Watching the Duck and Cover in contemporary times is quite humorous, but when thinking about the time period it was created, it is saddening.
The standard duck and cover position under the table actually reminded me of a drill I used to do in the Philippines. In America, we have fire drills. Growing up in the Philippines, we ran drills in case of earthquake. We ducked and covered under our desks, just like in the video. While the drill did instill a fear of earthquakes, I still think that it made sense to take precaution in that manner. But in terms of atomic bombs, ducking and covering is probably a very ineffective method of protection. The means of protection just kept getting more ridiculous and ineffective as the video progressed. I actually laughed out loud when the vacationing family hid under their picnic blanket.
Was the government just not aware on how dangerous the atomic bomb would be? I felt like the video would give children a false sense of security against atomic bombs. It had made them increasingly paranoid about random flashes of light, but the video would have also given them a peace of mind that an atomic bomb is not the end of the world. The video is misleading, and it is scary to think that this was the government’s advice for a worst-case scenario.
Based on what Strozier argues in “The Apocalyptic Other”, he would agree with the fact that the Duck and Cover video does nothing but increase paranoia of the evil other – which in this case is the Soviet Union. Watching the Duck and Cover video can make someone paranoid enough to think that every flash of light is a signal for an atomic bomb or the end of the world.
Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove (1964) definitely targets the American paranoia over the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Dr. Strangelove is a great example that illustrates what Strozier argues in his writing. Paranoia during the Cold War led to an embracing of the use of nuclear weapons “as a solution to death anxiety and a way of restoring a lost sense of immorality.”
I think, and perhaps I’m more generous with this idea than most people would be, that the government didn’t want to horrify the children. If the PSA said, “You’ll be blown to bits, no matter what,” — that’s a reality that our society has enough trouble grasping, let alone seven-year-olds. I think that the idea was to allow children to feel as though practicing this “duck and cover” method (which is useful in situations such as tornadoes, hurricanes, and ONLY if the blast would be far enough away that radiation wouldn’t be a factor but wind power would (I’m not sure if that’s even scientifically/geometrically possible) during the atomic bomb explosion. I mean, I can’t help but think that if I was a seven-year-old, I’d be horrified enough and that following these instructions gave some sense of control to the children – I’m sure most adults knew that if the atomic bomb was really dropped, there’d be no hope, but it didn’t mean they had to scare the shit out of the children. I’m not sure that I feel this is “ethical,” but I can understand the logic behind it.