ABSTRACT
In 1979, just two months after the incident, psychology tutor Robert Coleman remarked that because residents struggled to understand the accident, they found it difficult to express their feelings over the event. This chapter explores how literature, film, and other cultural products produced following the accident work through many of the concerns and anxieties. The Three Mile Island accident occurred during the period James Bridges' The China Syndrome film was being screened in movie theatres, so the crisis has always been associated with narrative to some extent. Radiation has long been an issue of contention for the nuclear age; in fiction, one of the most disturbing and enduring films dealing with radiation and its impact on the family unit was On the Beach. Environmental issues combined with media tales of conspiracy and criminality by the authorities, government, and industry created a strong vein of skepticism and cynicism in the 1980s towards nuclear power.
