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	Podcast:		Cold War Cast
	Episode:		Gojira / Godzilla (1954)
	Category:		Society & Culture
	Duration:		00:38:28
	Publish Date:		2019-06-24 11:49:06
	Description:		Today we’re talking about the original Godzilla film which gives us a unique perspective on the Cold War climate from Japan. Godzilla is a metaphor for the atomic bomb itself as well as the potential harmful side effects of playing with technology that can’t easily be reversed. Japan held the unfortunate distinction of being the only nation to have atomic weapons used against it (and still retains that distinction, fortunately) and generally experienced a lot of destruction that would be recent memory in 1954. They were also a society that was more “caught in the middle” of the Cold War than an active participant in it. Their perspective on atomic weapons would be very different than ours at the time and the result is this great film that I think is a little more hard-hitting than the cautionary giant monster films we were turning out at the time.
	Total Play:		0