In the 1963 radio and TV address to the American people on the Nuclear Test Prohibition Treaty, President Johnon F. Kennedy denied the way the arrival of nuclear weapons came so that "all mankind is struggling to escape the darkened perspective for mass destruction of the country." The reality was probably even more direct. Instead of struggling to avoid this, to that point, mankind has already become accustomed to pretending to be the threat of complete and extremely destruction, it was simply not there.

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Since World War II, the British have especially learned to live with the fact that, at any moment, the disaster could hit. My Nan was telling me about cycling to school after the east Sussex hills, only for the fighting aircraft to suppress the nearby country. A swift duck and an attempt to cover under the bush later, she returned to the bike and peded the way to the morning. In the years that are found, this bizarre and disturbing blend between the quadrantal existence of the medium English and constantly present disaster has become even more intense, with the arrival of the thermonuclear state and what is euphemistically known as mutually convinced destruction.

Of course, no one can live day by day to constantly complain about the fact that, at any moment, they could be evaporated. So people went for their business. In the UK, this can be seen in Immediate disturbing TV film in the 1980s, "Topics", The first half of which acts as a sink drama in the kitchen that faithfully depicts the daily lives of shelf. In the last half, however, the BBC's film is transformed into one of the worst portraits of the nuclear attack and the subsequent consequences that have ever been put into the film. That contrast between the realistic humor of British life and the real nightmare hell shown in the second half, used the whole nation out of their divided perception of the nuclear threat. Mutually convinced destruction, of course until the 1980s, has become a normal part of life like afternoon tea. With "Themes", writer Barry Hines wanted to remind viewers of what disaster they faced and probably succeeded because the air date became known as "Earth's night was not sleeping".

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However, nearly two decades ago, another BBC film has tried a similar feat, just to withdraw from public broadcasting in a controversial move that seems to have included the British government.

In 1966, the BBC ordered a document that would show a nuclear attack on the UK. The "Military Game" was written, directed and produced by Peter Watkins and used a naturalist style that was incredibly effective in showing what could do a real nuclear detonation of everyday Britons and their country. Starting with the escalation of tensions between the United States and its NATO allies and the Soviets and China, the film shows the Russians launching a one-megatonic warhead that exploded near Kent. The film then shows them, in vibrant details, the suffering of the affected.

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As the family is preparing for an initial explosion, the voice sound announces, "this could be the way the last two minutes of peace in the UK would look like." Then we see the family looking at the initial heat wave because the announcer describes the dark scene. "At this distance," he says, "the heat wave is sufficient to cause melting the intertwined eyeball (s) of the third level of the skin." Things are only frightening from there, because we see that bodies warehouses are stretched through destroyed streets. Determines for dismissal are committed by convicted men because their close ones reveal the terrible injuries suffered by the masses. In the last scene, traumatized children are wondering what they want to be when they grow up, just to remain silent or answer that "they want to be anything".

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As you can imagine, the BBC in the mid-1960s was not too taken with Watkins' visceral document. This was the same year that ITV started airing The pure joy of Adam West's "Batman" series And the Beatles first performed live at the BBC's "Pops" for the first time. As such, a nuclear outcome has been observed not to enter the schedule correctly. Indeed, the BBC's decision to withdraw the "military game" was, according to the broadcaster itself, motivated by the pure horror of things. Parliamentarian transcript This is how the company statement writes down:

"This is the BBC's own decision. It has been made after a lot of thinking and discussion, but not as a result of external pressure of any kind (...) The effect of the film has been rated by the BBC to be too daunting for the broadcasting medium. However, it will prove to be an invited audience, including those who helped it."

However, in the years to come, it became clear that there was really significant external pressure to withdraw the "military game" from broadcasting.

Between April 13 and May 3, 1966, "Military Game" was shown at the National Theater in London before debuting at several festivals. He even won the Academy Academy for Best Documentary Film Next year. But it was not shown on TV until July 31, 1985 - almost two decades after it was done ... for TV. The obvious reason for such a delay was that the BBC considered Peter Watkins' docront simply too disturbing to the general audience. But there seems to have been more about it.

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Study for 2016 published in the Journalouperal for British Cinema and Television (through University Press in Edinburgh) describes a detailed investigation into the initial ban on the film. Author Johnon R. Cook noted that the BBC has long been suspected to withdraw the "military game" under pressure from the government since that time. The theory goes that Authorities Feared Watkins' Docudrama Might Induce a Sort of Panic Among the Masses, and Cook Tries to Prove as a Looking "TV Censorship of 'The War Game' Involved a Complex Interaction Between Civil Servants in Whitehall, Government Ministers, Including Prime Minister Harold Wilson Himself, The Director-General of the BBC and The Cha BBC Board of Governors. " As such, Cook claims that "military game" and its controversial debut (or non-debit) "raises disturbing questions about the boundaries of the 1960s BBC liberalism and the true measure of its much deteriorating independence by the government." However, it should be noted that the BBC claims that while government officials showed them the film, their comments had nothing to do with the broadcaster's decision to withdraw the "military game".

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Similar to "Topics", an apocalyptic nightmare that shook the UK to its core in the 1980sThe "military game" showed an unprecedented lack of restraint in the portrayal of the nuclear war. But that was the point. Watkins He claimed to deal with "help) people break the silence in the media in the nuclear weapons race". However, in a greater sense, "military game" was an attempt to remind people of what the nuclear war meant. The thought of a world -blackened world of thermonuclear disaster stayed in the back of the collective consciousness of the whole generation, to the extent that it was suddenly unthinkable a frightening perspective and almost cliché, it took most of its true meaning, simply because of the fact that it woke up so long. The "military game" is likely to make everyone go back to reality in a way that the BBC and the UK government have obviously felt like counterproductive.

For Watkins, he had just portrayed the film of senior government members was already a violation of the BBC's own Charter of Independence, which means that nothing is withdrawing the program. Others, such as the University of Sussex, Dr -Albian Web (through BBC) claim that the BBC "was considered the guardian of the best interests of the nation, which in this case is assessed that it does not mean panic of the public about the hopelessness of our survival in nuclear war." If you are the keepers of the best interests of the nation means consultation with the government for something that can cause anxiety, however, you wonder why the broadcaster has done so much of his "independence" in the first place.

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