Dr. Strangelove
In Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, Kubrick uses satire to portray a society who has “delivered their environment into the hands of totally amoral technological Science and their decisions…to gamesmen aspiring through amorality to Science� (Burgess 8). Kubrick uses character portrayals to reference the idea that mankind’s hearts, brains and souls have been completely mechanized. For example, Kubrick’s portrayal of General Jack Ripper is that of a man who has stopped all rational (human) thinking and begun thinking like a machine. General Ripper’s theory that the communists of Russia are attempting to contaminate the “precious bodily fluids� of the American people through water, ice cream (“children’s ice cream�), etc. is nearly void of logical human thinking. Kubrick’s portrayal of Dr. Strangelove himself also follows the belief that mankind has become too mechanized. Dr. Strangelove is in a mechanized wheelchair and the function of his right arm is completely dependent upon machines. His right arm continuously gives the Nazi solute, not because Strangelove was or is a Nazi, but rather because that is what the machine is programmed to give. Dr. Strangelove uses satire and wit to portray the idea that mankind has ceased to reason with their hearts and minds, and started to reason with machines.
Ian R. Bell