Episodes

Hey hey movie lovers and fascism haters! Emmy-nominated filmmaker and fellow Chicagoan Melissa Fox joins us to discuss the 1982 Canadian short documentary film If You Love This Planet directed by Terre Nash. It features anti-nuclear war activist Dr. Helen Caldicott as she gives a lecture on the dangers of nuclear weapons. At the time, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporations didn't air the film because it "didn't give a balanced view of the topic." They couldn't find anyone to argue for the use of nukes, however. The US Department of Justice required the American distributors of the film to register as foreign agents. We also discuss the Oscar-nominated 1988 documentary Radio Bikini that covers the nuclear tests on Bikini Atoll. 

Listen in as we discuss: 

  • If You Love This Planet versus Radio Bikini

  • Who gets nominated for awards and who gets essentially banned 

  • Whose stories get told, who gets to tell them, and why

  • The inherent manipulativeness of stories versus intentional propaganda 

  • The political "pay to play" nature of major awards

  • The dangers of allowing artificial intelligence control our nuclear arsenal 

  • Nolan fanboys

Since a nuclear holocaust would devastate the Earth's natural resources, we paired our discussion with a tall glass of luxurious ice water. Cheers! 

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