Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 1, February 2001 | Page 105

O n e L o n e l y N i g h t and J e t P il o t

101

not knowing what it was all about” (110). Conversely, Velda is well informed
about the Cold War and violently hates Communism. She tells Mike that they must
fight the Communists together: “Yes. You.. .and me. The bastards. The dirty, filthy
red bastards!” (86). This prompts Mike to think, “The boys in the Kremlin should
see her now and they’d know what they were getting into” (86)."^ Velda insists that
Mike allow her to help in his investigation of the Communists, even threatening to
turn the matter over to Pat and the police if he doesn’t let her help (93). Velda
embodies virulent anti-Communism combined with feminine beauty. Velda is “so
completely lovable and so completely deadly,” but her deadliness is positive because
it is directed at the enemy (101). Mike pays Velda his ultimate compliment after
she kills a Communist agent: “I had to grin because the girl who was wearing my
ring was so smart and I began to feel foolish around her. I did pretty good for
myself. I picked a woman who could shoot a guy just like that and still think
straight” (100). Interestingly, then. One L onely N igh t counters Fifties stereotypes
of the woman, and especially the seductive woman, as one who is susceptible to
and therefore aids Communist infiltration.
The association of the feminine with Communism was part of Fifties anti
communist rhetoric. Elaine Tyler May argues that women were often cited as
potential security risks and blamed for “a weakening of the nation’s moral fiber at
a time when the country had to be strong” (157). As Michael Rogin argues, popular
culture of the Fifties frequently associated Communism “with secret, maternal
influence” (9), stemming from the widespread awareness of Philip Wylie’s concept
of Momism.'^
Wylie’s notorious concept of Momism first expressed in G eneration o f Vipers
in 1942 and then expanded upon in a revised 1955 version of the book, associated
the feminine with the degenerative influence of Communism. Momism, as Wylie
dramatically portrays it, will lead to national death: “The nation can no longer say
it contains many great, free, dreaming men. We are deep in the predicted nightmare
now and mom sits on its decaying throne” (196). Wylie blames a pervasive feminine
influence for World War II, the Cold War, McCarthyism, and the arms race. One
Lonely N ight rejects the easy equation between feminine influence and Communist
infiltration.
Interestingly, although One Lon ely N igh t is clearly staunchly anti-Communist
and anti-McCarthyist, Wylie himself accused Spillane of abetting Communist take
over.^ In an article entitled “The Crime of Mickey Spillane,” published in G ood
H ousekeeping in 1955, Wylie lambastes Spillane’s fiction. While blaming Spillane
for the decline of American society was a commonplace in the Fifties, Wylie has a
unique p erspective on the issue.^ Wylie argues that Spillane’s novels are causing a
degeneration in American society resulting in Americans giving in to “a lawless
impulse that humanity has been trying to master for thousands of years in the