The following is a statement from a large, international What’s App group I belong to, during a conversation about “gun culture” in the U.S.
I feel like you (Americans) have suffered a collective trauma from living on high alert the last 10-20 years.
Well actually….
For those of us who grew up in the 20th century, it is more than just the last 10-20 years. We were raised by a theme of constant vigilance. I was talking with a friend from Canada about our childhoods in the 1980s, and the myriad ways school, parents, and TV set out to terrify us. There was definitely overlap in our Canadian and U.S. childhoods. For example, we both were quite certain growing up that people caught on fire with a fair amount of regularity. This, of course, was due to the annual “Stop, Drop and Role” training we both received at school. Then there were the Unsolved Mysteries and America’s Most Wanted years on primetime television. They had the shows in Canada, but since they all took place in the U.S., she said it made her feel like the U.S. was dangerous. It lacked the same message of, “there is a serial killer just waiting for your mom to go out so they can come and stab you while you are home alone” that it sent to me and my American childhood friends. They did have stranger danger lessons regularly in Canada, but did not have to drink milk from cartons with the faces of missing kids on them. So it was less in your face than we had in the lower 48. What they did have in Calgary, that we didn’t in the 1980s, were drills where they hid under their desks in case Russia attacked.
People didn’t actually believe a desk stopped radiation!
Well actually….
Yes, they absolutely did! In my friend’s case it is unclear if they were hiding from radiation or conventional weapons by the 1980s in Alberta. But in the 1950s and 60s, hiding for protection from raidation was the belief for the average American. For those who don’t know, Duck and Cover was a classic PSA from the 1950s, featuring Bert the Turtle, to help teach us how to protect ourselves in the event of a nuclear explosions. In it kids duck under desks, and families quickly hide under picnic blankets when they “see the flash”. These PSAs are probably why President Regan believed you could hide behind a tree to be protected from radiation during a nuclear blast. (I am going to try and embed the video of Bert below, but you can click the link in sources, to watch on YouTube if it’s not working here. It is 9 minutes long, but worth it!)
But that was a just a PSA, we have those all the time about all sorts of safety things. Remember “Your brain on drugs”?
Well Actually…
It’s not just PSAs. Looking at the 20th century, fear of communism and nuclear radiation were highlighted everywhere-whether we realized it or not. Examining the role politics and foreign policy played in the arts is a great way to see what themes a society is “stewing” in. In a favorite research paper, I looked at the impact nuclear weapons and the Cold War had on science fiction and horror film genres. Two big themes clearly emerge. One theme comes from the fear of communism and is illustrated by films where we lose individuality. The most obvious being, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, where people are replaced by soulless pod people; but films like The Blob also were born from this same fear. Another is the unintended consequences of of radiation. Classics in this vein include THEM!, about giant aunts; Night of the Living Dead, corpses reanimated by radiation; and the cult classic, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. In both categories, there is an underlying sense of mistrust: either being wary of the enemy within OR of scientists, government or otherwise, hiding things. As we progress through the second half of the 20th century, we see this subtle but constant theme of mistrust grow.
If you like westerns and want to see clearly how Vietnam, Watergate, and Nixon impacted our culture of mistrust, check out the 1973 Clint Eastwood classic, High Plains Drifter. Moving away from the classic white hat/black hat of the westerns of the 1950s, to westerns where everyone’s hat is a shade of grey. You can see the hint of this shift starting when you watch 1962’s John Wayne/Jimmy Stewart classic, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, a film about, among other things, the creation of western myth and legends.
Once you start recognizing the sub-themes, you become aware of the prevelance and impact they have. The popularity of these films, often mimic and enhance the feelings within the zeitgeist. It makes sense then, that slasher films became so popular during after our nascent true crime and stranger danger upbringing, and we shifted into a series of box office hits about serial killers, like Silence of the Lambs, by the 1990s. Movies like War Games in the 1980s taught us early to both fear the Soviets and have healthy skepticism of our own systems. Whether it is mistrust of strangers, of our government, or of nuclear engineering, it comes down to the fact we live in a culture of mistrust. And that mistrust is why many of us feel like having a gun, whether we own one or not, makes sense in a way that it doesn’t for my friends in other countries.
(I am still unclear, however, what led to Hollywood spending $568 on major motion pictures in the film genre “Getting Matt Damon Home!”)
Sources and where to watch:
Invasion of the Body Snatchers: Prime Video, Apple TV, MGM+, Youtube
Night of the Living Dead (1968): HBOMax, Tubi, Peacock, Starz
THEM! : Prime Video, Apple TV
The Blob(1958) HBOMax, Prime Video, Apple TV
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: Tubi, Prime Video
High Plains Drifter: Netflix, AppleTV, Prime Video
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: Pluto, AppleTV, Prime
War Games: Prime Video, AppleTV, AMC+
Silence of the Lambs: Prime Video, AppleTC, AMC+ (Netflix Canada and UK)