HIST 330
11/13/09
It takes a Real Genius to create S.D.I.
America’s infatuation with nuclear weapons manifested with the atomic bomb’s
creation and has stuck around since. Hollywood has cranked out many movies involving
atomic culture and they have evolved over time to reflect nuclear weapons’ advancement.
In the eighties, Ronald Regan came up with an idea called the Strategic Defense
Initiative, (S.D.I.). As opposed to many other countries’ mindset to make more offensive
weapons, Reagan wanted to make a way to defend against nuclear threats. While
America moved forward in nuclear technology, Hollywood did what it could to keep up.
Reagan thought up and proposed S.D.I. in 1983. Two years later in 1985, a film
came out that took the S.D.I. concept and ran with it. The movie Real Genius is about
two extremely intelligent College students, Mitch Taylor and Chris Knight, who try to
create a chemical laser. However, what they did not know is that their Professor, Jerry
Hathaway, signed a contract with the military to create a laser that can kill a human target
from space. After the students are successful in constructing the laser, they soon learn
that Professor Hathaway made a deal with the government and try to remedy the
situation.
Nuclear science’s evolution has different aspects of people and technology. These
are shown in Real Genius through their characters. The film shows the scientists’ through
a Manhattan Project like lens, in the sense that the scientists’ in Real Genius mirrored the
ones that worked on the Manhattan project. Naïve about the repercussions the project
would present, the scientists just focused on breakthrough scientific development in the
