tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post3951876041006005116..comments2024-03-27T08:49:38.786-03:00Comments on Siskoid's Blog of Geekery: Dr. Strangelove: The Cold War as Sexual TensionSiskoidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08266365376486695812noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post-13471222349303254082020-08-03T16:37:28.067-03:002020-08-03T16:37:28.067-03:00I understand that, but I believe it to be a double...I understand that, but I believe it to be a double-entendre.Siskoidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08266365376486695812noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post-53202019087816261762020-08-03T15:12:22.571-03:002020-08-03T15:12:22.571-03:00Just a clarification. The nylon stockings are not ...Just a clarification. The nylon stockings are not for evading capture by dressing as a woman! That had me rotflmao! The nylon stockings reference is about giving nylons to women during WWII in order to get laid. There was a shortage of nylon as well as most things at that time. It all went to the war effort. So women had no stockings. Cross dressing?! That's one of the funniest mistakes I've ever heard.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post-32869017595746625522017-01-03T16:40:45.844-04:002017-01-03T16:40:45.844-04:00That's a great one. Could make a good article,...That's a great one. Could make a good article, I agree.Siskoidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08266365376486695812noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post-50590580013023596172017-01-03T16:17:29.571-04:002017-01-03T16:17:29.571-04:00You guys seem to enjoy interpreting movies.. Give ...You guys seem to enjoy interpreting movies.. Give Brazil from 1985 a watch.. there's meaning behind almost every scene.. genius.Daedaloshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08128699072998085609noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post-22769362076786545542012-01-31T07:34:01.164-04:002012-01-31T07:34:01.164-04:00Strangelove. Oddbedfellows. Twototango. Mutuall...Strangelove. Oddbedfellows. Twototango. Mutuallyassureddestruction.Tesera Tetradhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17002726316562848785noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post-13136605144574623292010-03-25T20:15:49.463-03:002010-03-25T20:15:49.463-03:00I've seen this movie over and over and the gum...I've seen this movie over and over and the gum never clicked until I read this blog, which I found from googling Dr. Strangelove and gum. Then it hit me. I used to work on ICBMs, and to see one of those babies coming out of the 'hole' is an awesome sight. Flames blasting in pulses, the screaming engines, the size of a 8 mega ton tipped Titan II. Knowing what total destruction they contain can make the strongest man cry. The pain of birth and death at the same time.<br /><br />If you ever get the chance, try to fine any information on the OBLSS project which I worked on. Operation Base Launch Safety System. It was designed to circumvent the fail safes during the final year of Nixon because he wanted to Nuke Hanoi and win the war in Viet Nam and stay on as president. It would have easily started WW3. Some day I'll write a book about it and maybe someone will make it into a movie just as implausible as Strangelove and it's sister movie "Fail Safe". The World was one P-Plug away from annihilation. The P-Plug on an ICBM ties the launch control complex with a missile in a silo and a target to deliver the 'package' to. Sometimes sabotage to save the world is a good thing.<br /><br />I worked in a building with a big sign that said "Warning Access Restricted" (WAR) at the end of a road called "Reentry Road" (The road to war).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post-62877659759815628212010-03-25T18:13:18.854-03:002010-03-25T18:13:18.854-03:00Pile it on, friend. Pile it on.Pile it on, friend. Pile it on.Siskoidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08266365376486695812noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post-63092347399653843502010-03-25T17:42:08.387-03:002010-03-25T17:42:08.387-03:00Gum is a metaphor for rubber, the slang for condom...Gum is a metaphor for rubber, the slang for condom. Gum used to be made from rubber gum.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post-14596371062919259352008-11-15T22:08:00.000-04:002008-11-15T22:08:00.000-04:00No, thank you.I think a person could list every se...No, thank you.<BR/><BR/>I think a person could list every second in the two hours as evidence, but ultimately the point seems to be to just get it from where the film is coming from, and enjoy all of those throughout all moments of the film.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post-86484785624707477952008-11-15T21:21:00.000-04:002008-11-15T21:21:00.000-04:00Thanks for all that Mick. You've added even more o...Thanks for all that Mick. You've added even more onto the pile.Siskoidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08266365376486695812noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post-8792801098792640382008-11-15T18:41:00.000-04:002008-11-15T18:41:00.000-04:00PS: the music of the credits isn't the same of the...PS: the music of the credits isn't the same of the ending (but I agree that it basically has the same function). Believe it or not, the title is something to the effect of "Try a little tenderness" (very fit for the overall role women are given in that society as objects for homosocial dynamics, those circles and the film).