With nuclear weapons on screen and the war on Gaza ongoing, will this year's Oscars be more explosive than ever? Vin and Ola look back at movies and moments that shook the Academy and audiences.
With nuclear weapons on screen and the war on Gaza ongoing, will this year's Oscars be more explosive than ever? Vin and Ola look back at movies and moments that shook the Academy and audiences.
The Eerie Story of Low Background Steel
The 'Most Violent Moment' in Oscar History
But it’s unlikely any ceremony will ever inspire more heated division than the Oscars a little over 40 years ago, when the best supporting actress winner, Vanessa Redgrave, was burned in effigy outside the theater, booed by some audience members during her acceptance speech and rebuked by a presenter later in the evening.
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Ola: [00:00:00] This is minds blown.
Vanessa Redgrave Oscar: And now to present the first award of the evening, here's a young man whose Saturday night fever has become an epidemic. I saw the picture. Must have been a bad fever. Several times he went into convulsions. Welcome, John Travolta, right here.
Hi. Thank you. Um, I'm very proud to be a part of this, uh, 50th anniversary. And, uh, to get the evening started, uh, Those who have won the nominations for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role are Leslie Brown in The Turning Point Quinn Cummings in The Goodbye Girl Melinda Dillon in [00:01:00] Close Encounters of the Third Kind Vanessa Redgrave in Julia Tuesday Whaled in Looking for Mr.
Goodbar
And the winner is Vanessa Redgrave in Julia
My dear colleagues, I thank you very, very much for this [00:02:00] tribute to my work. I think that Jane Fonda and I have done the best work of our lives. And I think this was in part due to our director, Fred Zinnemann.
And I also think it's in part because we believed and we believe in what we were expressing. Two out of millions who gave their lives. We're prepared to sacrifice everything in the fight against fascist and racist Nazi Germany. And I salute you, and I pay tribute to you, and I think you should be very proud that in the last few weeks you've stood firm, and you have refused to be intimidated by the threats of a small bunch of Zionist hoodlums whose behaviour, [00:03:00] whose behaviour is an insult to humanity.
To the statue of Jews all over the world and to their great and heroic record of struggle against fascism and oppression. And I salute that record and I salute all of you for having stood firm and dealt a final blow against that period when Nixon and McCarthy launched a worldwide witch hunt against those who tried to express in their lives and their work the truth that they believed in.
I salute you, and I thank you, and I pledge to you that I will continue to fight against anti Semitism and fascism.
Vin: Hello everyone and welcome to Minds Blown. As always, we are your hosts, Vincent Anandi. And
Ola: Ade Samuel.
Vin: if this is your first time listening, we are two nuclear disarmament [00:04:00] experts who are seeking to bring this issue of nuclear disarmament out of the academic think space and into the mainstream. We hope to blow your minds with stories about the hidden history of the nuclear arms race, and show our listeners how this issue affects your day-to-day life.
And with that, Ola, I have a challenge for you this time. Can you blow my mind and the listeners with some hidden history of the nuclear arms race?
Ola: Challenge accepted. . So Vin, what do you know about the Oscar award? The actual statues that are given to actors and producers who win the award.
Vin: Absolutely nothing.
Oscar Origin Vid: Betty Davis claimed she named it Oscar because the rear end of Oscar reminded her of her husband when he got out of the shower in the morning.
Ola: But you did know they looked quite good, right? Those golden bald-headed statues.
Vin: Definitely.
Ola: . So in 1929, when the Oscars started giving out this award [00:05:00] to winners of different categories,
Oscar Origin Vid: You got this crusader with a crusader sword standing on a can of film. And the can of film has five spokes on it. And those five spokes represent what were then the five branches of the academy.
They've added branches since then. But those were original five.
Ola: the award was a handcrafted bronze statue that is plated in 24 karat gold. It is electroplated to have this very nice finish. Now, the very first 15 of these statues had this bronze core. And after a few years, the award at the Oscars decided, Hey, we need something that's a bit more smooth and shiny and glamorous. And so after the first 15 statues, they actually changed the cores that they used for the statues to a metal called Britannia metal, which is a mixture of tin, [00:06:00] a little bit of copper and some steel material.
But essentially they swapped out this bronze cores for Britannia metal, so the statues could be much more shiny and smooth. Because of a metal shortage in World War ii, statues that were given around the time for three years were actually plaster statues, you know, plaster that we used to cover up
Vin: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Ola: and they were plaster statues painted with gold paint for three years because there weren't, you know, enough metals to be used for the luxury of creating a statue. Now, after World War II ended in 1945, these statues were recalled and the awardees of the Oscars were given the proper Oscar statues. So war actually had the role to play even in how the Oscars were performed. [00:07:00] But there's also something interesting about the story and the shortage of materials that occurred around World War ii. And this is where I slightly deviate from the Oscars to something a little bit more nuclear.
AJ Shipwreck Plunder: Piles of metal, including artillery shells, on board a Chinese registered vessel. These are believed to be material taken from the undersea wrecks of two British battleships from World War II.
Ola: In recent years, we have seen plenty of arrests of what we call deep sea pirates around many countries that were active in World War ii, and these pirates are usually arrested because they're trying to plunder shipwrecks in deep seas from the World War II era. Now, why would anybody go through such an effort, get diverse, get a ship, and dive to the bottom of the oceans just to salvage scrap metal when we have steel that is so [00:08:00] cheap and so abundant?
AJ Shipwreck Plunder: The wrecks are considered war graves. Divers say the HMS Repulse is more accessible as it lies in shallower waters. But it has deteriorated in the last few years. Damage to the hull of the wreck, where it looks like somebody has started pulling away sheets of metal.
Ola: Well, the interesting thing is that every piece of steel that was made before the detonation of the Trinity tests and all the numerous nuclear tests that happened before, every piece of steel that was made before that is special.
AJ Shipwreck Plunder: Pre war steel, as it's known, is used to manufacture sensitive equipment
Ola: Because after the very first nuclear test in the world, we had a radioactive contamination of the air we breathe. Now, it's not something alarming that makes us, you know, want to wear masks or something that would kill us much quicker, but [00:09:00] it does have an effect on the steel that we produce and every piece of steel that has been produced since the end of the second World War. And this is because most steel is made by blowing large quantities of air or pure oxygen into molten Pig iron. Now this iron doesn't contain any pigs, but it does contain impurities, right? So to create steel, we have to blow large quantities of air into pig iron so that they can remove these impurities and make a metal that is stronger.
And this is what we, you know, consider to be steel. But since the start of atmospheric nuclear tests. All of the air we have has been contaminated by radioactive isotopes like Cobalt 60, and as a result, most steel that has been made after this nuclear test becomes infused with radioactive particles from the air.
The reason these pirates go through these lengths to get scrap [00:10:00] metal from the bottom of the sea is that most of the war fighting ships. Were actually made of steel in World War ii and these ships, because they've been sunk under the sea, have been protected from radioactive contamination. And so that steel that they're salvaging is actually very, very valuable.
Some say even more valuable than the gold and the bronze they used in the Oscar statue because that steel is the only kind of steel that you can use to create certain devices like Geiger counters, which need to have steel that's uncontaminated to be able to sense radioactive contamination. Other technologies like those radioactive therapy machines for cancer patients very sensitive technologies require this, what we call low background steel. Now in recent years, we have found that since the end of atmospheric nuclear testing, [00:11:00] atmospheric quantities of radioactive isotopes in the air have returned to almost zero. So we can begin to make steel today that could be used for sensitive technologies without having to go and salvage, you know shipwrecks at the bottom of the ocean. But it just makes me wonder how the stories of the Oscar statue on the one hand, and this low background steel on the other are interconnected with that cut of period of 1945. And it also brings me to wonder, you know, what happens to our ability to create Geiger counters and cancer treatment technologies? If countries like North Korea, for example, decide to resume atmospheric nuclear testing like they promised to do in January of 2020. Just makes you think, but was your mind blown
vin?
Vin: Indeed. I mean, first of all, I would really hate to have [00:12:00] been an Oscar winner when my statue was made of plaster. And I was in one of those years that would, that would not be, that, that would really,
that would stink. Yeah. And then just to think of like radioactive steel, right? Just that idea. And when we are talking about how this issue affects us in our day-to-Day lives, you know, we talk about now we have this routine when you buy a house to have a, a check of lead paint, for example, right?
How many people think of there being radioactive steel somewhere in their lives or crossing paths with that, right? So it really is something that once that genie was out of the bottle, it just affects us in every which way. So, and I, you know, again, I don't think people even think of that, or, or like you said, when people think about pirates and on the open sea, what they're trying to get, I think the obvious is always gold and things of that nature.
They're not thinking about getting the steel at the bottom of the ocean that is pristine, essentially, and, and absent of radiological materials. Yeah. It's yeah, , it's crazy to think how, again, these things are all interconnected and, and even these micros that we [00:13:00] don't, you know, we, we just often don't think about.
Ola: Absolutely.
Vin: so
Ola: affects us all.
Vin: Now that we've, you know, you've mentioned the Oscars and we're, you know, coming up on it and we wanted to focus a little bit on that. And so today what we're gonna look at is we were gonna talk about some of the films that are up in the, in the Oscar categories beyond Oppenheimer that actually have to, that, that have an intersection with nuclear disarmorment, but then also the history of, nuclear of movies that deal with nuclear war and and then also, you know, some of the more political speeches that we've seen at the Oscars. And will, you know, anything be, be done in that way this time around. So let's get into it and we'll start with why don't we start with the, the most obvious one before we get into some of the other ones, which is Oppenheimer?
So I saw Oppenheimer I mean, I was waiting for three years for this film to come out you know, from the first thing. And, and that was two parts for me, really, three. One is I was, you know, as experts like us, I was desperate to get a [00:14:00] movie that, you know, about the, you know, in our wheelhouse essentially.
Right? And then secondly, Martin Sherwin, who wrote the book that the, the film is based on, was a dear friend of mine. He was my advisor. Both of my books are in his series. And so knowing that. Christopher Nolan, the director, was going to be, you know, making the film based on that book. I had really high hopes because I knew how well that book was done.
And then thirdly, Christopher Nolan's my favorite director in recent times. I mean, there's really nothing he's made that I don't absolutely devour and love. Interstellar, the Dark Knight. These are some of my favorite films. So, yeah, I had high hopes. And so before I give you my opinion, what did you think the first time you saw Oppenheimer and what did it meet your expectations and, you know, things of that nature?
Like what were your thoughts?
Ola: So I watched Oppenheimer in a quite unique setting. So in London there was this this. [00:15:00] Preview of the movie a day before it debuted worldwide where nuclear policy experts and a few former world leaders were gathered in this retro cinema and we had a prescreening of Oppenheimer. So it was a very nuke, wonky event. But it was, I'm gonna say, kind of nice to have like a preview, even if it was just 24 hours to a
movie. Right. And I am a big fan of Nolan's work. Unlike most people I drone on and on about Tenet, for example. I feel like I actually understand the
Vin: Well, you're, you're the one person then. I mean, I loved it, but you're, if you get it, you're the one person.
Ola: I've watched it like two, three times and of course I've devoured, you know, many other Nolan movies and I think he's just an absolute director and knows how to immerse you
Vin: Yeah, definitely.
Ola: a
way that. Takes you into fantasy land, but keeps you threaded to some basic rules of physics, you know, or [00:16:00] quantum physics.
If you're watching Tenet with Oppenheimer, I had mixed feelings about the movie. So on the one hand I was super excited to, for the first time in my career and life, see a movie that was so highly anticipated that was focused on nuclear. And for listeners to give our listeners some context, I am in my early thirties, super early thirties.
So, you know, we don't really get a lot of movies these days that focus on nuclear war or, you know, nuclear related stuff. We have some tangential stuff like the hundred, the 100 series which looks at like a post apocalyptic world and whatever, but nothing really goes straight to the issue. And I think that's quite interesting in, in and of itself,
Vin: I think there is, you're right. I, or there is a, this kind of, there's plenty of films that deal with kind of this dystopian you know, [00:17:00] whether it's some other way in which the world is ending beyond a nuclear weapon. Right. But it's always, or even in these, you know, Godzilla movies or like, so there's always this kind of dancing around it, but not actually a historical drama like we're seeing it.
Yeah. Yeah.
Ola: That's, that was the term I was looking for. Everyone seems to dance around the nuclear issue, but nobody goes straight to the heart of it. Not at least in the way the day after movie, for example, went straight into nuclear
Vin: we'll definitely get into that film a little later on. Yep.
Ola: Absolutely. But I think ePen Hamer was remarkable like the. Cinematography was great. The choice of looking at the ethical dilemmas of, you know, Oppenheimer after helping to lead the project that, you know, invented the nuclear bomb. Those questions were very pertinent and I think important questions to be had,
Vin: Yeah, the score really got me too, Ola. I mean, not to I to interrupt you, but the, the score of that film [00:18:00] just sat with me, you know, after it was done. It was just brilliant.
Hear music trailer: Can you hear the music, Robert?
Yes, I can.
Ola: , As you would know, I am obsessed with music and soundtracks that was pristine and it, it did, you know, keep you in that mid-range between fantasy and reality. You were really immersed, almost feeling like you were in Oppenheimer's mind. But I do feel that two things happened with Nolan in this movie. The first was, I think because of the choice of subject. There was a bit of dancing around the after effects of the invention of the bomb in terms of the humanitarian consequences of the use of a nuclear bomb. But that's a [00:19:00] somewhat tangential critique of the movie because I mean, we're glad that we even had a movie in the first place that looked at nuclear weapons
Vin: in Yeah. That was something that we heard you know, when the film came out, was that the, there were these, these debates about and, and sorry folks, there's gonna be spoiler alerts through this whole entire episode. So, but there is that, you know, moment where he sees you know, they, they, they don't show what he's watching on screen when he's seeing the devastation in, in Oppenheimer.
That is, and, but he, he is visualizing skin coming off of one woman. He sees the ash there. And so part of me was like, Hey, is it better? Because it is leaving it up to the imagination, right? Is the other part though, should we have shown that? But you know, I had to check myself too in that keep telling, reminding myself, this isn't a movie about nuclear weapons or what they do.
It's not a documentary, it's a movie about Oppenheimer's life, right. Number one. [00:20:00] But that said. There was a, a film because we're seeing, what I love is that a, after Oppenheimer came out because of its success which is again a testament to Nolan and everybody involved, there seems to be now, which we haven't seen since the 1980s, a clamoring for content on this issue, which is amazing because it really is you know, something we can use, you know, again, and where people that aren't experts, if they're just turning on Netflix, may and are looking for something, they're finding content.
And so there was this new film that came out docudrama on Einstein, Einstein in the Bomb
Einstein and the Bomb: I made one great mistake in my life. Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb, I
would not have taken part in [00:21:00] opening that Pandora's box.
Vin: And a lot of folks are saying that is really the, the, the companion to the Oppenheimer film because in that film they do show. A lot of the things as far as what happened to the atomic bomb survivors in a way they didn't show in the film.
So it's a nice thing if you're like, okay, I watched this film Oppenheimer, but now I want more. And I think that film is, you know, was really well done. And now we just found out in another week or two we got yet another docuseries coming out, which I believe is called Turning Point. And that is gonna be about the, if I'm correct, am I correct on that?
Is that the, the name?
Ola: I think so. I am gonna
my
Vin: Yeah, I think it's called Turning Point, and it's about and it's titled the, the, I think the atomic bomb or the Bomb in the Cold War. And it looks like it's gonna be different, you know, parts all about the nuclear arms race again and again. This was not something I, you know, people were wanting to watch.
And now with I, I really give a lot of credit to Oppenheimer, [00:22:00] the, the success of the film for now saying to put folks over at Netflix and others say there's a need for this. Maybe we should capitalize on this and make more. And that can only, that can only help as long as, you know, the story is being done, you know, being told correctly.
So yeah. What, what else did you, what else? You said there were two things that you were kind of hung up on with what I, what's, what was the second one?
Ola: absolutely. Director's notes, , the movie was called Turning Point, the
Bomb and The Cold War,
So the second thing and this relates to something you've said, which is as long as we tell the story correctly, now we want to ensure that, or as nuclear policy advocates, as nuclear academics, we wanna ensure that the stories being told about the bomb are truthful to the bomb's nature, to the humanitarian impacts, to the environmental impacts, and also to the sort of risks that [00:23:00] we deal with in terms of nuclear deterrence in today's world in terms of the risks of escalation and conflict. The second critique of Oppenheimer or Nolan's depiction of Oppenheimer's story. Isn't necessarily a critique of Nolan himself, but is actually a critique of the nuclear policy industry. Because Oppenheimer stood out to me as being very different from all of the other movies Nolan has produced before, including Interstellar, which had like significant scientific and technical research behind it. Oppenheimer stood out because I felt a bit of fear Director's fear. I could sense that Nolan was scared to tell the story as creatively as he would've liked because I felt like there was pressure on this movie project to get every [00:24:00] single micro detail right,
Vin: Which is impossible. Right.
Ola: and get every micro detail included
Vin: Again, impossible.
Ola: And that for me, I think kind of reflects the nature of nuclear policy and nuclear politics where quote unquote, ordinary people are not allowed to have an opinion on
nuclear war, or the prospect of
nuclear war going all the way up to blockbuster directors trying to tell a story about the bomb. Even with the amount of detail and care that you could clearly see being put into Oppenheimer in terms of getting historical details correctly, there was still some significant criticism from the nuclear policy community about, oh, you didn't get this person's statement right, or,
oh, emphasize on this other person's perspective.
