Big Red Button - Symbolism

Symbolism

During the 20th-century's Cold War, the "Big Red Button" (sometimes just "The Button") referred to a device used to launch nuclear weapons. A person in charge may be referred to as "having his/her finger on The Button". The disastrous consequences of a full-out nuclear war made the Big Red Button a symbol of the annihilation of humanity. In a real world case, Soviet lieutenant colonel Stanislav Petrov figuratively avoided pressing the Red Button by correctly identifying a missile attack warning as a false alarm.

Because of this potential doomsday use, Cold-War-era fiction often featured a BRB as the final trigger for a self-destruct process. It could also represent a "nuclear" or radical solution to a problem, much like "cutting the Gordian knot", and likely lead to the BRB's use as a reset button.

Once contemporary definitions of the BRB gained popularity as a plot device in Looney Tunes; the button became a running gag. A character would at some point be warned, "Whatever you do, do not press the red button." By the end of the cartoon someone would invariably press it, usually resulting in a large explosion. This attached a level of temptation to the button itself, and is often used in religious or philosophical allegory, a parallel to Adam and Eve's consumption of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. In his "MLF Lullaby," singer/satirist Tom Lehrer noted that development of a "Multi-Lateral (nuclear) Force" would ensure that "one of the fingers on the button will be German."