The Cold War in Relation to Film
The Cold War brought fear to Americans, with communism and the Red Scare. This essay will cover how the Films relate to the Cold War. Films such as; the Front, On the Waterfront, Guilty by Suspicion, High Noon and the Crucible. Along with, The Fifties text book by David Halberstam.
If Russia becomes communist, what will become of the United States of America? The Russian Revolution began in 1917, during WWI, Russia wants to overthrow their government and become communist. President Woodrow Wilson is fearful of the collapse of Russia so he withdraws 5,000 Marines from the war and sends them into Russia, in the attempt to defeat the ‘Reds’. If Russia collapses the U.S. economic state would also collapse; which means less money for the U.S. As the Soviet Union and first Red Scare begins in 1918, America fears it could fall to Communism. With the Great Depression (1929) Americans begin to think communism could help them recover. The Communist Party grows from approximately 10,000-100,000 members in the U.S. The Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States intensified in the late 1940s and early 1950s, known as the “Red Scare.” This symbolized the allegiance to the red Soviet flag. Federal employees were analyzed to determine if they were loyal to the government. By 1947 the fear of the nation becoming communist has increased dramatically because communism has spread to China, Korea, and Vietnam. With this begins the House Un-American Activities Committee, (HUAC) established by President Truman to investigate pro-communist within the United States.
Communism threatened to destroy the American lifestyle; capitalism, individualist, beliefs and religious freedom. Americans had good reason ...
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...town stopped cooperating, they stopped giving names. John Proctor didn’t confess a lie, therefore he was hung. After nineteen executions the Salem witch hunt was brought to an end, as more and more accused people refused to save themselves by giving false confessions. This relates back to the Hollywood Ten who plead the 5th Amendment and refused to cooperate with the committee.
All movies mentioned tie together to the era of the “Red Scare.”From High Noon to the Crucible, they all mention giving up names in order to either save themselves or be taken off the blacklist. John Proctor said it best with his quote “I cannot sign because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!” John Proctor was the voice behind all who were blacklisted.
America and the USSR both had different opinions on communism and how a country should be run. The USSR believed communism was the perfect way to run its country and people. Communism consisted of a one party state which owned the whole of the industry business and the agricultural business too. There would be no individual profit making and everyone was equal and received an equal amount of money. America, however was a capitalist state which meant that there was freedom of speech, free elections and more than one political party.
One of the biggest fears of the American people is that the concept of communism contrasts drastically from the concept of capitalism, which the United States was essentially founded upon. The United States, as the public believed, was not a land of perfect communal equality, but rather a land of equal opportunity. However, what made communism so dangerous can be succinctly described by Eisenhower who compared the spread of communism as the domino effect. As his secretary of state, Dulles, put it, the propagation of communism “would constitute a threat to the sovereignty and independence” of America (Doc B). In addition, the Cold War also planted the seeds of rational fear of a global nuclear war. As Russia caught up to the United States in terms of technological advancements, they successfully developed the atomic bomb as well as the hydrogen bomb, which caused Americans to believe that the USSR would use these weapons of mass destruction to forcefully extend their ideologies to the USA. In fact, Americans were so frantic about a potential nuclear disaster that it...
With the 1960s and 1970s, came a growing need for change among the American people. A previously dominant liberal government was not taking a hard enough stance on the fight to end communism. All it took, was a final nudge to shift the vote from democratic to republican.
Over 200 people were accused of witchcraft between 1962 and 1963 in the town of Salem. A dark time built upon the circle of lies that commenced from teenage girls searching for entertainment in an authoritarian Puritan society. One of those innocently accused and then later hanged was the tragic hero John Proctor. Proctor was a simple farmer who unjustly was brought into this circle because of his past. This is why Abigail Williams is most responsible for John Proctors death.
The year 1692 was full of lies in Salem, Massachusetts. With a few exceptions, one of them being John Proctor, farmer and husband to Elizabeth Proctor. In all, 19 people were hanged during the Salem Witch Trials caused by lies in The Crucible. John Proctor tried to make things right by being a man of truth, was willing to stick up for innocent people, even if it meant his life and reputation diminished, and by being a man of pride.