And I'm like, oh my God. We are stepping away from the significance of this movie actually telling
a nuclear story and [00:25:00] picking holes in it, you
Vin: it drove me crazy, the response in our field. I was so, you know, again, overjoyed that we were getting this film and I was trying to, I've watched it a couple of times as a historian. I've watched it as a, as just a, a, you know, liking films, et cetera. But I also kept thinking if somebody was watching this,
Ola: Mm
Vin: who knows nothing about this, Hopefully listeners, you know, that, that they, this is, they're just coming to this because it's a, it's a big budget film. They want, they wanna learn more about it. How do they walk away with, and I, how do they walk away with it? And, you know, to me it's very easy for us in a general sense, especially with social media to criticize art.
But my philosophy, it's always been, and not say that art isn't above criticism, but it's a lot easier to, to criticize art than to create it. And so my thing has been, if you don't like Nolan's interpretation of Oppenheimer, then make your own. The,
only way to get, the only way to get the story complete is to create [00:26:00] more art.
Surround it. Right. But it is a, it's not a documentary. And so, you know, it's, it's Martin, Sherwin and Berg, the authors of the original book. It's their interpretation of Oppenheimer's life. And Nolan is doing. His interpretation of their interpretation, right. Of his life. And you're gonna have, you know, whether in, in any biopic, especially of these historical figures, there's only so much you can put in two to three hours.
You, you may have to use composite characters, right. You may have to, you know, not include certain things which we'll talk about with Maestro and some of the other films. And to me that's okay because again, it's not a documentary. Like you can't just watch a film and be like, well, now I know Oppenheimer's life.
No, you, if you wanna know more than you need to read more and watch other documentaries and kind of put it together. So, , what irritated me, I guess, you know, and, and we've joked around about when one of us is about to kind of go off on this and have that rant button, [00:27:00] right. That, you know, but this to me is one of them.
'cause I was so disappointed because when it came out. I thought this was a real moment for folks like us to reach folks that, again, hopefully listeners that are not you know, experts in this field to learn more and fill in the gaps. And what happened is I saw in so many instances, just an open criticism of what Nolan didn't put in there and, and, and, and more for, okay, there's a movie about nuclear weapons, so I'm gonna write my think piece that's gonna get me clicks and I'm gonna use it for my own profile instead of really trying to educate people.
Right. So I, you know, when I had, when I was seeing when it got so bad that I was seeing people on social media and, and, and people even within our field saying, well, this film focuses too much on a white man. He can't control Oppenheimer what is race is. Right. Or I saw, you know, comments that said the film focuses too much on [00:28:00] Oppenheimer.
It's literally, thank you all. Thank you.
it's not, his life. Right? It's not a, it's not a film about the, the, the dropping of the bomb. So to me it's like, it, it's just talking about minds blown, right? And, you know, or you know, somebody that, that you know, focuses so much of my research and my passion and my time on the intersection of race and nuclear weapons.
Of course, I was keeping a keen eye on this issue. But, you know, when folks were saying, well, it didn't show enough of, you know native Americans who were, who were injured, or Mexican Americans or African Americans that were working in nuclear bomb making plants in say, Hanford. True. But the film wasn't based in Hanford, it was in Los Alamos.
Of course it wasn't gonna be in there. Or when, when Nolan or when there's that part where they just barely mentioned Native Americans that were, you know, indigenous folks that were gonna be in passing. [00:29:00] But that's, that's actually how they thought. That just shows you how so many of the white men thought they didn't care about them.
Right. So it's, it's actually accurate. Yes.
Ola: The point I, I really want to emphasize, it's like, yes, Oppenheimer was white and yes, he didn't pay attention to
Native in Los Alamos, and yes, he didn't. Care about the race of people who were at different stages of the nuclear operation, because that is a reflection of the United States at that time.
Chances are, if you were a white man, you had the luxury of opportunities to either go and be a theoretical physicist or a general, you know, the social environment and the structures at the time rewarded certain looks, behaviors, and predilections, if
I can use that
Vin: Well, and, and you know, [00:30:00] again, if you, and if you were to try to get in every single place where the Manhattan Project, you know, the, everywhere you're getting trying to get Chicago and you're trying to get, you know, Tennessee or Oak Ridge and all of these places where things were happening and trying to get every part of this, every person in this, it'd be a 10 hour film and
Ola: It was
already three
Vin: Right. And, and there's people that, I think there were people that really didn't want as much of the the kind of the Cold War issue , with the trial , and the McCarthy kind of stuff. But that was what was happening in his life. And again, it was about his life. So, you know, I think the film was phenomenal.
I think it was, I, I don't know how you could have done it better, but it did frustrate me when it was so easy to just criticize and say, Nolan didn't put enough of this or this, or whatever your, you know, whatever your passion is, and you're saying it's not in there, and again,
make your own then, you know, let's [00:31:00] you, but, and again, what we saw were certain organizations, you know, in the wonky area that were having screenings and, and sub panels, but regular folks out there, were not going to those.
Right? And so, how do we use this? I wish we would've done better using this film as a way to talk to regular folks that, again, don't have degrees in physics and international studies and all of these kind of things and, you know, reach out to 'em. I have a, an actually a, a very good friend of mine Eric Singer, who his what he does is turns in these complicated issues into young adult reading books.
. And he, and he did one for, you know, one on Shyman Schuster, excuse me. And I think, I'm not sure what the, which one it's on, what publisher, but he just finished the Oppenheimer book for young adults. It's going to be coming out. And that
is fantastic that you can get, you know, young kids in seventh grade, eighth grade, they're not gonna read a tomb of a book, you know, but if they can digest, you [00:32:00] know, that's gonna be even, you know, even better.
So and again, I credit that with the resurgence of the movie helping on that.
Ola: It's about what we can do to build on this success, like what we can do to build on the fact that a mainstream producer has refocused attention on this issue at a very pertinent time. Contemporary,
Vin: Yes.
Ola: It's not like we're watching this in, say, 2004 before North
off and got nukes, and you know, we're not watching it in a time where nuclear weapons are off the agenda.
We're
watching it in a time where we regularly hear the word nuclear
every single day
news, whether we notice it or not,
Vin: Yep.
And yeah, I know. I agree a hundred percent. And the other thing too is I think what happened is because Robert Downey Jr. Made such. Poignant statements in the kind of during the press junket [00:33:00] about nuclear weapons saying, we need to have more conversations about this. We need to be, you know, thinking about this in a different way.
Robert Downey Jr: It's arguable that we're less safe now than we were during the height of the Cold War. So, I mean, it's a lot to take in. But, um, I think that great films are meant to humble us to the point where we can actually have these sorts of dialogues to begin with.
Vin: Because Christopher Nolan at the, I think it was the BAFTA Awards, actually said the real heroes here are the folks that are the activists that have been trying to stop this madness for so long.
Christopher Nolan BAFTA: I do just want to Say that our film, um, ends on what I think is a dramatically necessary, uh, note of despair.
Um, but in the real world, there are all kinds of individuals and organizations who have fought, uh, long and hard to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world. And since its peak in 1967, they've, they've done it by almost 90%. of late that's [00:34:00] gone the wrong way. And so in accepting this, I do just want to acknowledge their efforts and point out that, um, they show the necessity and the potential of efforts for peace.
Vin: There was this also default of, well, are they gonna be, now all of these actors and Nolan, are they gonna be the torch bearers to keep the push?
Like, and again, that's not their role. These are actors and filmmakers and I love this. , I love to see if, you know, the, the actors and Hollywood get involved in a cause like this. But again we can't just default and say, oh, they need to be saying more and pressure them that much either.
Which again, we're gonna look at different speeches 'cause there is a price to pay in certain aspects like that when you, when you put yourself out there. So with that said, that's the most recent film that people have seen. Let's take a step back for a minute here with, we had said that there were films that kind of tiptoe and dance around nuclear disarmorment, but there was a time when actually there were films directly about this, right?
And when we think [00:35:00] about this, and a lot of younger folks haven't seen this film, and but I think, you know, for those of us that are in this field, it's almost, you know, who hasn't seen Dr. Strange Love?
Dr. Strangelove: Is that the whole point of the doomsday machine is lost? If you keep it a secret, why didn't you tell the world, eh?
Vin: I've seen strange love a bunch of times. And I'm gonna be honest, it is, I know this is blasphemous in our industry, but I am not a huge fan of Strangelove.
It is not a film that keeps me going in my seat. It's not something where I think is hilariously funny. It's not something that I think is it just, you know, hits in terms of trying to, you know. Affect, affect the world from viewing it. So it was never my cup of tea. What were your thoughts? Is this your, is this your canon?
