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College to Screen Cold War Film, The Atomic Cafe

Quaker Heritage Center
Documentary Uses Black Humor in Evoking Essence of Old Propaganda Films Wilmington College will present the film, The Atomic Café, Thursday (Oct. 5), at 7 p.m., in the Meriam R. Hare Quaker Heritage Center. The event is featured programming associated with the QHC’s Marshall Plan poster exhibit, which highlights the rebuilding of Europe after World War II and the Cold War era. The 1982 documentary exposes, often through black humor, how the government seemingly downplayed the peril to humankind with regard to atomic weapons in revealing how propaganda films were used to shape public opinion from the dawn of the nuclear age. Americans who were school children in the 1950s and ‘60s may remember the government training film, Duck and Cover, shown in their schools in which children were instructed to seek shelter from an atomic attack under their desks. Indeed, President Harry Truman reportedly called the atomic bomb “a gift from God” and a comment from a U.S. Army training film featured the line: "Viewed from a safe distance, the atomic bomb is one of the most beautiful sights ever seen by man." Producer/directors Jayne Loader, Kevin Rafferty and Pierce Rafferty released The Atomic Café in the early 1980s to a cynical nation that largely mistrusted government in the wake of the Watergate scandal and as revelations surfaced about the Vietnam War. Also, at the time, the Reagan Administration was ramping up the nation’s nuclear defenses and its rhetoric in the arms race with the former Soviet Union. The Marshall Plan poster exhibit, titled “Cooperation Means Prosperity: Marshall Plan Posters for Post WWII Recovery,” is running through Dec. 8. Normal gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 10 a.m. to noon Fridays. Admission is free of charge.