During the 1950s and early 1960s, school air-raid drills, bomb shelters, and unnerving civil defense films served as constant reminders of the looming threat of nuclear war. Throughout America, a widespread civil defense effort used town meetings, public school educational programs, and the mass media--television, radio, and especially, motion pictures--to mobilize every citizen for a protracted Cold War. This volume explores how American popular culture has portrayed civil defense from mid-twentieth century to the immediate post-September 11 era. With analysis of everything from early government propaganda films and 1950s science fiction films to Happy Days, the Reagan-era TV movie The Day After, and the small-screen nostalgia trend after 9/11, it shows how popular culture reflects American fears and the hope of preparedness.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Table of Contents
Preface
1. Government Propaganda Films and Civil Defense
2. Fifties Cinema and Civil Defense
3. Early Television and Civil Defense
4. The Kennedy Years: "Shelter Morality" and Survivalism
5. Nuclear Nostalgia in the Seventies
6. Reagan, the Nuclear Freeze Movement, and The Day After
7. From the Nineties to 9/11
Notes
Bibliography
Index
