Rhetoric Classics: Duck and Cover

I had my undergraduate students watch the early 1950s Civil Defense film Duck and Cover last week in class. A number of them were laughing out loud at the absurdity of the video's premise that you should simply "duck and cover" (and perhaps shield yourself with a blanket or jacket) to protect yourself from the fallout of an atomic bomb. They quickly recognized how this video encouraged constant fear in the face of nuclear holocaust at the same time it oversimplified the threat of the atomic bomb to make it a more "manageable" reality, especially for the film's primary audience of school children.

Yet my students' reactions to this video made me wonder: what contemporary messages will students 60 years from now, in the year 2070, find quaint and amusing? Perhaps our current attempts at finding alternative fuels will, to them, seem like nothing more than an attempt to "duck and cover" from impending global climate change as events like those in Haiti last week become more and more common. Or perhaps the bailout, "cash for clunkers," etc. are nothing more than a "duck and cover" scheme to slow an inevitable recession that leads us into the dystopian future we've seen in the movies. I know I'm being a Debbie Downer in this post but I always get suspicious when students so clearly recognize the rhetorical strategies of media that don't target them while ignoring the implications of the messages that surround their own lives.