Characters
Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room.
— President Merkin Muffley · Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Behind the line May contain spoilers.
Our reading
An editorial interpretation.
The speaker scolds men who are brawling by appealing to the place itself, as though a room devoted to planning war ought to be a model of order. The joke lies in the contradiction: fighting is forbidden precisely where organised conflict is the business of the day.
Context reviewed