Today being November 20, 2023, it is the 40th anniversary of the airing of the most influential movie you have never heard of.
The movie is called The Day After. It aired on ABC on November 20, 1983.
A few unusual things about this movie:
1. It was direct to TV, and never shown in theaters
2. It was depressing
3. It helped prevent nuclear war
The plot in a nutshell follows several different people around Kansas City and small surrounding towns. They go about their idyllic Midwestern lives, while in the background the radio reports increasing tensions between the US and USSR over some dispute in East Germany.
People stop to listen to the news, but shrug it off and say it won’t come to anything.
That afternoon, they see ICBMs launched from underground missile silos around Kansas City. A short while later, several nuclear bombs are detonated over Kansas City itself.
What follows is “the day after”:
A few survivors huddle together among ruins and charred corpses, while their hair falls out and their skin peels off, the result of rotting from inside, courtesy of the high levels of radiation in the air.
Things go from bad to worse, and then the movie ends. I told you it was depressing.
When The Day After aired on ABC, it was watched by over 100 million people. At the time, it was the most-watched TV movie in history.
Before The Day After was shown to the public, it was screened for President Ronald Reagan and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
After the movie finished, the generals sat there petrified, without saying anything.
After Reagan saw it, he supposedly said, “not on my watch.” In his memoirs, he drew a direct line between watching The Day After and signing a nuclear disarmament treaty with the USSR.
The incredible thing was that this piece of American Propaganda was so effective that it was shown in the Soviet Union as well.
The producers of the movie insisted the movie be shown in the USSR in its original form, without any changes or commentary. The Soviets agreed.
The Day After aired there in 1987. While it’s not known exactly how many millions watched it, it can be presumed that they all ended up depressed.
I’m telling you about this movie because it’s culturally and historically significant. But if you must have your persuasion and influence takeaway, then consider the most obvious and most powerful one.
Look at the impact on Reagan and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Imagine them sitting in a darkened room, staring mutely at images of rubble where Kansas City used to stand, as the final message rolled across the screen:
“The catastrophic events you have just witnessed are, in all likelihood, less severe than the destruction that would actually occur in a full-scale nuclear war. It is our hope that the images of this film will inspire the nations of this earth, their peoples and leaders, to find the means to avert that fateful day.”
Was the stuff in this movie any kind of news to them?
If anybody should have known what nuclear war would really mean in terms of actual impact and human cost, you would think that top Army brass and the President of the United States would be it.
And maybe they did know, on an intellectual level. But didn’t really see it, didn’t really feel it.
It took a dramatic, visual presentation to get it into their heads, and to change their attitudes.
And maybe that’s why I had to tell you about this depressing movie from 40 years ago, instead of simply repeating, “We are wired for story” or “You gotta a paint a picture in people’s minds.”
That’s all for today.
If you’re curious, here’s the TV trailer for The Day After. It lasts all of a minute and 32 seconds. Watch it, shudder, and when you think of it in the future, think of what I told you today: