The Warm Glow of Cold War Nostalgia

Abstract

The chapter argues that the resurgence in the late 2010s of films set during or focusing on events of the Cold War allow American audiences to buy into a nostalgically purified vision of America as morally and militarily superior to our allies and to our enemies–contributing to a new victory culture untroubled by the actual events of history. It focuses such films as Atomic Blonde and Bridge of Spies and claims that they re-secure and re-create a comforting and comfortable image of Americans in a world simplified into the binary distinctions (right/wrong, good/evil) that have become central to our nostalgic retellings of the Cold War.