Talk:Culture during the Cold War

Untitled
Good start User:Hires an editor. Thanks for creating the page I suggested so long ago. Might I suggest changing the namespace? Popular culture is a subset of culture in general - why begin by limiting our article's scope? Perhaps the article could be moved to Culture during the Cold War or Culture of the Cold War. What do you think?&mdash;Perceval 19:19, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * An excellent thought! Changing the namespace is good. I thought of Popular Culture just because I remember the protest songs of the 80's. How about "Cold War Culture"? Hires an editor 20:28, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I changed it to Culture during the Cold War because you're not supposed to suggest that one element of the title is subordinate to the other. That way "Culture" and "Cold War" are equally important.  For example, rather than Azerbaijan's geography we use Geography of Azerbaijan.&mdash;Perceval 16:55, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I created an additional section, splitting the nuclear war in films from the films that would be more about a conventional war between the two superpowers. Ideas on this are appreciated. User:Enlightenedment

What about 'Back in the USSR' by the Beatles? Is that considered a cultural by-product of the Cold War?

World wide view
Most of the items in this article are only from the US perspective, and do not represent how the French, or Soviets/Russians, or others would have viewed the Cold War from their cultural perspectives, in terms of music, arts, movies and TV, etc. Hires an editor 18:19, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest that the article be retitled 'United States Culture...' or 'American Culture...' as it doesn't deal with any non-US presepctives ahpook 11:03, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the article should be renamed with a specification that it is about American culture 128.227.40.209 (talk) 13:40, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

It's also very light on the 50's, 60's and 70's, as if the Cold War was started by Reagan.--Straw Cat (talk) 13:22, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:On the Beach DVD cover.jpg
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BetacommandBot 00:46, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Role of governments
As it currently stands, the article focuses primarily on the range of cultural "products" that were created during the period, and to some degree on how they reflected and were influenced by the Cold War. What's largely missing is a discussion of the role that was played by the various governments in terms of promoting, suppressing, or otherwise influencing cultural expression. This is hinted at in the Intro, and touched on briefly in the HUAC section -- but it really needs to be treated in greater depth. For instance, I'm going to add a short section on the Congress for Cultural Freedom, which thankfully already has an existing article to link to. Cgingold 07:29, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for all your work on this! I'm stuck on what more to do/say about all these different things, and I've said before that this article is somewhere between list and discussion. I would like to see it less list, and more exposition. I've got more reading to do on this subject, too.


 * About the politics part, do you think that politics is/is not part of culture? I'm not sure either way, I imagine there would be arguments for both. Hires an editor 19:13, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Should we only add stuff "during" the Cold War
Hi, sorry guys about a month ago I added a 2003 video game "Freedom Fighters", to the games list. Are we only meant to add stuff that was done during the cold war??? (1945-1989) Ryan4314 (talk) 05:41, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I think so, since it is "Culture during the Cold War". Hires an editor (talk) 17:42, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, I agree with the idea, but that means this article is going to need rewrite. Specifically Culture in which country? Ryan4314 (talk) 19:02, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd like to see this reflected throughout the world, rather than US only. Particularly culture reflected in the Soviet Union, and other Eastern Bloc countries, is desired, since I wrote most of this from my own experience, and stole a bunch from other articles in wikipedia. I probably forgot to bring over sources, too. On top of that, this article is stuck between list and discussion; I'd like it to be discussion and not so much list. And better sourced! Hires an editor (talk) 00:47, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes is should be "about the world", if u can remember the bits you stole, we can get the sources. Writing an article like this gonna be tough, we preferably need an editor who lived in the Soviet Union for neutrality or something. If you want it to be like a discussion (not an actual discussion, but I know what you mean) then it's probably be best to work at 1 section at a time, e.g film. Take a load of films made during the cold war, then find sources saying how terrified people were of the Russians and Nuclear war. Then on the flipside find out about films made in the soviet union, where they as paranoid as us? etc etc Ryan4314 (talk) 06:10, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I calls dibbs on doing the games section :P Ryan4314 (talk) 07:58, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

James Bond
The James Bond Movie "A View to a Kill" includes also Cold War background. Max Zorin —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.218.83.75 (talk) 20:25, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

From the Cold War Article
The Cold War has been extensively portrayed in Western popular media, and continues to be a current topic well after the end of the era, as seen in the numerous post-1991 Cold War-themed feature films, and the ongoing 2013 US television series, The Americans, a Russian-spies-in-America action drama set in the early 1980s.

Films
 * See also Category:Cold War films

Television Literature
 * The Americans (2013-) TV series set in the early 1980s, follows two KGB agents, operating in the USA while under cover as an American family with children.
 * See also Category:Cold War novels Category:Novels set during the Cold War

Comics & graphic novels
 * Ian Fleming's From Russia, With Love
 * Peter George's Red Alert (1958)
 * Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler's Fail-Safe (1962)
 * John le Carré's The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963)
 * John le Carré's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974)
 * The Coldest City  by Antony Johnston (2012) Graphic novel set in the dying days of Soviet Communism.

Godzilla...
Need to include this in the Movies section, but the way it's currently structured, the articles doesn't leave room for "third party" points of view, such as the Japanese one with Godzilla, and their being the only ones who had ever experienced a nuclear disaster in terms of actually being the target of a nuclear weapon. As I write this, it occurs to me that we really need a section on what the Japanese thought and how their culture related to having been bombed with a nuclear weapon - for example, Godzilla was a reflection of that pathos, and I'm sure there must be other ways they would have dealt with that, in cultural terms. Hires an editor (talk) 13:33, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

CIA and Mass culture
I was searching how the CIA controls mass culture (music, film and books) from the Beatles to Hippies to pop music, Hollywood films, Grateful Dead, Jimmy Buffett etc. to keep the masses dumbed down and unaware of their own interests and I got an article about the Cold War in film. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:540:C001:7708:A93D:E631:7BC7:B732 (talk) 00:45, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

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Saving this reference for later
Interesting article on how the Soviets didn't think of the Americans and the West in the same way as cinema villains as the Americans did the Soviets:. Hires an editor (talk) 11:46, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

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Article Improvement Request
I am currently doing a revamp of the Cold War WikiProject and I noticed that this page had an Article improvement request from the WikiProject. Do you all wish to still have this page on the WikiProject (as do you still wish to have the request on the page)? If no one responds to this thread in a week, I will remove the article improvement request from the main page. I should also note that I am looking for people to help me revamp the Cold War WikiProject and if you would like to help, please leave a note on my talk page, thanks. Karthanitesh (talk) 23:08, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Lack of description for lists
A few sections in the article are just purely lists with no explanation, can someone add some here? It feels really wrong to have a list and nothing else in a non-list article. UnqaidIntern (talk) 18:06, 17 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Are they? Which sections are you meaning? Hires an editor (talk) 00:31, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
 * "Films depicting Cold War espionage", "Other films about Soviet Union–United States fears and rivalry", "Musicals and Plays", and "Other". They feel like they lack a central topic and don't belong in the rest of the article. UnqaidIntern (talk) 15:51, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Cold War Science
— Assignment last updated by TJMarti (talk) 16:35, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Cold War Science
— Assignment last updated by Michaelbrandon1523 (talk) 21:22, 3 May 2024 (UTC)