{"title":"Automobility in the Age of Apocalypse: On the Beach, Nuclear Nostalgia, and Atomic (Im)Mobilities","authors":"Christopher O'Hara","doi":"10.14324/111.444.1755-4527.1771","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"In the 1966 animated short film What on Earth!, viewers are presented with a news-reel styled broadcast—ostensibly from the ‘National Film Board of Mars’—detailing Martians’ first glimpses of alien life on Earth. As a car enters from the right, the narrator announces: ‘And then, the big news: there is life on Earth!’ The ‘cameras on our orbiting spaceship’ then follow these Earthlings through their daily rituals: ‘at dinner’ (fuelling with petrol), taking ‘shelter for the night’ (parking in a garage), and ‘browsing in curiously designed libraries’ (driving through a region inundated with billboards). Yet this colourful, comedic, slightly surreal animation takes a sinister turn towards its end as we glimpse the human occupants of the vehicle for the first time.","PeriodicalId":517017,"journal":{"name":"Movement","volume":"79 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-02-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Movement","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444.1755-4527.1771","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
In the 1966 animated short film What on Earth!, viewers are presented with a news-reel styled broadcast—ostensibly from the ‘National Film Board of Mars’—detailing Martians’ first glimpses of alien life on Earth. As a car enters from the right, the narrator announces: ‘And then, the big news: there is life on Earth!’ The ‘cameras on our orbiting spaceship’ then follow these Earthlings through their daily rituals: ‘at dinner’ (fuelling with petrol), taking ‘shelter for the night’ (parking in a garage), and ‘browsing in curiously designed libraries’ (driving through a region inundated with billboards). Yet this colourful, comedic, slightly surreal animation takes a sinister turn towards its end as we glimpse the human occupants of the vehicle for the first time.