The Cold War involved many different events and ideas in a time of caution with a fear of a nuclear war. For about half a century the world was on the verge of going to war, and not just any war. A nuclear war would truly destroy the world. This nuclear war thankfully did not occur during the Cold War era, but there was a brinkmanship that reigned with so much power that it has influenced the popular culture of today, both in a direct historical context and in a modern reference to the term surrounding the mentality of the Cold War.
One of the places where this modern brinkmanship is found is in the television show That 70s Show. In the episode that originally aired January 10, 2001 entitled "Who Wants It More?" Eric Foreman and his girlfriend Donna Pinciotti have a school project that they have to work on together about the Cold War.
Yalta summit in February 1945 with (from left to r...
English: US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Gen...
English: Map of the Commonwealth of Independent St...This is the first clue to the appearance of the Cold War as a historical reference from pop culture. When Eric and Donna get into an argument over the project, similar to the Yalta Conference argument between Stalin and the Western powers over the future of Poland, Donna refuses to have sex with Eric until the argument is resolved because she wants Eric to give in to her attempt at power and control. This refers to how Winston Churchill, in his "Iron Curtain" Speech of 1946, refused to say that a World War III was inevitable because he believed that war could be avoided if people listened to his warning about the iron curtain was drawn across Europe.
The real Cold War connection comes with the concept of brinkmanship. Donna and Eric end up trying to seduce each other by wearing sexy clothes,