Dr. Strangelove commentary by Jenna Johnson
Stanley Kubrick described that using “black comedy� was the best way to tell “Dr. Strangelove� and the “things you laugh at the most are really the heart of the paradoxical postures that make nuclear war possible,� and I believe that this is the only way his story could have succeeded. If this were a serious film, I believe it would invoke more fear than necessary in US citizens at the time about the possibility of nuclear war, and further raise anti-Communist paranoia. As the Maland article describes, Kubrick’s film “uses nightmare comedy to satirize four dimensions of the Cold War consensus,� which I believe is the only way Americans would still be have been sane after seeing on film examples of “the problem of accidental nuclear war� and what “blind faith modern man places in technological progress.� Kubrick’s satirical strategy lessens the seriousness of the enormity of actual nuclear war, through both the storyline and the “lovable� lunacy of the characters. Yet this effect is advantageous in some respect, as it informally plants an awareness of nuclear war in viewer’s minds.
“Dr. Strangelove� is accused of “making mincemeat of the military mind� in the Burgess article. Such an accusation probably means that certain critics of the film “just didn’t get it,� or they just don’t response to satire well. The film may unfairly portray the military on the surface, but it is all in the satirical sense and adds to Kubrick’s nightmare comedy effect in order to convey his point. In some sense, the serious side of this film is falsely the “buffoons� of the military, possibly for the purpose of adding to the detraction from the seriousness of nuclear war.