The 1988 film Radio Bikini is almost entirely made up of footage from the 1940s and 50s. Ranging from shots and scenes of politicians making public announcements, soldiers preparing for battle, or their wives rejoicing at their return, the film uses the media in a way other than how it was intended. For example, the shots of women kissing their husbands after they receive news that World War II is over is not meant to incite joy and relief in the viewer; rather, its effect is to highlight the ignorance of the American people, who don't realize the realness of the atrocity their victims in Japan are experiencing while they celebrate in the streets.
It is easy to get lost throughout the film, trying to figure out what its intent is for including some of the footage. It may seem in some cases that Radio Bikini is playing the same role as the atomic propaganda videos did, but the reason it includes so much propaganda footage is because it means to juxtapose the joy the American public felt with the suffering the residents of Bikini Atoll felt. The film's intent is most explicitly conveyed in its interviews with the two men — Kilon Bauno, the Bikini resident, and John Smitherman, the American soldier.
Bauno admits that none of the Bikini people knew what was happening when they were told to evacuate the island, and in the propaganda footage included in the film, an American military official is speaking to a group of Bikini residents, who smile cluelessly. By including Bauno's interview, viewers can apply an individual face, but more importantly, a voice to the issue, which enables viewers to care more about how the evacuation affected Bikini residents than how the original propaganda video did. The video urged that the evacuation would "spice up their lives," as seen in Atomic Cafe.
To make viewers care even more about the atomic tests, the documentary includes an interview with an actual American, John Smitherman. We hear Smitherman's voice throughout the film and we frequently see his face in the conventional documentary frame of an interview. However, at the end of the film, the camera pans out and we see that Smitherman is a double-amputee and his left hand is severely swollen. This is all due to the radiation he was exposed to during the atomic tests. It is later revealed that Smithman died of cancer right after the film came out.
As I was watching this, I wondered why Radio Bikini didn't show evidence of the Bikini people's radiation exposure. Was it because their exposure wasn't that bad? Was it because they were a safe enough distance away to avoid the blast? Or was it because the filmmakers thought viewers would care more about a white American male who suffered from the tests, than a person of color from some island they had never heard of up until then? I do not mean to detract from Smitherman's tragedy. He went into the tests thinking he would be completely safe, only to find out that he would lose both his legs, not because of the bomb blast, but because of the radiation. He was given a false sense of security and safety. This is a unique point of view, considering all the Americans in these videos are conveyed as brave, courageous, and mighty, but Smitherman is in a state of weakness.
Why do you think the filmmakers only conducted two interviews of their own, and why do you think they chose the people they did?
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