It’s not like we weren’t warned…

The other night, last night, as per our schedule, my son and I watched a movie. He gets to pick and… if it’s a good pick, we see it. If it’s not a good pick, I get to pick and we watch it, and he’d better like it. His pick was Dr. Strangelove. He mentioned to me that he’d come across it while doing research for an English class paper on “comedy”. Pretty sophisticated for an eleventh grader, but what the heck.

“It’s a comedy?” I asked, more or less knowingly.

“It’s satire, that’s comedy, isn’t it?” he replied.

“I guess. ‘Dr. Strangelove’ is what’s called a ‘dark comedy’. Let’s see it.”

And we did. I actually don’t like the movie. Nonetheless, it is an excellent film. The writing, dialogue, all of it is brilliant. But… I just came away from it all realizing that the film’s main villain, General Jack D. Ripper, is an insane American. The secondary villain, General Buck Turgidson, is a pathetic, incompetent American. Insanity can be hidden until it’s too late. Incompetence is revealed before all, especially when things go wrong and the assuring smiles just don’t cut it.

ANYWAY: Dr. Strangelove is, of course, one of the quintessential Cold War movies of the early-mid 1960s. And… (I think I’ve seen it four times now - really leaves a mark, it does) I always come away uneasy: America is the bad guy, even if we didn’t really want to be. And… something just says “subtle communist propaganda at work” (I am not alone in thinking so.)

But, 20-30 years ago (or more or now) I’d be labeled a “kook.”

The kooks, mind you, had been hard at work since the end of WWII.

Comic books! My dad still had his collection of comics from the 1940s, and one of the masterpieces was Is This Tomorrow?: America Under Communism (1947). It sent chills down my spine and still does! Here’s some of its kookiness:

There there’s America Under Socialism (1950) - check out this panel…

And then, hey! Ace of Spades just the other day had this. Apparently someone’s written a fictional work about the future of New York City or some such - interesting juxtaposition, no?

Here’s one from The Red Iceberg (1960). Can you believe this kookiness? Really?

And…how about the epitome of kookiness: The Two Faces of Communism (1961):

And so forth. Why, why, it’s as if the 2012 graphic novel, made into quite a good movie, The Death of Stalin, was available to the red-blooded, American youth of 60+ years past! (Note: all of the above comics highlight that Jew-hatred -and race-hatred in general - is un-American and part of the commie plot; the “professor” does have a “look,” though, that wasn’t lost on me.)

The last bit of absolute kookiness, of course… not to be outdone by the Roman Catholics (who published Is This Tomorrow? and others), there was/is Jack Chick:

Jack Chick’s Christian tracts are everywhere! They’ve been around for at least 50 years and counting. And they’re collectible, too.

And they’re kookie, right? Many of the Chick tracts are overtly anti-Roman Catholic, and a couple are overtly anti-Communist (Jack Chick thought they were one and the same - that’s taking kookiness to the max). Nevertheless, they’re quick reads and one can ignore the story (and disagree with his eschatology) - or if your kid gets one of these, how about answering his/her questions? But…strange how the dystopia depicted in those little comic tracts looks familiar.

Grown-ups all know that comic books are for the sub-literate masses - cheap thrills and propaganda, and anyone over 14 reading them is stupid, anyone giving them credibility is a kook. OK, then, I guess that Dr. Zhivago is kookiness for the literate masses.

It’s not like we weren’t warned.