“Despite American affluence, the spread of communism and the threat of global atomic war plagued Americans with a sense of constant threat both from within and without” (Prono). Many Americans were being taught that communists were the enemy from when they were young, so it created a generation that had so much hate and were so scared of the communist influence.
During the post WWII period in America, the face of the nation changed greatly under the presidency of Truman and Eisenhower. America underwent another era of good feelings as they thought themselves undefeatable and superior over the rest of the world. Communism was the American enemy and American sought to rid the world of it. Because of the extreme paranoia caused by Communism, conformity became an ideal way to distinguish American Culture from the rest. Conformity became a part of every American Life to a large extent. It became evident through the medium of culture, society and politics throughout the era of the 50s.
The United States’ feared the spread of communism and attempted to do anything in its power to stop it. Before the United States was able to stop the spread of communist beliefs, the citizens of the United States government were becoming more and more paranoid.
Impact of the Film, Dr. Strangelove, on American Attitudes Towards the Atomic Bomb and Cold War
The Salem witch trials were a time period when any individual could be accused of witchcraft for numerous reasons. In The Crucible, Arthur Miller focuses on the deviation of the trials and how the town’s most religious and honest members of the community are tried with witchcraft. John Proctor, the town’s most honest man, is accused of being a witch and must decide if he should confess or not. Proctor’s confession will stop the town from rebelling and uphold the reputations of Deputy Governor Danforth and Reverend Parris. Hale also wishes for Proctor’s confession so he does not have to feel responsible if Proctor were to be hanged for his witchcraft accusations. The confession of Proctor would convince others in the town to confess to their
The attitude of the citizens of the United States was a tremendous influence on the development of McCarthyism. The people living in the post World War II United States felt fear and anger because communism was related with Germany, Italy, and Russia who had all at one point been enemies of the United States during the war. If the enemies were communists then, communists were enemies and any communists or even communist sympathizers were a threat to the American way of life. "From the Bolshevik Revolution on, radicals were seen as foreign agents or as those ...
The events leading American to go to extreme measures to protect their democracy against a communist takeover did not first appear with the creation of the blacklist, it began in the late 1900’s and early 1920’s a result to the First World War. Americans were intensely patriotic and more than ever protective of the American way of life, capitalism, wage systems, and heirachary of social class. The concern of a government takeover effected the perception of labor strikes and social welfare program, and as a result they were conside...
Along with the Korean War, many Americans were also affected by the tensions between America and communist Russia. The Russian hydrogen bomb of 1953 had scared people into believing that Communist Russia could start an atomic war, ending life as most people had known it. Scholars of the time period were scared to teach anything about what Marxism (communism) was about. According to Daily Life in the United States, 1940-1959, Shifting Worlds (Kaldin, 2000). There were also very few communists teaching at universities such as Harvard during the 1950s because of the fear that Americans had of communists during this time. From the years 1951 to 1957, 300 teachers were fired from New York City public schools because they did not give the names of teachers who were supposedly communists. This shows how uneasy of a topic communism was for Americans to talk about, even when the culture had started to become more liberal towards the end of the decade, when the 1960s began.
Before the Second World War began Hollywood’s purpose lied within entertainment for the American people. After the war started, the main focus shifted to wartime propaganda. Film was used to display the war in a way that did not show its true colors—including the censorship of soldier causalities and other negative connotations that are a simple fact of war. There was even a time in which some actors became better known to America than politians. Through films, Hollywood began to make a statement of their anti-Nazi beliefs. They began to make motion pictures for American recruitment into the Army as well as many that supported the war effort, and intended to make other Americans more aware of the war’s effect on the United States, and how people can get involved. Many European countries banned these Hollywood films, as they began to affect not only America but many other countries that were involved in the war as well.
America became the sole superpower of the world. Communism is no more. Communism collapsed worldwide. The Cold War sketched the foreign policies for both the countries through the second half of the twentieth century as both countries fought for accomplices to uphold and widen their own realms of power around the world, but it did not escalate to an apocalyptic World War II. The decade- long standoff between American capitalists and Soviet communists ceased without causing any violence.