You all know the ending of Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, right? Surely this remains a universal American cultural reference point. Slim Pickens and the boys in his bomber crew are struggling heroically (despite damage to their airplane and on-board radio) to complete the mission they’ve been assigned from the man at the top. It is, of course, a bit of a shame that in this case the man at the top happens to be a psychopath seeking to trigger a nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviets, but hey, that’s not their department. These boys are hard-working Americans, and when Americans set their mind to a task, then Sir, you’d best believe they get it done, come hell or high water. And so there Slim is, trying to get the hydrogen bomb stuck in the plane’s damaged bay to drop, stomping on the release latch to open the doors, when — SNAP! — he unexpectedly succeeds such that the bomb drops with him atop it, and he rides that sucker down to the ground, waving his cowboy hat like a bronco-buster as he sends himself along with the rest of the world to our final reward. Wildly hilarious or deeply despairing? Both, and in ample measure, which is the point.
