Dr.Strangelove Film Analysis Essay Example
Introduction
In 1964, Stanley Kubrick released Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb to both critical and commercial praise. The historical context surrounding the film’s release was at the height of the Cold War, just over a year after the Cuban Missile Crisis as the Vietnam War was beginning to escalate. While based on a more serious book, Red Alert by Peter George, it was soon transformed into a black comedy that parodied the absurdity of global nuclear destruction and the mentality of the Cold War. While not as overtly anti-war as his third film Paths of Glory, Kubrick still manages to show the ridiculousness of nuclear war while linking two basic male instincts together, sex and the desire to kill. The film continuously portrays excessive examples of sexual and gender politics, technology, international politics, the role of communication and the dehumanization of man.
Gender and Sexual Politics
The politics of gender played out in the film treat women as recreational sex objects for powerful military men and politicians. It is no coincidence that the only female in the film, is a beautiful, bikini-clad woman sun tanning under a lamp at General Turgidson’s residence. While he is in the bathroom she answers the red phones as news of the attack comes in. When the General returns, he speaks to her like she is a child. Later in the film, when she phones him at the Pentagon, he patronizes her by saying, “I deeply respect you as a human being. Someday I’m going to make you Mrs. Buck Turgidson,” which further narrows her identity, meaning the best that she can do is to get married to someone like him. It assumes that a women’s happiness is routed in being married and possessed by another man.
References to women in general are that of objectification and recreation throughout the film. In the B-52, one of the flight crew takes time out to look at a Playboy magazine. In the war room, the Russian Ambassador gives the President the
In 1964, Stanley Kubrick released Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb to both critical and commercial praise. The historical context surrounding the film’s release was at the height of the Cold War, just over a year after the Cuban Missile Crisis as the Vietnam War was beginning to escalate. While based on a more serious book, Red Alert by Peter George, it was soon transformed into a black comedy that parodied the absurdity of global nuclear destruction and the mentality of the Cold War. While not as overtly anti-war as his third film Paths of Glory, Kubrick still manages to show the ridiculousness of nuclear war while linking two basic male instincts together, sex and the desire to kill. The film continuously portrays excessive examples of sexual and gender politics, technology, international politics, the role of communication and the dehumanization of man.
Gender and Sexual Politics
The politics of gender played out in the film treat women as recreational sex objects for powerful military men and politicians. It is no coincidence that the only female in the film, is a beautiful, bikini-clad woman sun tanning under a lamp at General Turgidson’s residence. While he is in the bathroom she answers the red phones as news of the attack comes in. When the General returns, he speaks to her like she is a child. Later in the film, when she phones him at the Pentagon, he patronizes her by saying, “I deeply respect you as a human being. Someday I’m going to make you Mrs. Buck Turgidson,” which further narrows her identity, meaning the best that she can do is to get married to someone like him. It assumes that a women’s happiness is routed in being married and possessed by another man.
References to women in general are that of objectification and recreation throughout the film. In the B-52, one of the flight crew takes time out to look at a Playboy magazine. In the war room, the Russian Ambassador gives the President the