Is this your, your, you, you love this film?
Ola: Strange [00:36:00] Love is a strange movie indeed. It's a very strange movie. And I think one of the biggest reasons, I think it is strange is it tries to tell a very serious story of presidential loss of control over nuclear weapons, relying on dark humor keep, you know, viewers engaged. And of course, dark humor, as we have seen it play out in Hollywood, relies on misogynistic,
Vin: Mm.
Ola: sexist, classist, eth, you know, all sorts of tropes and tries to sort of turn them on their head to make it appear funny. And if you ignore the context of when this movie was made, this was in the 1960s, if you ignore that context, it could be funny, like a dark mirror, funny black mirror, funny. But it's not because [00:37:00] we know that many of the actors, many of the consumers as well of strange love at the time, genuinely agreed with calling Russians Russkies, or genuinely agreed that, yeah, nuclear war is the one thing that can unify us as Americans, regardless of your race, creed, and whatever. You know, this implicit acceptance that there was an uneven distribution of intelligence and importance across human beings cut along, you know, ethnic or racial or classes lines. So I didn't find the dark humor funny because I knew that at some stage it wasn't meant to be a joke.
Vin: Well, I mean the dark.
Ola: Hmm.
Vin: Yeah, no, go ahead.
Ola: I was gonna say, but that aside, I think for the time period that this mover was created. Today we think about so [00:38:00] authority in the US and Russia and in so many states, but at that time it wasn't the norm for countries to have a single person with ultimate control of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons were seen as almost any other weapon in the sense that they were just bigger and badder conventional weapons that could be distributed across armed forces.
And the generals and soldiers were the ones with a discretion to use nukes or not. So I think that was the one positive takeaway for me from Stranger Love, is that it identified what could go wrong if there was a loss of control, especially in the system that was prevalent at the time, which was, you know, delegated control over nuclear weapons.
Vin: Yeah, when I think of the dark humor thing in more contemporary spaces, I think of don't look up with Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio. And while it's about a, a comet that's going to hit earth and destroy the world, you, you could certainly take out comet put in [00:39:00] nuclear weapon. And the story holds the thing that watching that film, and again, sorry for those that haven't seen it, spoiler alert.
As I was watching it, and of course they're, that they're screaming right into the void almost. Like, do you realize what's gonna happen? Especially when they're on that, that news panel.
Leonardo DiCaprio: Came to the right place because on this show, we like to say things. Would you please just stop being so f ing pleasant? I'm sorry, but not everything needs to sound so goddamn clever or charming or likable all the time. Sometimes, we need to just be able to say things to one another. We need to hear things.
Look, let's establish, once again, that there is a huge comet headed towards Earth.
Vin: And for so many of us, we're, we're thinking the same thing. We're constantly screaming about this issue. Right?
But I kept thinking to myself, the only way this film is going to work is everybody has to die at the end.
If, if they find a way to avert the comet, [00:40:00] right? If they find a way to, you know get a team of people to stop it, it doesn't work. 'cause then it shows that we have the measures right to stop it. The only way this proves the point is they have to die. And of course, you know, that's obviously what happens.
So I, think it was brilliantly done. And in that regard, I do think that humor worked in, you know, also keeping a serious topic and, and keeping it engaging in a way that strange love, you know, didn't do it for me back. You know, even though it's completely different time periods and somewhat different topics.
Ola: A quick, a quick add-on to don't look up and the use of of humor or use of dark humor. There's a movie that just crossed my mind as you were speaking. Have you watched a movie? Nope. Daniel
Vin: Oh
yes. Yeah, yeah. Yes, yes.
Ola: in many ways I find so many like parallels between Nope. And don't look up the sense that there's this obvious threat to humanity or to humans.
And there's this constant activism of a subset of people saying, look, there is this threat [00:41:00] and it's getting bigger and bigger, and this threat manifests very slowly. And of course, like frogs and boiling water, we humans don't necessarily respond to slow changes. And then all of a sudden the threat manifests and it starts causing like loss of life and damage and whatever.
And only at that point do we tend to react to, to the manifestation of a slow moving threat. This whole overarching theme makes me really think about just. How nuclear policy plays out in our day-to-Day lives, where there's just this gradual intensification of threats, gradual intensification of hostilities.
And most people just, they get a little bit shocked and then they go back to their day-to-Day lives. They get a little bit shocked and then they go
and then all of a sudden, boom, you know,
Vin: Well,
yeah, I mean, so two things. One is, I think this is the second time since we started this pod, you have had a metaphor with a frog, so we might have keep a we'll keep a little ding dingo and every time bring, yeah, [00:42:00] exactly. The second thing is, yeah, we talked about this before, that when you have people that are trying to put food on the table, pay student loans, not get killed by the cops on the way to school try to stop climate change.
You know, they have a, a sick parent. What, you know, all of these things. And then say, oh, by the way, you know. Try to eliminate nuclear weapons too. I, I, I get why people would be like, yeah, I just, you know, it's, it's too much. I'm just gonna divorce myself from all of it. I, I get it. So there's been other films, of course, China Syndrome on the Beach, fail Safe, but one I know that we both have seen it talked about and we can talk about now more, is with Matthew Broderick, which is War Games.
And Ellie Sheie, I is in it as well.
War Games: Shall we play a game? Oh. I think I missed them. Yeah, weird, isn't it? Love to. How about global thermonuclear war? [00:43:00] Wouldn't you prefer a good game of chess? Yes. Yes. Yes. Later.
Let's play. Global Thermonuclear War. Fine.
Vin: And that always gets me watching it now with the technology of video games from back then to now, like how different it is and, and, you know, those kind of things. But so what did you kind of rewatching it for this pod? What were your, what stood out to you?
Ola: War Games was a fantastic movie. I would say. You know, I, I watched World Games for the first time yesterday.
Vin: Oh, it was first time watching it. Okay.
Ola: First time ever. So, you know, after thoroughly enjoying the fact that I was watching a movie from 1983 that was played in 1983 and not a movie from 2022, trying to replicate 1983. You know, after, you know, obviously enjoying that, I [00:44:00] had a deeper think about how much work goes into even trying to depict a nuclear threat
from producers, from writers. You know, given the obvious barriers to information they face, how do they design a war room? How do they design, you know, strategies for nuclear use and retaliation? How do they understand these things? You know, it takes a lot of research and a lot of goddamn work just to get the story, even half right in the first
place. And then to add in a variable such as, you know, sentient artificial intelligence, and to. Included in a way that is somewhat realistic, was very impressive for me. And what I say by including AI in a way that is somewhat realistic is in war games, they didn't intend for the artificial intelligence to have control over the bomb or to make the decision to go [00:45:00] to war or not. They just intended for the AI to make the process between the precedent authorizing the strike and the actual launching of the weapons quicker
also more predictable because of course there were officers who given the command to launch a nuke, had second doubts, and about 22% of them in the movie didn't launch the nuke as instructed. And so AI was just meant to remove that uncertainty.
president says, launch and AI launches, and that was it. Now. It's a similar way in which AI is being included or being thought about to be included in nuclear command and control, in the sense that nobody's thinking of AI as having the ultimate decision to use a nuclear weapon or not.
In today's world, we're thinking of AI to carry out the burdensome tasks of filtering out [00:46:00] sensory data. So the data we get from like satellites or from like radars. And if you want to learn more about the sensory data stuff, you need to listen to our previous podcast, which
you know, which makes
Vin: We mix it plain. Yes.
Ola: But you know, AI was just meant to support human decision making and make it more efficient and quicker in this movie. And it went wrong, massively wrong. And I think it was really interesting to see that in 1983, people were thinking about stuff that is still relevant today, you know,
over 40 years later. Another thing that got me, I think, and this is linked to Oppenheimer in a way that it's also linked to strange love, was when it comes to female characters, when it comes to the portrayal of women in all three movies, it is so one dimensional. Like women are given [00:47:00] so little agency, it's infuriating, you know? So in,
Vin: Absolutely.
Ola: in the day after
Vin: Oh, we haven't. Yeah, we'll get to the day after
Ola: that.
Can
Vin: that's next.
Ola: So, so in war games, you know, the, the lead actor's girlfriend who's cast as a supporting actress asked some very silly kindergarten level of intelligence questions. And I am just like screaming like, what the hell? You know, why do they insist on portraying women as just less intelligent, supportive characters that have no idea of what's going on? But I think this is a rant and it's tangential, but you know, that's something that I definitely wanted to flag up. That is a consistent theme in many of these movies and something that should change,
Vin: Absolutely. You know, and I think too, it does show, you know, the, the, the war games. Like ab it matters who your actors are. It matters who the [00:48:00] screenplay, the director. Like, again, you can't, on a topic like this, if you want just regular folks to watch a movie, you gotta have a good story. You know, flat out, otherwise you're gonna lose people.
