Teacher resources and professional development across the curriculum
Teacher professional development and classroom resources across the curriculum
|Creator||Twentieth Century Fox|
|Context||Released during heightened Cold War tensions in 1951|
|Audience||American movie-viewing public|
|Purpose||To show how Hollywood produced science-fiction films that reflected the threat of nuclear war with our Cold War enemies|
In 1951, Twentieth Century Fox released what became the science fiction classic, The Day the Earth Stood Still. Displeased by the Earth's detonation of the atomic bomb, an alien planetary federation sends Klaatu and his robot, Gort, to warn Earthlings to stop their aggressive use of atomic weapons or face obliteration. The film reflected Cold War fears and anxieties of nuclear war. Unlike other Hollywood science-fiction films of the day, The Day the Earth Stood Still portrayed space aliens as peaceful, portending a message of inevitable doom if Earth continued to use atomic weapons.