Laughing at Bombs: An Ideological Analysis of the 1957 U.S. Civil Defense Film "A Day Called X"

Simple item page
dc.contributor.advisorPalmer-Mehta, Valerie
dc.contributor.authorCameron, Devin James
dc.date.accessioned2017-05-04T17:05:58Z
dc.date.available2017-05-04T17:05:58Z
dc.description.abstractAfter the second world war, numerous civil defense efforts were undertaken by the United States to respond to Soviet threats of nuclear attack. One such effort was the 1957 civil defense film, A Day Called X. This film was produced as a dramatized portrayal of an evacuation drill in Portland, Oregon, a drill that actually occurred as “Project Greenlight” in 1955. Developed by the CBS Office of Civil Defense Mobilization, in partnership with the Portland Civil Defense program, this short film was broadcast around the country as a demonstration of the potential successes of civil defense efforts nationwide. Using ideological criticism, a form of rhetorical criticism, I seek to identify the discursive construction of American exceptionalism and farce within the film. I argue that the rhetorical construction of an American town’s calm, organized response to impending nuclear attack in A Day Called X is farcical in that it provides an unfair, untrue, and idealized picture of a hypothetical American response to the situation. This divergence from likely reality in this fictional representation will be shown to constitute a work of farce. This farce is amplified by the underlying theme of American exceptionalism. In the course of my analysis, I demonstrate that this assertion of superiority bolsters the absurdity of the representation and constitutes what I term “apocalyptic exceptionalism.”en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10323/4533
dc.subjectCold Waren_US
dc.subjectNuclearen_US
dc.subjectIdeologicalen_US
dc.subjectRhetoricalen_US
dc.subjectRhetoricen_US
dc.subjectFarceen_US
dc.subjectAmerican exceptionalismen_US
dc.subjectNationalismen_US
dc.subjectCivil defenseen_US
dc.subjectTrumpen_US
dc.subjectA Day Called Xen_US
dc.subjectAbsurdityen_US
dc.subjectApocalyptic exceptionalismen_US
dc.subjectApocalypseen_US
dc.subjectIdeological criticismen_US
dc.subjectPropagandaen_US
dc.subjectFilmen_US
dc.subjectShort filmen_US
dc.subjectIdeologyen_US
dc.subjectFilm analysisen_US
dc.subjectSoviet Unionen_US
dc.subjectUnited Statesen_US
dc.titleLaughing at Bombs: An Ideological Analysis of the 1957 U.S. Civil Defense Film "A Day Called X"en_US
dc.typeThesiseng

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Laughing at Bombs.pdf
Size:
248.7 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Thesis full document
Download
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
license.txt
Size:
3.36 KB
Format:
Item-specific license agreed upon to submission
Description:
Download

Collections

Honors College Theses