Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb debuted in 1964. It was directed by Stanley Kubrick and based on the book Red Alert written by an ex- RAF pilot Peter George (Bryant). Kubrick, George and Terry Southern wrote the screenplay. It was nominated for four academy awards among many others. Peter Sellers takes on 3 roles and won the oscar for the film. Kubrick also won for best director and shared the writing oscar with Southern and George. As a Cold War satire, the plot of the film revolves around the panic that occurs after the insane General Jack Ripper (Sterling Hayden) orders his men to wipe out the Soviet Union with a nuclear airstrike. Ripper’s reason for doing this is because he feels that the communists are polluting our bodily fluids by using water fluoridation as a biochemical weapon. Meanwhile, the Russians have prepared for the instance of a nuclear attack and developed a doomsday device that will wipe out the entire Earth if they are nuked. So, unless someone can figure out a way to stop the impending attack on the USSR, the world as we know it would cease to exist. As Kubrick proved with Paths of Glory, he has a point to make and saving the world at the end of the film just would not have driven it home. He gives no retreat to his anti-war message once again and we see existence and humanity go up in a puff of smoke. The film gives no dignity to war and leaves little behind for politicians and military men. It sends a message on the absurdity and fallacies of war and violence. It’s too bad that more people didn’t get that message. The primary message that is conveyed in Dr. Strangelove is that we have a conglomerate of people who do not consider the best interest of the people when doing their job. It isn’t that they are all evil and hope for our ultimate demise, but that they are human and are incapable of being anything other than mere mortals who have limited mental capacity. Kubrick shows us a very scary fact through General Ripper’s nervous breakdown. Men in power are only human and anyone can meltdown at any moment. Especially the guy that has his finger on the big red button that could wipe us all out. Kim Jong il is a very eccentric and insane dictator from North Korea that has access to nuclear weapons and could easily lose it and blow us to smithereens. So not only do we take a message of warning about who we elect and give power to, but there is also a Camusian existentialist message from the film by pointing out the absurdity of creating nuclear weapons only to turn around and try and stop them. The film ends with more Camus-like paradox. How will we survive and recover from nuclear holocaust? The paradox that ties in the existentialist theme is that finding meaning in life is not discussed until survival is eminent. There was not a survival plan prior to this discussion, although the weapons were made in order to facilitate such an occurrence. Once again, Kubrick’s anti-war message was loud and clear with a hint to not take anything for granted because some crazy little man could push a button any minute.
Dr. Strangelove, like any satire was made in order ridicule and shame society into improvement. Strangelove was made just a few years after the Bay of Pigs incident when there was a heightened intensity in the United States and in places around the world over nuclear weapons and the technology used to set them off. Paranoia was rampant which was a breeding ground for absurdity and maniacal behavior. Any moment of hysteria in one of the button-pushers could have set off nuclear war. The “missile gap” between the United States and the USSR was a common source of propaganda in order to continue manufacturing more nuclear weapons and was parodied in the film with the “mine-shaft gap” when formulating the survival plan. The fallacy in the philosophy of nuclear deterrence is also shown by the film. Kubrick brings to life it’s absurdity by showing how meaningless it is to create a market for shared annihilation of both the attacker and the defender with no victory, but only effective reciprocal destruction. With the paradox of shooting down nukes when a doomsday machine going off is imminent, Strangelove points that nuclear war is inherently suicidal. Buck Turdlington (George C. Scott), who is advising the President says, “we need to get us one of them Doomsday machines”. His fallacy is that he is unaware that he already has one. Nuclear was is unwinnable and is not a rational strategy to fight communism, which is an ideology.
There is much creativity involved in Dr. Strangelove. The sounds, sights, and character names are all contrived in order to emphasize the absurdity of the situation. The juxtaposition of the music that is played throughout the film is a technique used by Kubrick before. In the beginning of the film we hear the whimsical music while we see the off-shape, scratchy and harsh handwriting. It is easy to display the sadness of an event by confusing our ears with something that sounds beautiful and nostalgic while watching something disgusting and disturbing. He used this technique at the end of Paths of Glory as well as Dr. Strangelove. The harmonies of the voices of the characters was also an important aspect. The dialect of the cowboy Air Force pilot was so important to Kubrick that he hired an actor to replace Peter Sellers from playing that part among the other 3 because he didn’t quite sound like he was from Texas. The irony of the Texas pilot dropping the bomb on an undeserving terrain is not at all lost nowadays, but perhaps is a happy accident by Kubrick since W was just a small boy at the time. Sellers does an excellent job as the snarky and clueless American President (Johnson was in office at the time) who breaks the news of nuclear holocaust to the USSR Premier like a neighbor calling to let you know that his son accidentally hit a baseball through your car window. Perhaps the most apparent form of ridicule are the names of the characters. Obviously General Ripper is alluding to Jack the Ripper, the infamous serial killer. President Merkin Muffey is a reference to slang words for a woman’s vagina and is the antithesis for Buck Turdlington. Buck is a term for a male stud and Turdlington could simply be a turd reference or could also be emphasizing the word “turgid” meaning swollen and distended. Buck’s facial expressions and histrionics are no doubt a creative aspect of the film. His overacting is on point and aids the message. “Bat Guano” simply means bat excrement and the USSR Prime Minister “Kiss-off” is a term for the start of disaster. The Russian ambassador is named after the Marquis de Sade - an infamous and perverted sexual lover and sadist in the 18th century. The appearance of Dr. Strangelove toward the end of the film was the cement that held Kubrick’s vision of absurdity together. The put the peoples ultimate fate in Strangelove. He was obviously a former Nazi who was desperately trying to hold down his “Heil Hitler” arm. Right before the fallout, he stands up out of his wheelchair and says that he can walk. He is the personification of the absurd.
Dr. Strangelove has gone from satire to reality. While Kubrick’s intention was to ridicule the Cold War, it is shameful that it is becoming a reality. Last month the Tea Party managed to outlaw the fluoridation of water in one of Florida’s largest counties. The law was not passed with health or safety of the residents in mind, but rather silly propaganda distributed by the Tea Party-goers. There was a three hour debate before the bill was voted on where Dentists showed decades of empirical data that fluoride was a safe and effective way to safeguard people against tooth decay. The argument for fluoride was followed by an activist Tony Caso who said, “Fluoride is a toxic substance and it is all part of an agenda that's being pushed forth by the so-called globalists in our government and the world government to keep the people stupid so they don't realize what's going on”. He went on to claim that “this is the U.S. of A., not the Soviet Socialist Republic," (MSNBC Article) If this man is using the same philosophy as General Ripper in Dr. Strangelove to control votes, then imagine what the same man could do if he controlled the nuclear weapons. With economic meltdown occurring, crazy dictators with nukes, as well as religious fundamentalist extremists getting into the heads of scared and manic people, the events in Dr. Strangelove may not be too far off base and out the realm of possibility. The film was not only relevant then, but remains even more so relevant today, and that is quite frightening.
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