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Popular Culture Review
D a y A f te r is presented within a framework of international political events
leading up a major nuclear exchange, the human response to which seems more
afterthought than the point of the story.”12
In dedicating the film to her family and in production notes, Littman makes
it clear that T esta m en t is told from the perspective of a mother. Littman
acknowledges that her life changed after the birth of a child. While men discuss
the politics of nuclear war, mothers and women assert “this simply cannot be
allowed to happen.” Accordingly, in T esta m en t there is no explanation given for
the nuclear onslaught. After burying her youngest son, Carol pounds the earth,
cursing those responsible for the fate of the earth. Scottie is equally dead
whether the Soviets or the Americans launched the first weapon. The
geopolitical considerations of the Reagan administration regarding Soviet
expansionism in Afghanistan or Central America have no relevance for Carol
when her daughter asks what sex is like; for the young woman will never enjoy
the opportunity of such physical intimacy with someone she loves. And in a
desperate attempt to maintain this human touch, Carol kisses the priest Father
Hollis (Philip Anglim). In describing Carol’s motivation in this scene as
“lustful,” reviewer John Coleman cynically misses the entire point of the film.
For war always takes its toll on the women and children who are left to fend for
themselves while the men are away at war. It is the mother who has to hold the
family together, like Ma Joad in The G r a p e s o f W rath, during times of crisis. It
is the impact of war upon family which makes T esta m en t such a powerful text.
As Sheila Johnston notes in The M on th ly F ilm B u lle tin , “ T esta m en t's effect is
devastating because it plumbs the potent emotional wellsprings of soap opera, it
is as much ‘about’ the nuclear family as it is the atomic bomb.”13
The feminist subtext of the film is apparent in the first third of the film
which depicts the domestic life of the Wetherly family. It becomes apparent that
Tom is often an absent father, and that the primary responsibilities of raising the
family are deposited upon Carol well before the advent of the nuclear holocaust.
Tom has the time to take a morning bicycle ride with his son Brad, but when
Carol asks him to carry out the garbage Tom rushes off to work. Carol is left to
handle such domestic routines in addition to preparing the children for school
and pursuing her own career. When Carol is awake late at night writing in her
journal, Tom does not want to engage in conversation. Instead, he sees this as an
opportunity to engage in sex rather than discuss Carol’s needs. And even the
father-son bicycle ride reveals a selfish patriarchal aspect of Tom’s personality.
Brad is unable to pedal to the top of a steep hill, so his father completes the ride
alone, explaining to his son that someday he will be a man who can navigate the
climb. Thus, the son is initiated into the competitive patriarchal world of
capitalism.
Yet, when his father is absent and apparently killed in San Francisco, Brad
steps up and assumes the responsibility of supporting his mother, siblings, and
community. Rather than the arbitrary ascent of a steep incline, Brad rides his
bicycle throughout the community seeking to help others. When community