Derek Peltier
The movie Dr. Strangelove and How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is a nightmare comedy, or black comedy, that exposes the advancements of technologies in the 1960s. However, Stanley Cubrick the movie director portrays these advancements in a humorous manner. I think by using black comedy to represent nuclear war, in some way, takes away the creditability of the movie and the subject matter. The nuclear war and the new technologies is a serious subject and I think someone who did know about the war and watched this movie would take this matter very lightly because they know that it is a serious subject. Someone knows nothing about the nuclear war would think that it was not that big of deal if they had seen this movie. However, I believe Cubrick assumes the type of audience that would go watch this type of movie would have some knowledge or background about the war and would already know it is not a laughing matter. At times, I found the movie funny, but I still understood the seriousness of the topic.
I believe Cubrick and this movie did portray the military unfairly mostly because it is the nature of the film. Cubrick pokes fun at the military and makes light of the government and their power. I think critics do get the movie, but I think some of them did not find it funny, therefore, reacting in a negative way.
I feel the statement about General Ripper, Col. Kong and “Bat� Guano being lovable lunatics could be a correct statement. They are not villains. However, I feel it does say a little something about our society that we can put those two words together and it is socially acceptable. Lovable is usually known as nice, sweet, and soft and lunatics are usually referred to as crazy, psycho and scary. But when you put those two words together it has an entirely different meaning. It could mean something along the lines of that you hate them so much that you love them. I think it is interesting that this is a socially accepted phrase in our society.