When the first trailer forOppenheimerprominently featured a countdown timer, it was fitting on multiple levels. It suggested an impending detonation, apt for a biopic about the father of the atomic bomb (where he will be played byCillian Murphy), while also tying intoChristopher Nolan’s ongoing obsession with time. Most of all, however, it served as a reminder of just how thoroughly the world changed the instant the “Gadget” detonated in the New Mexico desert. Here was a bomb several hundred times more powerful than any previous weapon, capable of reducing a city to ashes in an instant and causing unimaginable pain and suffering to anyone contaminated by its radiation. It was a scientific breakthrough as significant as it was terrifying, and instantly reconfigured the geopolitical landscape. It marked the end of the world as we knew it, and the beginning of the Atomic Age.
The Atomic Cafe, the hilarious yet haunting documentary released at the height of the Reagan era in 1982, takes stock of the whirlwind of propaganda that surrounded the bomb in the 1950s. Unusually for a documentary, it consists entirely of stock and archival footage, sourced from newsreels, commercials, and public service announcements. There are no talking heads, no smooth-voiced narrator, and no still images drifting across the screenKen Burns-style. It simply immerses the viewer in the unhinged stream-of-consciousness of ‘50s America, spiking the typical sun-dappled suburban fantasy with feverish paranoia and the suggestion of hidden, terrible truths.
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‘The Atomic Cafe’ Makes Nuclear Paranoia Both Funny and Eerie
It may be strange to see a documentary about nuclear panic described as “hilarious,” but that’s whatThe Atomic Cafe’s poster advertised upon its release — and for good reason. The juxtaposition between chipper, gee-whiz Americana, and stark warnings of radioactive danger never stops being funny, no matter how many times they play a jaunty novelty song about nuclear bombs over atomic test footage. (As it turns out, there were alotof jaunty novelty songs about nuclear bombs.) A man sternly describes the Soviet Union as a repressive hellscape, then smoothly transitions into a commercial for two California shopping centers.Lyndon B. Johnson, then a Senator for Texas, describes hydrogen bombs that could destroy entire cities within seconds, before proudly rattling off a list of Texan cities (“that could be Forth Worth, Dallas, Houston, Austin…”) as folky guitar music fades into the background. Possibly irradiated tea arriving from Japan after a nuclear testing mishap prompts a newscaster to joke “Hot tea, anyone?”
But as entertaining as A-bomb kitsch can be, there’s something distinctly unsettling aboutThe Atomic Cafe, as well. Although there’s been some pushback against blind nostalgia, the ‘50s are still frequently associated with carefree innocence, a post-war idyll that allowed America to kick its feet up and enjoy its status as the Leader of the Free World. But the America depicted inThe Atomic Cafeis hardly carefree: politicians calmly advocate for dropping a nuke on North Korea, a Wisconsin village turns itself into a model Stalinist dictatorship as a public service announcement against the evils of communism, and a boy demonstrates nuclear safety by riding his bike while wearing a radiation suit. Beneath the wholesome, comforting surface lies clammy dread and paranoia; one can imagine the creators ofFalloutwatching and taking notes.
‘The Atomic Cafe’ Questions Government Misinformation
As it happens, the American people were right to be paranoid - but not necessarily about communism. DirectorsJayne Loader, Kevin Rafferty,andPierce Raffertytake care to demonstrate that the advice the government gave to its civilians was strange at best and useless at worst. You probably rememberDuck and Cover, the short film included inThe Atomic Cafestarring a friendly animated turtle who tells kids to tuck into a ball beneath their desks if the Soviets drop the bomb. But as silly and ineffective as it might seem, it actually counts as one of the better pieces of advice in the film. (So long as you’re not in the epicenter of the blast, it reallydoeshelp to be curled up indoors.)
Elsewhere, fallout shelters are held up as the pinnacle of safety, despite the fact that, as a professor at a symposium points out, firestorms would likely ravage much of what was outside the shelter anyway. Citizens are advised not to worry if their hair starts falling out (it’ll grow back!) and reassured that only 15% of the population would die in a nuclear war. As little girls proudly display their canned food collections in home ec and soldiers stand gormlessly in a cloud of radiation after a nuclear test, the message becomes clear: the public had no idea how bad things could get, and the government only barely knew enough to make effective propaganda about it.
‘The Atomic Cafe’ Points the Finger at the Government
Despite the lack of narration, the film points an accusatory finger toward the government again and again. The jubilation of V-J Day is juxtaposed with the abject horror of Japanese bombing victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Propaganda footage puts a happy face on the forced relocation of Bikini Atoll’s indigenous population so America could test nuclear weapons near it. (The island they relocated to was unable to support the population, and America tried to relocate them back before it was safe.) Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for espionage against the United States, more to satisfy a lust for Red blood than to do justice.The Atomic Cafewas released in a time of post-Watergate cynicism towards the government, as well as a cultural moment of nostalgia for the ’50s; it was a stark reminder thatRichard Nixondidn’t come out of nowhere and that the innocent days people yearned for weren’t so innocent after all.
Nowadays, of course, people don’t get their information from government PSAs. They get it from a myriad of sources, some legitimate, some biased, and others deliberately providing misinformation. If one were to make anAtomic Cafe-style documentary about, say, the COVID-19 pandemic, the footage would be sourced fromJoe Roganand those Twitter people pretending to have vaccine tremors as much as from the actual government. Next to the current media landscape, some hokey fallout shelter commercials might seem quaint — but it’s easy enough to draw a line fromThe Atomic Cafeto our present mess, and as we stand on the precipice of climate catastrophe, it’s only getting worse.