And again, there's been some flops out there, but there's been others that have really made it, some have all fears you know, . So the day after. It's probably the most well-known film in history when it comes to nuclear war. For those of you that have not seen it or don't know what we're talking about, this was a film done in the 1980s.
It was there's actually a new book that's gonna be coming out shortly all about the making of it called apocalypse Television by David Craig. I actually just reviewed that book for arms Control Associations magazine and went back and rewatched the film since I was reviewing this book as well.
And it was shown on, on television and a hundred million people watched it, which is incredible. I [00:49:00] mean, we're talking like, you know, yeah, like Super Bowl numbers. And I think what was even more important with the film was after the film concluded, Ted Coppel then had a panel of folks to discuss it from different sides of the aisle and scientists and.
You know, I thought about that when I was doing the review for this book and rewatching the film. Could we even have that today without people just screaming at each other? And it just being, you know, it was having a civil discussion about this. And yeah. That, that film really shook a lot of people because it was at the, you know, in many ways the height of the Cold War in the eighties.
And for the first time, people were seeing what was really gonna, what was really gonna happen if there was a nuclear war. And in this particular film takes place in Lawrence, Kansas that we did touch upon in our very first episode. So
for you, going back and watching it, or for the first time watching it what were some of the things that stood out to you?
Ola: So I'm gonna confess and say I watched today after. Yesterday
very [00:50:00]
Vin: binge watch, binge watch these films? For, for our pod. All right. Full, disclosure. Full disclosure.
Ola: and I think that was a very worthwhile exercise
Right. As we started this episode saying, I'm used to movies made in the, in the 2010s and 2020s. I'm used to the, this is an actual word, so it doesn't have to be censored out.
I'm used to the pussyfooting around the nuclear issue. I'm used to the censorship. Because it almost seems like Hollywood has this idea that regular folks watching movies don't want to be exposed to the horrors of the realities they live in the day after. Takes the complete opposite. Now, what was remarkable for me, and actually kind of draws parallels with the movie from 2022, Nope. What was remarkable for me was that. The day after really focused [00:51:00] on the daily lives of different people situated around Lawrence cancers. It really just focused on them and their daily struggles and their daily anxieties, and the nuclear threat was just ever increasing in the background, just in the little radio tucked in the corner, or as little flashes on a TV screen momentarily that interrupts kids watching cartoons. And I think that was extremely important because this is exactly how most people consume nuclear threats today. You consume it. Via some sort of interruption. Probably you're on the tube and you sit beside a newspaper that was left before that has nuclear on it. You know, people don't actively get exposed to the nuclear threats the way they are in the world today, and this was accurately portrayed in the day after. biggest thing that got me in this movie was the commitment [00:52:00] to writing out what the world looks like immediately. And after a nuclear use, saw how insane and chaotic the hospitals were because the reality is after a nuclear use, hospitals are practically useless. There was no communication lines, there was people shocked, confused, having no idea of what radioactivity does to them.
You know, just that utter mix of chaos and carnage. Was really, really thought out because it's kind of what is gonna happen in a nuclear use in any situation. Most people aren't paying attention to de escalating threats from Russia. Today, for example, 95% of the world. If a nuclear weapon were to be used will experience it as a last minute shock. They probably wouldn't even have the time to like get a warning on a radio or something. It would just happen. [00:53:00] And that shock and that disruption of day-to-day life, I think was so important because it just shows how these things can happen and how nobody's prepared for
it, for the experts who are screaming into the void but not being listened to.
Vin: Yeah, I mean, one thing. Going back and looking at, so, so this film came out in, in 1983. And one thing that you see is after the film, people were so shook watching this, that a lot of the things I was hoping would happen with Oppenheimer did happen in 83, meaning they had this national televised panel for, you know, again, regular folks to talk about this.
They actually created one 800 hotlines where you could call if you were shook and talk to an expert about this, a counselor, they had, you know, celebrity public service announcements. They had all of these types of things that kind of a campaign around this of education, which is again, [00:54:00] so important versus just lobbing the film out there and then not having a follow up.
And kind of how, before we get into move on to some of the other films of the Oscars, one of the, how things kind of come full circle is that the actress Kristin Stewart. Came out not too long ago and said, quote, we've grown so accustomed to the looming threat of nuclear annihilation that it barely registers in our daily lives.
But when some new crisis or close calls startles us out of our slumber for just a brief moment, we truly grasp the insanity of living on a hair trigger to what could be a real life Armageddon. Now, Christian Stewart's fiance is Dylan Meyer, and Dylan Meyer's father is Nick Meyer, who was the actual director of the day after.
So it really kind of comes full circle. So, so we
Ola: describes it so
Vin: perfectly right, and so Oppenheimer is the obvious, but. There are other films that actually have a, [00:55:00] a, a thread of nuclear disarmorment in them that are up for Academy Awards. And one of those is the film. Rustin Coleman Domingo is up for the Academy Award for playing for best actor for the film.
Rustin Rustin is on Netflix. It is it was produced by Think Higher Ground, I think it's called, which is the Obama's production company. I'm actually gonna let you go first because somebody that wrote so much about Rustin and has studied him so much for I, I, I'm gonna let you go first on your thoughts of Rustin and then in the film and then and then I'll, I'll, I'll chime in here.
Ola: So, you know, Rustin was rusting the person and Rustin the movie I think were remarkable. You could. It really foregrounded the struggles that Reston faced being, a non heterosexual, non-white man in the field of, you know, politics and advocacy. The focus on [00:56:00] Rustin's organizing and his background role in civil rights was extremely important. Right? We got to see many people for the first time heard the name Rustin, watching the movie, right? Most people have never come across this name, but everybody knows Martin Luther King, right? But even within this portrayal of Rustin. What I found extremely strange was that you can make an entire almost biopic movie about a character and leave out a significant chunk of his life's work, which was nuclear disarm advocacy, which actually sparked nuclear desar movements in Africa, right?
Vin: Yeah, I mean,
Ola: ways that could not have been replicated by anyone else, and that was just skipped over in this movie.
Vin: yeah, I,
I mean, again, I don't want to, it's, it's easy to criticize than to, you know, [00:57:00] make more movies about Rustin, which we certainly could use. And I think, again, like Oppenheimer, it's very hard to get. If it's a biopic, his life in, you know a certain amount of time. But this film wasn't a biopic, right?
This film was an hour and I think 40 minutes maybe top. So it wasn't a three hour film, and it wasn't about his entire life. It was about strictly his role in the March on Washington, which to me, echoed a little bit of where I had a problem with Selma when Selma came out, because I think Selma didn't know whether it was supposed to be a biopic about Dr.
King or was it about the march at Selma. And this, I kind of felt the same way. So with this film, you know, and again, it's so difficult whether it's Spike Lee's interpretation of Malcolm X in that film, or now this Rustin film, I think there was, Coleman Domingo was amazing. I think you're right. If, if the goal was to get folks that [00:58:00] don't.
I've never heard of Byron Rustin to now hear of him and wanna learn more mission accomplished, like
absolutely 1000%. But yeah, it was, there was only one line in the film about his, his fighting for nuclear disarmament in which Roy Wilkins played by Chris Rock says to him I see that you're you're serving white people by doing that.
And Rustin responds with, I go where I'm needed. And the real history there is, as if you've seen the film Roy Wilkins, what he takes over the naacp, I mean the naacp, while they were, you know, very staunch champions of, you know, racial equality and, and colonialism in, in certain ways. Carol Anderson writes about this.
One of the things is when the Truman Doctrine comes out, for those not familiar, this is when President Truman comes out and way before George Bush ever did it, it was, you're either with us or against us. And, and [00:59:00] the NAACP under Roy Wilkins leadership decided to take a sharp right turn on the issue of nuclear disarmorment and ally themselves with Truman in hopes of it leading to a civil rights package, which never happens.
And so Wilkins definitely leans to the right on this issue and was not a fan of Rustin's. And the other person you see in this film, a Philip Randolph Randolph seems to be an a, Philip Randolph was another one of what they call the big six of the Civil Rights leaders. And a Philip Randolph actually in real life went kind of back and forth on this issue.
At times he signed petitions for nuclear disarmament. He was, , championing what Rustin was doing, but at other times he wasn't and thought it, the focus should only be on civil rights. And this is something when we talk about Rustin, his role in nuclear disarmament, his, the most [01:00:00] famous thing that we know about him is when he did put a team of activists together from the UK and from Africa and worked with gian leader Nma Kwame Nma, to try to stop the French nuclear test in the Sahara.
And the fear was when the French wanting to be a nuclear power and announced they're gonna test their first nuclear weapon in Africa, and the Sahara, what the fallout would do to the cocoa industry. This was rate when independence movements were happening with Algeria and Ghana and Rustin saw how all these things were connecting in the United States.
