This past Friday, I attended Rose’s screening of the dark political satire, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Although labeled as one of the best comedies of all time, the film actually did more to scare me than it did to make me laugh. I think this was the movie’s underlying purpose, honestly. It was released in 1964, right in the midst of the Cold War, during which the strategy of MAD (mutual assured destruction) was in full thrust. If you don’t know what MAD is, it is a military theory supposing that the threat of nuclear attack against the enemy deters the enemy from using nuclear weapons. Critics have labeled the film as a satirization of MAD, persuading us of the shortcomings of the strategy. In the movie (spoiler alert!), the USSR has built a doomsday device, which threatens to destroy all human and animal life if activated by a detonation on USSR soil. The US, not having been alerted of this device’s existence, drops a bomb on the USSR, and the movie ends with explosions all across the globe, signaling the apocalypse and showing us the worst outcome of MAD.

Although I do generally agree that the presence of nuclear arsenals globally is terrifying, undesirable, and not ideal, I don’t think that the movie provides a fair and accurate representation of MAD. First of all, in reality, the former USSR would have announced the existence of their doomsday device to the world immediately. They would have wanted the US to know of this device so that the country would be deterred from attacking and ending mankind. The fact that the USSR delayed in doing so was unrealistic and did not represent proper MAD strategizing. Additionally, in the movie, the US has a network of underground shelters to protect against nuclear attack. In reality, these means of protection against nuclear attack do not follow MAD strategizing, as they make nuclear retaliation by the enemy less of a deterrent for nuclear aggression. Therefore, although this movie may seek to show why the Cold War policy of MAD is ineffective, it does not accurately represent how MAD works. Therefore, its hypothesized outcomes of such a theory are null. Nonetheless, the movie fairly encapsulates the worst fears of citizens living through the Cold War. Maybe it’s satirization of nuclear warfare allowed citizens to quell their anxieties and laugh a little. Comedy is the best cure, in the end.