Cold War Culture and Media by Course Materials https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski en-us 2017-05-23 21:23:54 UTC 2023-07-02 01:12:10 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet-assets.storage.googleapis.com/portrait/earth.jpg INSTRUCTIONS coursematerialbackup https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/173498131 As we have seen, the tensions of the Cold War were reflected in the popular culture of the period.

For this assignment, search for a 1940s or 1950s Cold War book or movie. That is something CREATED in that period, not just ABOUT IT (make sure no other student has picked the same one).

Make a post here in which you:
1) Share an image of the book cover, the movie poster or an image from the film
2) Give the title, the year it was produced and describe the basic plot
3) Explain how it relates to American Cold War culture as we have studied it this week (it can be connected to the Good War, the Red Scare, suburbanization, consumerism, nuclear fear, etc). Tie it to AT LEAST ONE piece of evidence from the textbook, lectures or documents.

Make sure your post is not overlapping another student's and put your name in the subject line]]> 2017-05-23 21:23:54 UTC https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/173498131 . coursematerialbackup https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/173498132 2017-05-23 21:23:54 UTC https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/173498132 https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/178358497 2017-07-10 03:27:13 UTC https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/178358497 Thomas Deppong https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/269777242 I was a Communist for the FBI, 1951. This film is about a man who becomes a communist and infiltrates the party for the FBI. He can tell no one, so his family thinks he is actually a communist and begin to hate him.

This connects to the Cold War culture because it portrays communists in a negative light. According to the American YAWP, massive "anti-communist hysteria" was a large part of the culture of the United States during the Cold War (Chapter 25 Section IV). One way this is seen in the movie is by the family thinking he is really a communist, and hating him for that reason.
]]> 2018-07-09 21:40:28 UTC https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/269777242 Michael Smith https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/269778786 FBI began Hollywood surveillance to pinpoint and blacklist Communist. They also endorsed films like The Hoaxsters 1952. ]]> 2018-07-09 22:17:12 UTC https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/269778786 Angelica Garcia https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/269884613 Bert the Turtle was released in January 1952 by the US Federal Civil Defense Administration. I was used to teach children in schools to "Duck and Cover" if there was a nuclear attack.]]> 2018-07-10 22:08:47 UTC https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/269884613 Jianxun Gao https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/269987460
Is This Tomorrow Under Communism is a propaganda comic book published by the Catechetical Guild Educational Society of St. Paul of Minnesota in 1947. This comic book was published two years after the Cold War(1945) had started, the book illustrates an America that had been infiltrated by the communists on a massive scale, also featuring the assassination of the President and the Vice- president of the US. This propaganda comic book intimates the readers by showing them how a horrible a world ran by communists would be, religions taken, dreams crushed, and most of all freedom is no where to be found.

]]> 2018-07-11 21:46:21 UTC https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/269987460 Nolan Hawkins hawkinn4 https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/270042767 Title: The Iron Curtain
Produced: 1948

A double agent working with the soviets wants to find a better life for his family in Canada. While doing this he finds out about soviet atomic bomb plans. 

This relates to cold war culture because it displayed soviets in bad a secretive, and scary way. "to safeguard American prosperity against communist threats and social deviancy (Chapter 26 section v).” This quote taken from the textbook is reflected in the movie because soviets are portrayed as being dangerous, and heavily armed. 

 

]]> 2018-07-12 10:35:50 UTC https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/270042767 Alexis Schiebner https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/270081989 1) Movie poster below
2) -Movie: Invasion U.S.A
-Year: 1952
-Summary: The movie is set during the Cold War and portrays the invasion of the United States by the communists of the Soviet Union and shows the experiences of a group of everyday people.
3) I think the film had a lot to do with nuclear fear. The movie poster itself even says "It will scare the pants off you!" in all uppercase so it was definitely trying to drive people towards fearing another war. ]]> 2018-07-12 18:40:49 UTC https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/270081989 Michael Gearhart https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/270082369 Atomic War! November, 1952 to February, 1953:

“Published during the time of U.S. participation in the Korean War, Junior Books’ Atomic War! Speculated on the possibilities of World War III. Despite the series’ stated purpose to warn against the horrors of atomic warfare, it did just the opposite. In its stories, U.S. forces employing tactical and strategic nuclear weapons triumphed repeatedly over the Communists.” - https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Atomic_War!

In the 1950's, US government would use fear to promote nuclear war awareness.

By the 1960's, countries like Britain, France, and China had access to nuclear weapons. - LECTURE: 1950s America: Culture, Fear & Conformity


]]> 2018-07-12 18:47:03 UTC https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/270082369 Xinghe Zhang https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/270086842

Guilty of Treason 1950 

The film uses the framing device of a speech to members of the Overseas Press Club of America by a journalist who has just returned from Budapest where he witnessed the treason trial of Mindszenty. He also tells the story of Stephanie Varna, a young teacher who decides to stake a moral stand against Communism despite her love for a Russian officer.

It related to Red Scare. According to American Yamp Chapter 25 Section IV. In, Second Red Scare (1947–57)
"Such alarmist depictions of espionage and treason in a ‘free world’ imperiled by communism heightened a culture of fear experienced in the 1950s." Anti-communism had a great effect on American culture during The Cold War.
Guilty of Treason is a 1950 American drama film directed by Felix E. Feist and starring Charles Bickford, Bonita Granville and Paul Kelly. Also known by the alternative title Treason, it is an anti-communist and anti-Soviet film about the story of József Mindszenty, a Roman Catholic cardinal from Hungary.



]]> 2018-07-12 19:59:10 UTC https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/270086842 Blake Ebner https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/270089192 Title: I married a Communist
Released in the Year 1949.
The basic plot of the movie is an American male marries a nice girl in San Francisco. He is suspected by his wife to in n the communist party. However, he actually was part of the communist party. He is put in a conflict where he must kill or be exposed. He tries to show that it is impossible to leave the communist party.

The title was later changed to, "The Woman on Pier 13." do to dislike of the title. 

This related directly to the cold war in many ways. THe red scare was a fear that communists were within American society. The entire movie is based on finding out that someone you trusted dearly was actually a communist. This was a very real fear at the time and this scare fueled paranoia in the United States.]]> 2018-07-12 20:45:11 UTC https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/270089192 Demi Clay https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/270094632 My Son John
Produced in 1952
John Jefferson comes home from a trip abroad acting strange. He seems to no longer care for his family anymore and refuses to go to church. He gets strange calls and disappears. It turns out that he is a Communist spy. He flees from the FBI but then decides to turn himself in when he is killed by other communist spies. He had recorded a confession before he was killed and the tape was found and played at his college's graduation, warning the dangers of Communism.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044941/plotsummary?ref_=tt_stry_pl

This movie relates to the Red Scare. The fear of communism was widespread and "the FBI took an active role in the domestic battle against communism. Hoover’s FBI helped incite panic by assisting the creation of blatantly propagandistic films and television shows" (American Yawp, Chapter 25 Section IV). This movie shows the horrors of communism and what will happen to you if communists get to you (you will no longer love your family or go to church, among other things). ]]> 2018-07-12 22:50:28 UTC https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/270094632 Alison Datema https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/270095436       The Crucible, by Arthur Miller is the play that I have decided to post about. It was published in 1953.   
 The basic plot of the book is the story of a man in a puritan town in Salem Massachusetts. While a witch hunt of going on, the Reverend finds his niece and a few other girls, including the slave dancing in the woods at a late hour. One of the girls faints after they are discovered. She fell into a coma like-state, which started a witch hunt, and a lengthy court process. 
        As the fear and paranoia of the Reds became more and more intense, leading to uncharacteristic behavior.
 As stated in our Yawp chapter on the Cold War, "anti-communist policies reflected national fears of a surging global communism." Miller uses the metaphor of a witch hunt, rather than speaking directly about hunting for communist supporters. This play is heavily tied to the Red Scare, and how afraid the U.S. was of the Reds (The Soviet Union). This relates best to the Second Red scare. ]]> 2018-07-12 23:10:57 UTC https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/270095436 The Big Lift https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/270096165 Produced in 1950, the Big Lift was about: "The 1948 Berlin Airlift, as British and American forces break a Russian blockade of the divided German city, a pair of American soldiers fall in love with local women against a backdrop of increasing Cold War tensions." (IMDB)
This movie relates to the concept of nuclear fear because during these tense times people were especially nervous that at any point we could fall into nuclear warfare with Russia, and if that happened there would be no winner just a bunch of losers. With that being on everyones minds, the only thing people could do to take their minds off of total annihilation was to find themselves a significant other, to distract them from complete paranoia. ]]> 2018-07-12 23:31:30 UTC https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/270096165 Donquall Jackson https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/270096542 The hand whip 1951

This film is about a journalist that comes across a strange little town where life is starting to become vanished. Later in the film the journalist learns that this town just so happens to be taken over by communist. 

This film relates to the Red Scare because people always connected death to the communist. People were scared of them and the way they ran things. As stated in the textbook even the government was scared of communist and their beliefs that they had every government employee investigated and for them to prove that they weren’t involved with anything related to communist. Many people came to the United States because they wanted freedom but with the threat of communism spreading it scared people until they became paranoid of everyone and everything. ]]> 2018-07-12 23:41:48 UTC https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/270096542 Paula Johnson https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/270096784 The Smuggled Atomic Bomb
 
The Smuggled Atom Bomb. 1967 it was produced. 

This book is about a graduate that threatened to set off nuclear terror on America’s greatest cities. This is a chilling thriller. This book puts the fear in how nuclear bombs can be a big threat. This graduate used the nuclear scare to try to get what he wanted. 
 
 
]]> 2018-07-12 23:50:31 UTC https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/270096784 Jessica Kilgore https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/270113362 Rebel Without a Cause,
American drama film made in 1955, 

Based in Los Angeles, a teenage boy gets tangled up in mischief as he and many other children of the suburban areas were having problems at home. For petty acts of rebellion, main character gets caught up and thrown in jail. Although he was middle-class, he and others of his generation were also acting out which was not unusual of this time. "Keenly aware of the discontent bubbling beneath the surface of the Affluent Society, many youth embraced rebellion." (section V, ch 26, The American Yawp). It was also true at this time that mothers developed "a cultural obsession with kids” that “flourished throughout the decade."(section V, Ch. 26). This was supposed to be a positive thing for the children, between growing up in fear of atomic warfare and living their life being smothered by mother, this generation ended up starting a culture of rebellion, relating to the 1955 film, Rebel Without a Cause.

]]> 2018-07-13 03:40:32 UTC https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/270113362 Hannah Meyers https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/270120530 The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, 1956

Tom Rath is a WWII veteran living in suburbia with his wife and kids. Like many veterans, he experiences stress from his past experiences in the war. This includes an affair he had with an Italian villager during the war. Along with this, Tom's wife is unhappy with their financial situation and pressures Tom into getting a higher paid job. Tom decides to take a job working public relations for television network president Ralph Hopkins, but soon finds conflict in office politics. 

Though dramatized, this movie reflects a lot of experiences of the average middle class white American during the 50s. Many white Americans began to migrate to and build communities in suburbia in what was known as "White Flight." Many husbands during this time were WWII veterans and struggled to cope with the trauma of the war and return to regular life. Other themes reflected are the need for consumerism and stay at home mothers. Tom's wife presses him to get a higher-paying job, due in part to the fact that more money will allow the family to buy more stuff. However, because husbands were seen as the bread winner and wife as the stay at home caregiver, Tom's wife didn't think to seek employment herself to help the financial situation. ]]> 2018-07-13 05:34:49 UTC https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/270120530 Jakkar Aimery https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/270122660 Comic Books and the Cold War covered 1946-162, the years following WWII and is a compilation made-up of many contributors. It was edited by Chris York and Rafiel York. Here, they cover issues that were faced by post-war America. These writings, through the style of "comic codes", also touch on issues like consumerism, and nuclear operations, as both were prevalent discussions throughout American society during this time. 

]]> 2018-07-13 06:27:45 UTC https://padlet.com/coursematerialbackup/6w5x9ll7fski/wish/270122660