Question

How did the Cold War affect/influence popular culture?

Answer 1

It was a big influence on pop culture over the years. I won't go into huge detail, there's so much that it affected from movies and music to books and even schoolyard insults (such as getting called a "commie").

One thing you can look at is how movies looked at the Cold War. In the 80s, there were a ton of action movies featuring heroes like Chuck Norris, Schwarzenegger, and Sylvester Stallone battling it out with communists. Chuck Norris went into Vietnam and blew away communists to save American POWs. Schwarzenegger starred as a Soviet cop send to the US to find a criminal. And Sylvester Stallone shot up Soviets in Rambo II and punched one in Rocky IV.

There's so much more, but that's a good taste of how pop culture in the US kind of ran away with the whole idea and promoted the "us vs. them" mentality of Cold War politics.

Answer 2

Do you have any ideas for the music or television shows during this time?

Answer 3

Sure! I can come up with two examples that you can look at. There's the Genesis song, "Land of Confusion" which encapsulates the whole Cold War in a funny music video:

Land of Confusion, Genesis:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU9lv_WqK6k

And for television shows, it wasn't unusual to see one use Soviets or communists in general as the "bad guy" or as a guest bad guy. If a person was revealed as a Soviet spy, that meant that they were "big trouble". Shows like Mission: Impossible usually pit the team against enemies that weren't based on real countries, but had made up names that just seemed as if they could be East European or Russian sounding.

Answer 4

What about simple television shows like "I Love Lucy?" Which showed how women spent their time alone when the men went to work or fighting in WW2?

Answer 5

Thanks

Answer 6

"I Love Lucy" is on the right track. Just as that show touched on the role of women as it was seen at the time, shows like The Man from U.N.C.L.E. parodied the Cold War spy games between the CIA and the KGB with two fictional organizations fighting the same battles, only with made up characters.

Glad to have helped!