Refer to the sample cultural analysis below for guidance.
The Atomic Cafe (1982) is a compilation film that includes footage from government films that were used to promote the nuclear bomb during the 1940s and 1950s. The films that constitute The Atomic Cafe offer misleading information—if not outright lies—about the dangers of atomic weapons in defending the “American way of life.”
The film addresses race, ethnicity, and national origin through its use of decades-old films that present American superiority at the expense of other cultures or nation’s interests. The atomic bomb was presented as a solution for the United States’s security, without regard for the safety of the rest of the world. We see this attitude presented in two sequences.
The first sequence is the one that chronicles the bombing of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In this sequence, we see the aftermath of the bombings, expressed through an interview with one of the pilots and a celebratory gathering after Japan surrendered to the Allies. This footage expresses the euphoria of the victory through an American perspective. But the sequence extends to include footage of the destruction that the atomic bombs left in their wake. By including this footage, the filmmakers make a point about the human toll of this victory, countering the idea that Japanese lives didn’t matter as suggested by the earlier footage.
The second sequence is the one that shows the testing on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. In this sequence, we see a map of where the testing took place. The sounds accompanying this image is of people signing a song in a language that is unrecognizable to English speakers, but likely the language of the people of Bikini Atoll. The image switches to an image of people waving at the camera, and the voiceover narrator announces that “the natives express to the people of the United States their welcome.” This sequence continues in this fashion, suggesting that the nuclear tests that would make their homes uninhabitable were welcomed by the people of Bikini Atoll. This viewpoint, expressed through the long shot camerawork, treats them, not as individuals, but as willing participants in the development of nuclear weapons.
In both sequences, we can see how American’s development and deployment of nuclear weapons reflected the contemporaneous viewpoint that non-American lives did not matter, except to advance American goals. With the filmmakers including more footage to challenge that idea, the film argues that many years later, we could be mindful about the ignorance of that thinking.