Dr. Strangelove Redux
by Cassandra
Now that the great director's dead, Kubrick's movies are receding into film-school irrelevance, consigned to the world of term papers and articles written for tenure. Which, as always, is a shame, because, like all art, his movies can give us lots of clues and solace for getting through the day, and the night. In these millennial times, Dr. Strangelove has a special pertinence. Quick--a bit of film trivia: what's the subtitle of the movie? Give up? The full title is: Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. While the short title--"Dr. Strangelove"--implies the entire plot of the movie (all about the crazed scientists and generals who are supposed to be in control of the world's nuclear arsenals), it's the subtitle that gives away the ending. Remember? After a false attack alert sends American B-52s on their way to Russia, frantic communications ensue between the President and the Pentagon and the Soviets. All the American bombers except one are safely called back. The one bomber, because its "fail-safe" system unfortunately fails, is incommunicado, can't be reached and is headed toward Moscow to drop the big one. Further even more frantic communications result in the revelation that the Russians have constructed a Doomsday Machine, sort of the ultimate failure-proof fail-safe device. If just one a-bomb is dropped on Russia, then all the Russian missiles will fire automatically and no one can stop them. Dr. Strangelove (Peter Sellers in his most brilliant, most manic Henry-Kissinger-gone-off-the-extremely-deep-end mode) is of course delighted that someone has put this system in place. It's his dream (and our nightmare) come true. Meanwhile, the one American B-52, flying low to avoid radar detection, nears Moscow and gets ready to drop its bomb. But there's a glitch in the plane's release mechanism. The pilot, Slim Pickens, is a good old boy complete with West Texas twang. He's also an Everyman, a stand-in for all us good, do-your-duty Americans, who has to go into the innards of the plane and manually release the bomb, which he then hops on and happily rides down like the patriot that he is at heart (see photo above). Thus does Slim learn to stop worrying and really, really love the bomb which, as he rides it into the end of history, looks like nothing so much as a huge, white phallus. For he loved the world so much that he gave his life to fuck it up but good. <Pause for breath.> Now, my friends, consider millennial us. We rode a wave of prosperity toward the great year-change. Buoyed by the ends of various tyrannies, we surfed big and long and proud. Oh, to be sure, there were problems--some rather sizeable pockets of starvation and disease and homelessness and violence here and there, and some rather large governmental entities where freedom was rather harshly limited to the freedom to make a buck. But on the whole the money multiplied, flowing back and forth, back and forth, with the rich as usual getting richer, and the poor seduced by usury in the guise of brightly colored pieces of plastic. All the while, sleeping quietly, 40,000 nuclear warheads hunkered down, some snuggled comfortably into their subterranean missile-silo beds, others happily resting in metal cradles in the bellies of--what else?--B-52s (still our delivery-system of choice after all these years). Mega-ton after mega-ton after mega-ton of destruction. All, all on a hair trigger. But what did we in our burgeoning affluence care? And, Cassandra must ask, is there any hint whatever that the scientists and generals and presidents whose fingers lie on that hair trigger have gotten one whit smarter in the decades since Kubrick sketched his damning portrait? And, Cassandra must answer with awful simplicity: No. They, and we, are as stupid as ever. Why then is there not panic in the streets? Every second of every day, we are still only minutes from destruction and suffering on a scale beyond imagining. 40,000 warheads, patiently waiting. . . And all is quiet on every front. What is going on here? Nothing mysterious, my dears. We have simply learned to stop worrying and live with and love the bomb. For, verily, we are on it, riding it down with good ol' Slim Pickens, shouting yee-how! What a trip! He knew what was coming and all he could do was enjoy the ride down. Nike-shod, Lexus-driven, we choose to close and our eyes and forget the massive nuclear reality behind it all. In our heart of hearts, we too know what's coming. But except for the rare individual here and there, we're doing nothing to stop it. We--and I don't mean just Americans--keep letting idiots rule. They, egos bloated with wealth and power, don't know what they're doing. Neither do we. Into the night beyond history, we clutch the bomb as it falls, the wind whistling in our ears. Yee-how! What a ride! END |