SOURCE: Williamson, Paul. “Hogarth and the Strangelove Effect.” Eighteenth-Century Life 23, no. 1 (February 1999): 80-95.

In the following essay, Williamson contends that many of Hogarth's scenes of disorder and degradation are both enticing and repulsive at the same time.

In Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1963), directed by Stanley Kubrick, a mad USAF general orders a nuclear attack against the Soviet Union with apocalyptic consequences. When all recall mechanisms fail, the Superpowers are spurred into cooperation. The Soviets, forewarned of the approaching American B-52s, set about shooting them down, but one of the planes evades Soviet defenses. Badly damaged and leaking fuel, its wacky pilot diverts the attack to the nearest possible target, a Soviet missile base. As the crippled plane maneuvers over the earth in a desperate attempt to drop its load of nuclear bombs on the enemy installation, the film...