And over there and, and decides to take this action and literally puts his body on the line with other activists and to, to no avail eventually that the test does happen. But Rustin later says that this was the most significant nonviolent action he had ever done in his life. So to leave that out is, is pretty, you know, pretty big.
And Randolph a Philip Randolph actually at [01:01:00] that time, did not want him over there. He wrote him a letter saying, you need to come back to the United States, enough of what you're doing in Africa. We need help on the primaries for, for President Kennedy and the Democrats, and you need to be here, and so on and so forth.
One of the last, events that Julian Bond, the great civil rights leader who's now passed one of the last public things he did, I was with him. We spoke on a panel together and we were speaking about the Civil Rights Act and civil rights movement.
And I was speaking first, and somebody in the crowd asked me about the march on Washington, the original March on Washington. And for a moment, I forgot Julian Bond was right next to me, this giant civil rights leader, this amazing individual. And I just went in and I said, I think the, the March on Washington was a picnic.
It was a circus. I took the total Malcolm X approach. I said you know, a real protest doesn't tell you what time to leave and what time to [01:02:00] show up and what signs you should have. And, and and, and women weren't allowed to speak at the march on Washington. It was safe, and it should have been radical and.
This went all in. And then I remembered Mr. Bond was right here. I go, oh, he is gonna say white boy. What are you talking about? You have no reason to even be talking about this. So sit down and shut up. And Julian Bond went to the mike and said, I agree with everything Vin said. And I went, whew. Okay.
And I say that because what wasn't in the film, there's no question that March, Washington was significant, but what they did not show in the film was at the very end when the other civil rights leaders are asked to go to the White House, Rustin doesn't go. And he says, I'm gonna help clean up the trash with the other folks in real life.
When he was doing that, he ran into Malcolm X on the mall and Malcolm X said to him you know, Byard, this dream that Martin has, when it's all [01:03:00] said and done, it's gonna be a nightmare. And Rustin, who was always positive. Looked at Malcolm and said, you know what? I think you're right. And he was, because what happened two weeks later, the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in which four little girls were killed and their teachers also killed.
And that really shook the civil rights movement to its core. It really started people to say, we need, the nonviolence just isn't working. We need to try something else. Right. So to leave that out, I think is also a significant piece of, you know, kind of creating this movie where we wanna kind of put everything in a bow for, let's face it, for white folks to watch this movie and go, oh, see, we all came together.
It all worked out and now I can feel good. Yes. And that's just not reality, right? I mean, now I get it. It's not a documentary, it's a film, but that's, you know, that, that, and that's kind of what I felt even when I watched I remember watching the help. I felt the same way, you know? [01:04:00] But the importance for us and for, for this podcast is to show you that Oppenheimer isn't the only character in these Oscars that actually care deeply about nuclear disarmament.
Barry Rustin was another one, even though it's not in the film. He was somebody that cared about this issue and worked on it. His, you know, since 1945.
Ola: And I think that is extremely important for our listeners to contextualize when looking at the. Political relevance of awards like the Oscars or the Academy Awards and just awards in general for arts and culture, because we should never forget that a lot of the censorship, a lot of the pussyfooting, a lot of the nice tying of serious facts into bows to be packaged as movies is actually determined by the, I would say, political, commercial [01:05:00] career goals of people involved in the movie industry where they have to sanitize things to be able to have these things, these products accepted in the mainstreams and validated by the, you know, receive receiving of an award or something
Vin: Yeah. And I mean, again, like Oppenheimer, there should be again, I'm not, if the, it was mostly about the goal is to have the rust and Phil be mostly about the March in Washington. Great. But
maybe there should be a documentary like we just talked about with Einstein the bomb, where it's just about maybe Rustin's work in this field and have that as that com, that companion for folks that for the first time are discovering him and now wanna learn more about him.
Ola: Exactly. And I think that's the biggest takeaway for us and for our listeners
Vin: well, the takeaway for me has always been that one movie or one book should not be the be all end all, that you should, again, surround yourself more, or, or it's on us as consumers to then look at, read multiple things. [01:06:00] You know, a lot of people, they, they watch they watched Spike Lee's film, Malcolm X, which Denzel Washington was phenomenal, should have won the Academy Award for that.
And the, the film was great, but the, the film wasn't a hundred percent accurate because again, there's only so much you can put in a two to three hour film and it's Spike Lee's interpretation of Alex Haley's interpretation of Malcolm X because if the autobiography is actually written, I. It's Alex Haley's interpretation of what Malcolm was telling him.
And there's a lot more to in that story. But yeah. So you gotta say, okay, watch this film. Now I'm gonna go watch some documentaries. Now I'm gonna read the autobiography myself. I'm gonna read some other things, and then I can start putting it all together and say, okay, now what do I believe now that I have all of these facts in front of me?
And so yeah, I think it's a, it's a cautionary tale to not just as good as a film can be, to take that as the be all, end all of somebody's life and story. Right.
Ola: ab absolutely.
Vin: And that brings us [01:07:00] to another film actually in the Academy Awards, which is Maestro, which have you seen Maestro yet?
Ola: no,
Vin: Okay. Highly recommend seeing it.
And Maestro is the Life of Composer Leonard Bernstein. And Bradley Cooper plays him, and Kerry Mulligan plays his wife and it is. For me it was gorgeous. It was a beautifully, I think, done film cinematography wise, obviously score wise. But again, only so much you can fit in a film and I'm okay with that.
But one thing that was not in the film was all of Leonard Bernstein's activism, and he was somebody that fought deeply for civil rights. He was somebody who fought for hiv aids, which, you know, in the 1980s was an epidemic and was being, nothing was being done at the White House with, with President [01:08:00] Reagan, and he fought.
Very, very hard for nuclear disarmament. So again, here we have another person. I did some research on him and for an article I wrote. And he this is something he cared deeply about, spoke about whenever he had the chance. And so again, we have a film that for some folks, I hope they're discovering Leonard Bernstein for the first time.
And I hope when they go out and research more, they're gonna see the effect he had in all these social causes that he championed that just simply couldn't make it in the movie.
Ola: You know, it, I get the feeling. You know, apart from Oppenheimer in the candidate movies for this year's academy Awards, I get the feeling in nuclear advocacy is the one thing that is. Somehow being left out. Well, not as a result of conspiracy, but it just seems like there is an assumption that there's no market to [01:09:00] these parts of people's lives.
And it goes beyond even film and tv, you know there's this famous designer in the uk, her name was Vivian Westwood, right? Most people know Vivian Westwood because of her opulent you know, handbags and accessories and and whatnot. But this was also a very significant nuclear disarmament campaigner.
This is just a segue to say that we have had some very significant, you know, political, cultural, musical icons that have had serious feelings about nuclear disarmament and have aired these and campaign for it, and it just somehow doesn't make the cut.
Vin: Yeah, absolutely.
ola-_2_03-03-2024_172415: why?
Vin: Yeah. I. You know, historically celebrities have been involved in this issue. In the 1980s you had performing artists for nuclear disarmament, and you had, [01:10:00] actors and actresses, or whether it was musicians, people like Harry Belafonte, whether it was you had people like Shaka Khan or the last poets, James Taylor, Jackson Brown, Bruce Springsteen, I mean, go on and on.
Even, you know, we've seen a resurgence of, of Tracy Chapman recently, and she was somebody that routinely played benefit concerts for nuclear disarmorment. So, and, and then that was in the eighties. And if you jump to the Iran nuclear deal when that was happening during Obama's presidency, you had that campaign that was Morgan Freeman and, and Matt Damon and others were speaking out to try to to, to get that passed as well.
So yeah, I think Nuclear disarmament has been on the radar of celebrities, musicians for a long time really. And since 1945. And we're just seeing more of it now, which is really, whether certain folks wanna include in the movies, we are seeing more and more
people get involved or wanna know more about this issue.
And that can only be a good thing. But I think there is this idea of, [01:11:00] well, if Christopher Nolan or Robert Downey or Cillian Murphy, if these folks win, Emily Blunt the Academy Award, will they give a speech that touches on nuclear disarmament? But also, will anybody dare to give a statement or a speech on what's happening in Gaza?
And that leads us to kind of the next thing we wanna talk about, which is the history of political speeches at the Oscars and what can happen when a celebrity, you know, does something like this. The first one that kind of always gets mentioned, I think partly it's 'cause one of the first real political things that happened there was with Marlon Brando in 1973.
So are you familiar with what happened here?
Ola: No, and
I'll just put some context.
Vin: yeah. So, Marlon Brando obviously one at the time, one of the best actors out there, a streetcar named [01:12:00] desire on the waterfront and, and of course the Godfather. And when he, and, and in a little context, Marlon Brando was certainly socially active.
