Communicating Fears in Film: Eastern Othering, Part 1 - Red Dawn (1984)

In this episode, Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry initiate what could be considered the least identifiable "horror" entry to date in this "Communicating Fears in Film seventh season of Special Topics in Media. The dialogic duo venture into a fifth theme, "Eastern Othering", and inaugurate this topic with an unconventional selection, director John Milius's alternate history domestic war feature, Red Dawn (1984). In a fun twist, the cohosts diverge in their preference for the feature (11:02), with Garret defending the film's allegorical potency and relatable small-town Rocky Mountain setting just as Scott takes umbrage with Red Dawn's incoherence narrative trajectory and unrealistic (and thus de-escalated) plot. In what could be described as a Rhetorical Cold War of interpretive persuasions, listeners will be left to decide for themselves which side of this fractured film border they support. Throughout their war of words, the dialogic duo do engage with season seven's standard points of analysis, culminating with a response to the question, "In what ways does Red Dawn communicate fear through [the medium of] film?" (1:56:45).
Hosts: Garret Castleberry, Scott McMurry
Producers: Garret Castleberry, Will McMurry (Audio Engineer), Alli Garner (Cover Art), Austin Foster (Music)
Recommended readings paired with Season Seven "Communicating Fears in Film":
Kendall Phillips. Projected Fears: Horror Films and American Culture. Praeger, 2006.
Stephen Prince. Apocalypse Cinema. Rutgers University Press, 2021.
Murray Leeder. Horror Film: A Critical Introduction. Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2018.
John Milius (Director). Red Dawn. New Mexico, USA: United Artists/Valkyrie Films, 1984.
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