By: Sammy Wang

The Iron Giant is a 1999 animated movie directed by Brad Bird about a giant alien robot crashing onto Earth and meeting a 9-year-old boy named Hogarth. This meeting leads to an unexpected friendship between the two as Hogarth teaches the Iron Giant about humans.

Although the movie is remarkable in its entirety- from winning Best Animated Feature Film at the 1999 Academy Awards, along with many other awards- what stood out to me was the film’s setting

The story takes place in October 1957, in Rockwell, Maine. Before Hogarth discovers and saves the Iron Giant, there were already rumors about an ‘alien’ lurking around town, from a fisherman who happened to see the Iron Giant unexpectedly.

Followed by reports of multiple metal-item objects being ‘consumed’, the government sent the antagonist, detective Kent Mansley, to find an answer to the problem.

This is where the setting really comes into play, since 1957 fell during the Cold War.. 1957 was during the Cold War. The Cold War was a silent war between the United States and the Soviet Union that lasted from 1947–1991. To summarize it, both sides were competing ideologically and geopolitically following the tensions of World War 2.

The war affected the people living in those areas; citizens from both sides were paranoid about the other side either spying, bombing them, or getting more technologically advanced.

Coming back to the movie, before Mansley discovers the Iron Giant, he tells Hogarth, “Foreign satellite…and all that implies. Even now, it orbits overhead…watching us…we don’t know what it can do.”

”We’re wide awake and worried… who built it? The Russians? The Chinese? Martians?…all I know is that we didn’t build it and that’s reason enough to assume the worst,” He continues.

Even an animated children’s movie has details on how the Cold war affected life at the time. In the beginning of the movie, there was a safety video playing in Hogarth’s class about how to survive in case of an atomic bomb. His classmates even make jokes about the bombs.

Given that most children don’t understand the film’s historical context, The Iron Giant is enjoyable for older audiences, too.

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iron_Giant#Plot
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War#New_Cold_War_(1979–1985)