He was a supporter of the Black Panther Party. This was, you know, somebody that definitely, you know, leaned left on his politics. And in 1973, Marlon Brando won the Academy Award for best actor for the Godfather. And instead of going up there. He actually sends up a 26-year-old Apache Native American woman named Sachine Little Feather.
LIttlefeather Oscar Speech: Accepting the award for Marlon Brando in The Godfather, Miss Sachine Littlefeather. Hello,
Vin: and she is dressed in traditional Native American attire, and she goes up there to deliver a speech on his behalf. And [01:13:00] he didn't even attend.
LIttlefeather Oscar Speech: my name is Sachine Littlefeather. I'm Apache, and I'm president of the National Native American Affirmative Image Committee. I'm representing Marlon Brando this evening. And he has asked me to tell you in a very long speech, which I cannot share with you presently because of time, but I will be glad to share with the press afterwards, that he very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award.
And the reasons for this being are the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry, excuse me,
and on television in movie reruns and also with recent happenings at Wounded Knee. I beg at this time that I have not [01:14:00] intruded upon this evening and that we will, in the future, our hearts and our understandings will meet with love and generosity. Thank you on behalf of Marlon Brando.
Vin: And this was to talk. She, the, the speech was to talk about it was way too long, so she has to condense it. And she says that, and she says it's to talk about the way Native Americans are treated in Hollywood, and then also to talk about what was happening at that time where Native American activists were.
Essentially what, what had happened to them at Wounded Knee in 1890? There was another occupation that was happening in the same place at the time, and if you watch it, some immediately applause. Then there's jeers and booze from the crowd. But the crazy thing is that John Wayne actually had to be restrained by [01:15:00] security because he wanted to get to the stage to, to attack her physically.
Ola: Oh wow.
Vin: Yeah. In fact,
Ola: Holy
Vin: in fact, she says, during my presentation, John Wayne was coming towards me to forcefully take me off the stage and had to be restrained by six security men to prevent him from doing so. And then she's escorted off the stage and then John Wayne waits backstage to lunge at her to go after her again.
And it's, it's incredible. And then afterwards she says that, john Wayne actually says I don't know if, if afterwards, if I should prevent an award on behalf of all the cowboys that were shot in John Ford Westerns over the years. And and he says that if Brando had something to say, he should have appeared that night and stated his views instead of taking some little unknown girl and dressing her up in an Indian outfit.
. So this reminded me of Killer of the Flower [01:16:00] Moon film that's up for the Academy Award and Lily Gladstone, who is up for best actress and, you know, what she would, could potentially say or what, what, how far we've come since then. Good or bad. And it also reminded me and made me think of what Cold War culture was like in the 1950s
Ola: yeah.
Vin: before Brando wins it.
You know, John Wayne was the, in, in movies. He was. What people defined as manhood, right? The cowboy, the western guy, the, the soldier that fights on World War ii, on the battlefield, storming the beaches on Normandy. You know, this was the whole mo And in the fifties it was the man goes to work and you know, the nuclear family the woman you know is, is at home making pies in her heels.
And kids are watching Ozzie and Harriet and hiding under their desks from fearing the, you know, the big red menace and nuclear war. And it was this [01:17:00] whole thing of identity, right?
And of course, and, and, and Clin Eastwood was yet another one in this kind of whole genre. And then you fast forward and you look at the very kids, the very little boys that watch these John Wayne films are then the ones to go in Vietnam because they go, our dads were in World War ii.
This is what it means to be a man, right? So I need to go fight in Vietnam. And then you cut to. The same folks that grow up watching the boys that watch in the 1980s Rambo, right? Rambo's the Man, Delta Force and Chuck Norris and go kill all the Vietnamese. They're the ones then that become the Chris Kyles an American sniper and zero dark 30.
And it's the same pattern over and over again of these, these cultural cold warriors. Right? ,
Ola: and you know not to,. We also have to think about the more and more political the Academy [01:18:00] Awards become, maybe they should think about beefing up security because it's not been so long ago since someone is, was assaulted on stage
Vin: Right. And you, yeah.
Ola: these awards
Vin: Right. And you also yeah, and you think of like how many people, then you get into that whole thing too, of like, well, I don't want politics in my, just shut up and dribble. Just do the movies. You know? But everything, you can't get around it. And one thing that is kind of hitting me is, will somebody, when you have a microphone and millions of people are watching you on this one night, I don't wanna say obligation, but you know, there's a genocide taking place right now.
How do you not say something? And I, but again, I know there's a political price for that and that reminded me in. So in 1978, Vanessa Redgrave won best supporting actress for her role in the film, Julia, in which she actually plays an [01:19:00] anti-Nazi operative. And in her speech, she says that she wants to be thankful of those that stood up to quote Zionist hoodlums, whose behavior was an insult to the stature of Jews all over the world.
And and then said that she wanted to make sure that she was promising for her whole life to fight against antisemitism and fascism as long as she lives. And this was apparently because she had also done a documentary about Palestine and a group of, of anti Palestinian activists really went all in attacking her for being in this, for doing this.
And so when she made this speech at the Oscars, there was just tons of booing and gasps. And so, you know, I. That's the closest thing to what we're looking at today. [01:20:00] And just recently, the Israeli filmmaker, Yuval Abraham he won the best film at the film festival. He won the best prize for the film.
He did no other land about Palestine in Germany. And when he went to give his speech, he had a Palestinian man with him who was part of the film. And they stood together and called for a ceasefire.
Berlinale Speech: want to say we are, we are standing in front of you now, me and Bassel are the same age. I am Israeli, Bassel is Palestinian, and in two days we will go back to a land where we are not equal. I am living under a civilian law and Bassel is under military law. We live 30 minutes from one another, but I have voting rights.
Basel is not having voting rights. I am free to move where I want in this land. Basel is, like millions of Palestinians, locked in the occupied West Bank. This situation of apartheid between us, this inequality, [01:21:00] it has to end.
Vin: And here's this Jewish man saying that it's a, it's a, it's becoming apartheid and we must do everything to stop this.
And he got destroyed.
Boos, death threats, press, calling him an anti-Semite. This is a Jewish man just being destroyed for essentially calling for, you know, a better world humanity, a ceasefire. So there are real consequences for. Putting yourself out there, and I just wonder what will happen if anybody says anything at this, you know, at at the Academy Awards this year.
Ola: I think it would be quite the explosion. If anyone said anything about the genocide taking place, but what is even more mind bending is that we're having people speak out about a genocide that is before the court, before the International Court of
Vin: Hmm.
Ola: It's not as though they are the first to [01:22:00] describe what they're seeing as genocide. This is something that's already being described and being investigated as such by the Apex Court of International Law. And yet people still pay heavy political prices for just describing what they are seeing.
Vin: Yeah,
I mean, to go back to Vanessa Redgrave, she apparently was the Jewish Defense League that went after her for these, for, for these comments or for making this, this documentary. And they not only burned her an effigy, they offered to put a bounty on her head to have her killed just for making a documentary.
So you know, again, I think back of the Iraq War, I think of the Dixie Chicks, right? The Dixie Chicks, and Natalie Maine's, the lead singer from Texas, makes one comment where she's ashamed that the president is from her home state during the Iraq war, and that's it. They are destroyed. Destroyed great documentary on their, on their life after [01:23:00] this.
I mean, they are now, their CDs are burned, their persona non grata on country music. All of this kind of stuff. And we just lost Toby Keith, who was one of the leaders in just going after them with everything he had just destroying their lives. So,
you know, yeah. There's real consequences for speaking out.
So, you know, have people in Hollywood done this and, and, and risked it? Yes. We've seen Leonardo DiCaprio speak at the Academy Awards for Climate Change. The when the Cove won the best documentary in 2010, they, they went, they dropped, did a banner drop that said ta text Dolphin for support of this issue.
For, in 2003, when Michael Moore won for best documentary for Bowling for Columbine, that was really something, because that was right when he was getting to the height of his career and he went up there and, and said, you know, president George Bush, shame on you for entering this, you know, this Iraq war for fictitious reason, reasons, and people were booing because [01:24:00] again, after nine 11, right after that it was with us or against us, like, you know, so so yeah, there's been, you know even as, or as late as 2020, Joaquin Phoenix, when he went for the Joker had some really amazing comments about just sentient beings and, and how we just, you know, what we do to, to cows and, and their mothers and the children and milk and just with no regard.
Joaquin Phoenix: Whether we're talking about gender inequality, or racism, or queer rights, or indigenous rights, or animal rights, we're talking about the fight against injustice.
We're talking about the fight against the belief that one nation, one people, one race, one gender, or one species has the right to dominate, control, and use, and exploit another with impunity. Alright.
Vin: , but I wonder too, what's deemed safe. Right. Somebody goes up there and says, we should eliminate all nuclear weapons. I don't think everybody's gonna boo you go, meh. [01:25:00] Okay Oppenheimer. But if somebody goes up there and says, the Palestinian people from the river to the sea, you know?
