A New Rambo
There were signs that the confrontation with commie fascism was coming to a head, at least in popular culture.
I recall how, after the election of Reagan one of my high school teachers declaring in real dismay and horror, "now there's going to be a nuclear war!" And in one history class, the majority of students were peer-pressured into agreeing that "better red than dead" made sense -- though the small number of those who disagreed were comprised, not surprisingly, of basically the top ranked students in the school, i.e. the few that actually knew something about history.
But as part of the Reagan Revolution, in the early 1980s there then came the Rambo movies!
Oh, how the left and the cultural elites denigrated them! Just jingoistic junk, so embarrassing in its patriotism and warmongering!
But guess what, they found an audience, even if they were paint-by-numbers "b" films (though the first one actually had some character to it).
Chuck Norris followed suit, with the derivative Missing in Action trilogy, as well as Invasion USA and Delta Force.
Clint Eastwood revived the Dirty Harry series with Sudden Impact, sporting an even bigger gun than before, the .44 Automag, and the tagline, "Go ahead, make my day!"
And for every WarGames, there was a Red Dawn.
Where is today's pro-USA propaganda?
I was reminded of this when on one of the oldie movie channels, Berlin Correspondent came on. It was made in 1942, about the just-prior period when the US was still neutral, and an American (the dashing Dana Andrews) was broadcasting censored news from Berlin but passing secrets by code to the Allies. And the plot thickens as he's pursued by a suspicious, autocratic Gestapo agent, who sends a fetching fraulein to gain his confidence and find his secret source because the previous bumbling nazi detective had proved comically incompetent, but it turns out she's the daughter of the man who is giving the information to Andrews, and she's inadvertantly betrayed her own father! Well that's what you get working for fascists. Luckily, the deception turns into true love, and the trio attempt an escape...
Hollywood's not making movies like that for us today.
Because they want us to lose.
Where is our John Rambo?
I recall how, after the election of Reagan one of my high school teachers declaring in real dismay and horror, "now there's going to be a nuclear war!" And in one history class, the majority of students were peer-pressured into agreeing that "better red than dead" made sense -- though the small number of those who disagreed were comprised, not surprisingly, of basically the top ranked students in the school, i.e. the few that actually knew something about history.
But as part of the Reagan Revolution, in the early 1980s there then came the Rambo movies!
Oh, how the left and the cultural elites denigrated them! Just jingoistic junk, so embarrassing in its patriotism and warmongering!
But guess what, they found an audience, even if they were paint-by-numbers "b" films (though the first one actually had some character to it).
Chuck Norris followed suit, with the derivative Missing in Action trilogy, as well as Invasion USA and Delta Force.
Clint Eastwood revived the Dirty Harry series with Sudden Impact, sporting an even bigger gun than before, the .44 Automag, and the tagline, "Go ahead, make my day!"
And for every WarGames, there was a Red Dawn.
Where is today's pro-USA propaganda?
I was reminded of this when on one of the oldie movie channels, Berlin Correspondent came on. It was made in 1942, about the just-prior period when the US was still neutral, and an American (the dashing Dana Andrews) was broadcasting censored news from Berlin but passing secrets by code to the Allies. And the plot thickens as he's pursued by a suspicious, autocratic Gestapo agent, who sends a fetching fraulein to gain his confidence and find his secret source because the previous bumbling nazi detective had proved comically incompetent, but it turns out she's the daughter of the man who is giving the information to Andrews, and she's inadvertantly betrayed her own father! Well that's what you get working for fascists. Luckily, the deception turns into true love, and the trio attempt an escape...
Hollywood's not making movies like that for us today.
Because they want us to lose.
Where is our John Rambo?
posted by RDS at 2:08 AM
4 Comments:
Interesting example you've chosen. "Sly" Stalone left the U.S. during the Vietnam war to avoid the draft and service and went to Sweden IIRC, and made pornos to support himself. After the war was over he returned home and made patriotic films.
You think we need more of this?
Actors are just actors; I didn't say we need another Stallone. It was the iconic character I was referring to, and hoping we'd get some kind of equivalent for today.
Jack Bauer maybe, but that still doesn't feel sufficient.
It just reflected a mood in the country, that I'd like to see more of, rather than the trend of changing the villains of the original source material so as not to offend certain groups. Nobody had any doubt who Rambo's enemies were!
Regarding your teacher and her Reagan comment--it sounds like nothing's changed from then till now!
There's Team America and The Incredibles. (The Underminer at the end of The Incredibles was a terrorist who declared declares was on "peace and happiness" and lived in a cave was almost certainly based on Osama bin Laden.)
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