oh internet

I was looking around for opinions on racism in the Die Hard series (mostly Live Free Or Die Hard and its treatment of Mai), and I stumbled across this comment. I'm posting it here because it's not the first time I've seen the sentiment.

"Sometimes I felt like I was listening to bell hooks. Sometimes anti-racism can get so radical that it in itself becomes racist. See also: DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE."

I... what?

In Die Hard With A Vengeance, Samuel L Jackson plays an electrician and shop owner in Harlem. He does not like the White Man. Take note of the capital letters - he is staunchly opposed to institutionalized white power, get me? He scolds his nephews to stay in school and make something of themselves, saying that no one else, least of all the White Man, is going to help them. He hates drug dealers and thieves. He believes in and tries to do good for his community.

He initially doesn't want to get involved in the crazy bomb-plot-thing that drives the action of the film, saying it's a 'white problem'. But you know, he's saying those words to a white New York City police officer, who he's just met in less than ideal, and highly racially charged circumstances. He's saying them to living, breathing symbol of what he hates. He's saying these things to freaking John McClane, who's a big boy and can certainly take it. There are real reasons for Zeus to feel this way, and to not want to get involved with the police. And hello, power + privilege times eleventy-billion. I mean, my god. Talk about myopia.

Additionally. It's Die Hard. DIE HARD. Aside from some seriously problematic bits in DH4, the series is quite good as action movies go, but it's by no means progressive or rooted in the anti-racist movement. I mean... what the actual fuck? How do you twist things around to argue that DH is racist against white people? *flails*

epic Die Hard Marathon: starts here and now

~*~EPIC DIE HARD MARATHON~*~

ORIGINAL FLAVOUR

So Die Hard. I have and have always had a lot of affection for this series. It's full of straight up, well-directed action, with very few of the jarring, anti-progressive elements of other action series. Strangely absent are casual sexism, racism, or bigoted humor.* It's also not a didactic or overtly political series: we don't have to sit through John McClane explaining that we need to get tough on crime, or that gun rights are fundamental. It's a series about criminals, corrupt people in authority, and everyday heroes.

John McClane himself isn't everyday--he's obviously a skilled police officer, with all sorts of other useful knowledge--but he isn't marked as special. He's just this guy. And the supporting characters who get their own moments in the heroic sun are even less 'special'. An executive. A limo driver. A uniformed cop who's been riding a desk for years. They're just people, who keep cool during a crisis, and do what needs to be done.

That's not to say that there isn't a political message in Die Hard, or that it's free of problematic tropes, but man, it is a shockingly easy series to watch. It's got so much of the good of western/crime/siege stories, with so little of the bad. There's no endorsement of ra ra masculinity, no endorsement of going it alone for the sake of going it alone, and no endorsement of violence-wielding ubermensch. John is a hero--and Holly, and Al, and Argyle--because of his will power, his sense of justice and duty, and his ability to get shit done. He's not a hero just because he kicks ass--look at how the SWAT team fared--he's a hero because he kicks as much ass as he needs to, for the right reasons. If you cross that line, the movie doesn't like you anymore and you meet a fairly nasty end.

*[There's plenty of background 80s sexism, for example, but it's not foregrounded like it is in a lot of celebrations of machismo.] ( Read more... )

Die Hard 2: Die Harder next weekend, y/y?

Also, I was thinking we could do the Alien Quadrilogy when we've wrapped up DH. Thoughts?