Description
BBC’s Vigil (2021), set onboard a fictional Trident Vanguard-Class nuclear submarine, has become the most-watched new drama in the UK. This paper asks; how are nuclear weapons represented in Vigil, and how do those representations function as a site of popular knowledge about nuclear weapons?. After outlining the relationship between popular culture and world politics, this paper narrows its focus to explore the relationship between popular culture and nuclear weapons. It then navigates existing critical literature on nuclear weapons, noting the imperative need for this research. Methodologically, the Social Semiotic framework is utilised for a multimodal analysis. Investigating Chilton’s (1985) findings, the analysis uncovers three key social and political consequences. Firstly, Vigil continues a gendered imagining of military and nuclear decision-making. Second, contradictory representations of nuclear weapons as agents of peace exist alongside representations of nuclear weapons as agents of destruction, providing the audience with critical “thinking space”. However, there is a continued and problematic reproduction of “Nuclear Orientalist” discourse. Finally, Vigil presents a military stalemate that maintains the status quo by suggesting that disarmament is a hopeless plight. Simultaneously, Vigil also moves nuclear weapons out of the military realm and into the political one, communicating the power of public opinion in ways that invite a more conscious and politically engaged audience. Overall, this paper illustrates that TV dramas, and similar cultural artefacts, have a lot to tell us about the production and reception of ideas about nuclear politics, with profound political consequences.
