Description
This paper considers the ‘nuclear genius’ as an adjunct to the narrative trope of the ‘genius’ character in western popular culture by incorporating existing literatures that describes the use of high intelligence as a signifier of personal character, including social psychology and popular media studies with scholarly work on nuclear weapons in pop culture and world politics (PCWP) and critical security studies (CSS). Whether an attribute of the archetypal villain or hero, the ‘genius’ trope relies on common sense expectations regarding personality, capacity and temperament, reflecting and reproducing cultural expectations for acceptable human behaviour and acknowledgement of social mores. This paper argues that narratives using high intelligence as a character signifier that also incorporate references to nuclear weapons or knowledge compound the ‘common sense’ understanding around genius as something exceptional. This simultaneously, and paradoxically, acknowledges the exceptionality of nuclear weapons while subsuming them into the acceptable ‘everyday’. This paper analyzes four films with extraordinary and fictional storylines, which centre debates around science, progress, expertise and responsibility (Special Bulletin (1983), Jurassic Park (1993), Independence Day (1996), Iron Man (2008)). Comparing heroes and villains, it problematizes direct and indirect ‘nuclear’ supplements to the genius trope to explore the narrative affect of everyday nuclearism in popular fiction.