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post-83391581162075677232008-11-15T18:31:00.000-04:002008-11-15T18:31:00.000-04:00Really, I looked for something like this a lot. Th...Really, I looked for something like this a lot. Thank you. All I could find were mentions of the little blatant gag names, never making any connection or articulation to the overall themes, how the scenes or gags articulate and so on. I never found any mention of how the entire film is about the sexual frustration and war as its surrogate. Just the little bits and occasional insights ("Kong on the bomb as the phallus as both fucker and fuckeed" etc -- never for instance on why his name is Kong and how it relates to King Kong's phallus-embracing ending and how those articulate throughout each scene).<BR/><BR/>I never saw anyone mentioning how the humour in Mandrake's reaction to Ripper's mention of Mandrake's body being water ("that's what I'm getting into: water!" he says while hugging him) is about the weird sexual (almost flirtatious) undertones that Ripper can't see properly (except concerning that one night of "loss of essence").<BR/><BR/>Or the ways the many Others overlap ("Other" fitting for both women/men and countries -- the book on the only-woman-of-the-film's ass being "Foreign Affairs" not just being a very crude anal joke, but also this one of many notes of the overall musical opera of this 2 hour long sex joke about penetrating the unknown Other -- even more taking in consideration the role of women to these men's POV). Or that when we see Miss Scott splayed in bed like the in the playboy magazine (/territory that Kong should be familiar with so he can drop his load -- or maybe that's what he's doing really) is paralleled to Buck droping his own load in the bathroom (but a different sort of release -- a bat guano if he was a bat, but considering the other meaning for the word bat, a fitting juxtaposition of the two sorts of loads). Or how Ripper's closing of his window is very much like the films of those times' "fade out" sex scenes (the sex scene being everything we're about to see).<BR/><BR/>Man, there's way too much to even begin to list. Kennedy being paralleled by the "not macho enough" president (even if he was a very aggressive president -- but pushed by the military, the news and the culture for not being texan-like -- which I'm sure Sellers could not satirize as well as Slim Pickens' sad real deal did), the ways Sellers satirizes the roles (Mandrake as a joke on the stuffy brit, or joking on how some could see it: effeminate; Strangelove as the joke on the german figures in hollywood films, also the death-sex central representation in the allure of technocratic destruction when dead from the waist down), the way the russian guy is a satire on the America's obsession with the big strong monstruous bear-like russian (and the homoerotic undertones of that anxiety), the big cumshot at the alternate ending (as well as the final ending, the "petit mort", following Strangelove's erection). Jesus, people rarely even mention why Strangelove has that name. The way the cover jokes on an anxiety about the russian scoring over us (but a different "scoring") contrasted to how Ripper's machine gun phallus is on a golf bag. How the Coke machine is not just a slapstick joke (or not even just a capitalism joke). etc etc<BR/><BR/>It's really an endless stream of jokes on the authoritarian/ fascist/ bellic-based culture of coitus interruptus. I really can't believe there aren't a thousand essays mixing Freud with Reich (charlatan, yeah, but there was some point about those impulses being surrogates for sexual frustration) about this movie.<BR/><BR/>But what really strikes me the most was the control in language Kubrick and others had. Goddamn, I wish Alan Moore would watch this film more often (I could have enjoyed Lost Girls more if he had).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post-86339576892266611382008-10-07T12:49:00.000-03:002008-10-07T12:49:00.000-03:00Wow. Not necessarily tied to libidinous pursuits, ...Wow. Not necessarily tied to libidinous pursuits, but it fits in that context.<BR/><BR/>What does it say about me that I don't chew gum?<BR/><BR/>I'll check that "second opinion" when I get the chance.Siskoidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08266365376486695812noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post-81721107632976364642008-10-07T12:16:00.000-03:002008-10-07T12:16:00.000-03:00Yep, Dr. Strangelove IS full of sexual symbolism, ...Yep, Dr. Strangelove IS full of sexual symbolism, but you've written one of the best analyses I've seen of the film, Siskoid.:-) You also might find Roger Ebert's essay on the film interesting. It's listed under Great Movies on his Web site.<BR/><BR/>Believe it or not, chewing gum, in dream symbolism, represents an inability to digest or process information or dilemmas. It's also a sign of childlike behavior and/or feelings of vulnerability or powerlessness.<BR/><BR/>(I edited a book on dream symbolism a few years ago.) ;-)Sea-of-Greenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00813600516703661200noreply@blogger.com