Yeah. So,
Ola: they're gonna need a hell, a lot more security
Vin: Right, right,
Ola: you know who needed in 2022.
Vin: right. So you wonder what, you know, what's, what's gonna happen at, at these Academy Awards when we have this, this long history of political statements and then somewhat backlash. But again, for, for me, I'm excited because we had Oppenheimer, we've talked about Rustin, we've talked about Bernstein.
So I hope that listeners that aren't familiar with them will learn this history as a result of these great films. And now we have documentaries coming out, whether it's the Einstein one or the other one coming out on the Cold War in the bomb. And I hope that this content just keeps growing so that, you know, people, again, are, are educating themselves about this issue, are inspired, motivated to act.
And hopefully with our podcast we can you know, again, reach, reach folks who don't really think too much about this and, [01:26:00] You know, need it broken down in a plain way. And, and realize how it affects them. Again, going all the way back to the beginning of this pod where watch the steel you're using 'cause it could be radioactive and how it affects you in your day to day life.
Yes, exactly. Exactly.
Ola: you know, I'm, I'm sort of hoping as a result of, of Oppenheimer that this ecosystem of movies focusing on nuclear disarmament, shaman blossoms into an ecosystem that can potentially recreate the day after movie,
especially the day after movie, and set it in a 2024 environment.
Because, I mean. It doesn't take too much imagination to be able to recreate using modern technology
Vin: That's the thing, Ola, when I thought about, yeah, when I thought about the day after being done today. I thought about with the technology we have today, the [01:27:00] CGI, the graphics, that would be ridiculous.
Ola: It'll be remarkable, but also it's also like it immersion into people's daily lives. I wonder if for a new day after movie could be made following, say, a content creator on Instagram, right. Just people produce content all the You know, people produce content for Sheen and for all sorts of designers, and you can imagine what their life is like, you know? Produce all day long, but you know, scroll past some nuclear stuff in their feed because they follow like, you know, Al Jazeera Instagram filter through all the news about NATO and Russia and Ukraine and what have you, and then just like recreate a moment of interruption because of a nuclear destination
Vin: Here's the other, here's the other thing though, like. When you watch the day after, it's incredibly depressing. Obviously [01:28:00] the subject matter, nuclear weapons gone off and what happens to these survivors in the United States. And so I don't wanna, you don't wanna minimize it by making, you know, some rosy ending.
Right.
Ola: Don't need Rosie and
Vin: but yeah, it's not a Hallmark movie. Right. It's, yeah. You know, but at the same point, it's kind of like that whole thing of can you organize folks just based on fear alone, or in this case, kind of something really depressing. Do you have to also give them the agency or the, you know, the, that, that piece to say, okay, I, now I know what has happened, here's how I can actually change it.
So
you think, like, do you end a film like that in today's day and age with. You know, something like showing the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons being passed, or, you know, people in the streets. I don't know. But do you show something where somebody can walk away and say, okay, I know two things.
One, this cannot happen while I'm alive. I don't want this to happen to my kids, my pets, I, I don't, this can't [01:29:00] happen. And then two, here's what I can do about it so it doesn't happen. And I think that's a crucial piece, whether that's, again, in a panel thing afterwards, it's, I, I, I'm not sure, but I, I think, you know, that's something that we should, you know,
Ola: I think there's definitely ways to, to create such a contemporary movie that includes options for what people can do. But I also think we don't have a moral responsibility
Vin: this is true. Yeah.
Ola: to give people hope or inspire them when we know that the reality itself, you know, contains elements of hope, but also is overwhelmingly depressing.
And what I mean is this, if we were to have such a modern day remake, it would of course reference the treaty under prohibition of nuclear weapons. It would reference the different, you know, [01:30:00] treaties and mechanisms that we have to try and avoid this eventuality. But it would be false if we were to offer people hope on the basis of these treaties and agreements when we live in a reality where the potential users of these nuclear weapons have completely ignored or circumvented these treaties and agreements.
Vin: Yeah, I think you're a hundred percent right, because if you think about it, some of the most, at least for me, some of the most impactful films do not have this rosy ending or tell me I can go do something. Right? I think about, I. In terms of, you know, when Black Lives Matter happened, there was this kind of rush
Ola: Mm.
Vin: to just put out anything you can and just slap Black Lives Matter on it, even when it, you know, and it was ridiculous.
Ola: I saw this David Erta video on Instagram yesterday where they were like, David Erta ended racism, and he was just scratching the
Vin: yeah, I remember when the, when the NWA film came out and, and I remember seeing [01:31:00] the trailer being like NWA, they changed the world and duh, and in, in a like a positive way. And I'm thinking like outside of f the police, they were the most misogynistic group out there. Like they more public enemy, like, what are you talking about?
But again, marketing. But I say that because one of the films that actually did get it right and was so well done was Fruit Vale Station. And Fruit Vale Station does not have a happy ending. It. That's the reality of what happened. So. You know, whether it's a remake of the day after, or 12 years a Slave, right?
12 years a Slave. Well, it's a happy ending that after 12 years he goes home. No, that's not a happy ending because you, you know, you still have all of the horror that you just wa you went through two and a half hours of absolute horror and, you know, this is still going on. It didn't end at the end of the movie.
It's not even Civil War happened at the end of the movie. Right. So, and it makes you, you know, obviously it was a masterpiece versus a movie like the Help where you have Skeeter, Emma Stone, the white girl being the [01:32:00] protagonist, you know, have these almost props around her, sprinkling a little racism and tie it up in a bow at the end.
And again, a film clearly made for white people to watch it and go, oh, okay, it's racism's over now. And, you know, those a good hearted white person, you know, that's not real like, you know, in a lot of ways. So I think you're right in that. You know, it may not be that having a movie that does not end, I, I understand you want, people wanna go to the movies to kind of escape and feel good and watch Barbie and things like that, but that, that's just not every film is gonna be that way when we're talking about such serious, you know, subject matter.
Ola: exactly. And it's less contextualize that people going into the
movies to escape reality that they find oppressing. But the reality is, if you're going to a movie in any of the major cities in America or any of the major theater in the uk. There's a target in your head. That's the reality. Something could [01:33:00] happen.
Some sort of intended or escalation could happen, and you're not gonna walk outta that movie theater.
It is just a fact. And people are unaware of this. And I think there, there's a responsibility here for advocates and for filmmakers to educate people on the reality they live it. It's like, you know, there's just this responsibility, right? The fact that people do not know, it's not like they're consciously filtering out these threats. People genuinely do not know about the
they live under.
Vin: Well, and one thing we learned too is that even if a subject matter is really hard and it's serious and it's could be depressing, it can be just gut wrenching. Whether that's Schindler's List, 12 Years a slave film like Op Outta the Day After, if you have good scripts and actors and directors, you can get people to [01:34:00] watch.
To be engaged, to be hooked in. And again, that's all you can ask for, right? And then hopefully they go on to learn more or, you know, listen to pause like this or others and, and, you know, be inspired and, and, and, you know, go from there. So
on that note, we why don't we, we, we call it for today. So we'll see what the Oscars brings in a couple days.
There's certainly gonna be no shortage of issues to discuss post Oscars. And we'll see if they, if anybody does have the courage to speak out on some of these issues, what their reactions will be. As always, we wanna thank Lex International, Jason, and the whole team for making this happen. If you enjoyed this episode, give us a follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcast.
You could follow us on Twitter at Minds Blown Pod, or our website Minds Blown Show. So thank you all again for giving us a chance for listening, and we will be talking to you soon. Bye everybody.
Ola: See you next time.
Iran Nuclear Deal Ad: I love playing frisbee with my [01:35:00] sons. I love the sound of the waves on the Pacific at sunrise. I love curling up with a good book. I love to see my grandkids smile. But if Congress sabotages the nuclear deal with Iran We could be denied the very moments that make our lives worth living. Why?
Cause we'd be dead. Super dead. Like totally fried by a major nuclear bomb dead. I won't be able to play frisbee with my sons cause there won't even be a frisbee. The frisbee will be melted. We will be melted. Or worse. Yes, Natasha, but most people think toast is delicious. This would not be that kind of toast.
It would be like a really dark, unpleasant cloud of death toast
Ola: Minds Blown. Is produced by Jackson Street Collective and made possible by Lex International.
Berlinale Speech: [01:36:00] Good evening everybody. We're glad to be here and grateful. It's our first movie since. Many years, my community, my family has been filming our community being erased by this brutal occupation. I'm here celebrating the award, [01:37:00] but also very hard for me to celebrate when there are tens of thousands of my people being slaughtered and massacred by Israel in Gaza.
My community is being also erased by Israeli bulldozers. I ask one thing for Germany, as I am in Berlin here, to respect the UN calls and stop sending weapons to Israel. I