In many cases the allusions to nuclear war are not explicit, however.
Among the many songs alluding to nuclear weapons and nuclear war in the 1980s was the song ''Manhattan Project'' (1985) by the band Rush, one of the only songs with copious literal references to historical events leading to first nuclear weapons.
Satirical artists such as Tom Lehrer and Weird Al Yankovich have drawn upon the motif of nuclear war for humor in their songs (as discussed below).

In humor

The comedian/lyricist Tom Lehrer penned a number of humorous and well known songs relating to nuclear weapons. His song ''Who's Next?'' took up the issue of nuclear proliferation, chronicling the acquisition of nuclear weapons by various nations, then theorizing on "Who's Next," ending with Luxembourg, Monaco, and Alabama becoming nuclear powers, while ''We Will All Go Together When We Go'' looked at the brighter side of nuclear holocaust (not having to mourn over the death of others, since "''When the air becomes uranious/ We will all go simultaneous''"). It assumes that the entire planet will be instantaiously wiped clean by nuclear fire, and bypasses the much grimmer idea of radiation poisoning. A third song by Lehrer, "So Long Mom (A Song From World War III)", was introduced as existing because, "If any songs are going to come out of World War III, we had better start writing them now," and tells the tale of a young soldier marching off to nuclear war, promising his mother that "Although I may roam, I'll come back to my home/ Although it may be a pile of debris" and also satirizing the likely extremely short duration of a major nuclear war ("And I'll look for you when the war is over/ An hour and a half from now!").
"Weird Al" Yankovic also made a light hearted spin on nuclear annihilation in his song "Christmas at Ground Zero", which describes "A Jolly Holiday underneath a Mushroom cloud".
The card game Nuclear War and its expansion sets are rife with atomic weapons.

In computer games

★ In the game Missile Command the polayer must defend a city against a never ending series of incoming nuclear missiles.

★ Several RTS games have the possibility to use nuclear devices as "superweapons", Command & Conquer series being a typical example.

★ The 2006 game ''DEFCON'' by UK-based independent developer Introversion Software puts the player in charge of one of six world territories in a situation which inevitably deteriorates to global thermonuclear war. The game uses a graphical and audio style which deliberately evokes images from films such as ''WarGames'', cited by the developers as a major inspiration. With the sense that nuclear war is being commanded by distant generals in deep underground bunkers using abstract images, the game gives an unsettling impression of how popular culture imagined nuclear war would look to the people responsible for starting it. Under the tagline 'Everybody Dies', DEFCON is extremely difficult to win, as all sides will inevitably suffer nuclear attack. In the game's terminology, the victor is the player who 'loses the least'.

★ The Civilization series features nuclear weapons as a possible area of research in their extensive "tech trees." A player must construct their own version of the Manhattan Project to unlock the construction of nuclear weapons. The use of nuclear weapons has adverse ecological effects in the game, including pollution and global warming.

★ The ''Fallout'' series of computer games contains numerous direct and indirect allusions to nuclear wars and potential nuclear holocaust, with a distinct 1950s cold war style. The game itself is set in a post-nuclear-war wasteland, and the main character of the first game is a 'Vault Dweller', a survivor from a self-contained nuclear shelter.

★ The game ''Balance of Power'', written by Chris Crawford and published in 1985 puts the player in the position of the President of the United States or the General Secretary of the Soviet Union, with the goal of increasing "prestige", balanced out by the need to avoid a nuclear war, which ends the game.

★ Trinity was a text adventure game that featured a plotline involving time travel to various sites related to nuclear weapons. The title refers to the Trinity test site.

See also

★ List of Nuclear Holocaust fiction

★ Nuclear Holocaust

★ World War III in popular culture

★ Survivalism

References

★ Paul S. Boyer. ''By the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age'' (New York: Pantheon, 1985).

★ Margot A. Henriksen, ''Dr. Strangelove's America: society and culture in the atomic age'' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), ISBN 0-520-08310-5, LoC E169.12.H49 1997.

★ Louis Menand, "Fat Man: Herman Kahn and the Nuclear Age," ''The New Yorker'', June 27, 2005 online

★ Stephen Petersen, "Explosive Propositions: Artists React to the Atomic Age" in ''Science in Context'' v.14 no.4 (2004), p.579-609.

★ Nuclear Paranoia a book by Chas Newkey-Burden

★ Jerome F. Shapiro, ''Atomic Bomb Cinema'' (New York: Routledge, 2002). [2]

★ "Reflections: The Cleve Cartmill Affair" by Robert Silverberg

★ Spencer R. Weart, ''Nuclear fear: a history of images'' (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988).

★ Allan M. Winkler, ''Life Under a Cloud: American Anxiety About the Atom'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).

External links

★ "The Bomb Project", includes section relating to nuclear imagery in art

★ "Conelrad", a sardonic look at the Cold War culture of the fifties and sixties

★ "Nuke Pop", page on nuclear weapons in popular culture by Paul Brians, a professor of English at Washington State University

★ Nuclear Holocausts: Atomic War in Fiction, By Paul Brians, Professor of English, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington