The movie “Dr. Strangelove” is a satirical comedy, produced by Stanley Kubrick, made to make fun of the Cold War and how we were almost on the brink of destruction with the nuclear arms race. The movie portrays how gender roles are portrayed, stereotypical views of the time, and how deterrence would not work in a real life situation. Stereotypical views are made at Russians and how they act while the gender roles are portrayed more subtly by various characters and actions shown throughout the movie and the link between the movie and what was actually happening during the cold war.
In the movie Dr. Strangelove the Russians in the film, Dimitri Kissov the Soviet Premier and Alexi de Sadesky the Soviet Ambassador, are portrayed as drunk communist spies trying to bring the destruction of the Americans. The Dunk notion comes to mind when Ambassador Alexi de Sadesky told President Merkin Muffley that the Soviet Premier is a person who likes to party as shown when the president initially starts the conversation he claims to have heard music laying in the background which shows that the premier was having a party in his office.
The second way that Russians are portrayed as is communist spies. This was shown when General Buck Turgidson pulled a device used to take pictures of “the big board” in the war room. This was also shown later as the ambassador pulled another camera to take pictures successfully. The last way the Russians are stereotyped as people who love sex. This was shown as Ambassador Alexi de Sadesky said, “I must confess, you have an astonishingly good idea there, Doctor. ” to Dr. Strangelove’s ratio of 10:1 female to male if they were to live underground.
The gender role of men and women are shown as men being the strong ones while the women are treated as objects for procreation. Women are treated as objects of procreation when the scene of General Buck Turgidson about to have sex with Miss Scott before he had to go to the war room. The second scene where women are objectified as objects of sex is in the B-52 airplane as Major “King” Kong was reading a playboy magazine labeled “Foreign Affairs” over a woman’s butt.
The last case where women are objectified as objects of sex is when Dr. Strangelove suggests that the mine shaft, filled with cobalt Thorium G, fit for a few thousand should be filled with a 10:1 ratio of women to men to “ensure the population” after the detonation of the Russians’ Doomsday Device. Dr. Strangelove was filmed shortly after the Cuban Missile Crisis where America and Russia was close to a nuclear war. In the early 1960s, America started to obtain enough long range nuclear delivery devices to a huge advantage over Russia and by 1962, America had a 4:1 ratio advantage over the Russians in nuclear missiles.
Nikita Khrushchev, the Russian Dictator, thought that President Kennedy was a weak leader that would not respond to the secret placement of missiles in Cuba that could reach most of the U. S.. Khrushchev wanted to humiliate America and address some of the problems in nuclear weapons without needing to build a large number of delivery devices. The U. S. discovered this plot, and soon after a suspenseful thirteen days, where the entire country seemed to hold its breath, made the Russians to agree to remove the missiles and take them back to Russia while the U. S. promised to take the missiles they owned out of Turkey.
Even though the movie Dr. Strangelove was used to make fun of a scare in the 1960’s there is evidence of the stereotypical view of the Russians and how they are drunk communist spies, gender roles of men and women, men being all powerful while women are treated as sex objects shown by Major “King” Kong and General Buck Turgidson, and how the film related to several events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 and what could have led to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy as he was insulted by Nikita Khrushchev regarding the Cuban Missile Crisis and the nuclear arms race Russia and the United States were in.
