Unclear and Present Danger - Die Hard 2: Die Harder

Episode Date: August 21, 2022

Welcome to episode 22 of Unclear and Present Danger. This week, we watched “Die Hard 2: Die Harder,” the sequel — of course — to “Die Hard.” In this conversation, Jamelle and John talk the 1990s panic over violence in pop culture, the working-class qualities of John McClane, and the lost days of American suspicion of, even hostility to, the military.Connor Lynch produced this episode. Artwork by Rachel Eck.Contact us!Follow us on Twitter!John GanzJamelle BouieLinks from the episode!The New York Times front page for July 4, 1990

I've seen about a half an hour. Jingle bow, jingle bell, jingle bell rock. Christmas Eve. There a cop on duty around here? Airport, believe. Go get them. Washington, D.C. International Airport. What's this about?

Oh, just a feeling I have. Ouch. The towers lost control. Instrument landing system is down. Backup systems won't come up. We've got blizzard conditions. Zero visibility. Attention all controller.

We have a code red alert. There's panic in the air. There's a professional mercenary. You got the world's biggest drug dealer on his way here now. What do you need a slide rule to figure this out? You get the hell out of my office before I throw you out of my damn airport. And terror on the ground. Oh, we are just up to our neck and terrorists again, John.

But for police officer John McLean... Damn, I... I hear what I'm right. It's just another Christmas. You're the wrong guy in the wrong place. At the wrong... time. Story my life.

It's what you expected? No. This is just the beginning. On July 4, die harder. Bruce Willis, die hard too. Welcome to Episode 22 of Unclear and Present Danger, a podcast about the political and military thrillers of the 1990s and what they say about the politics of that decade. I'm Jamel Bowie. I'm a columnist for the New York Times opinion section. I'm John Gans. I write a substack news.

letter called Unpopular Front. And I'm working on a book about the early 90s in American politics. Today, we're going a little back in time from our mostly chronological progression to discuss the 1990 action thriller Die Hard 2, Die Harder, directed by Ronnie Harlan and starring Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia, and William Sadler, with appearances from a very impressive collection of character actors. We have John Amos, William Atherton, Dennis Franz, Franco Niro, Reginaldville Johnson, Fred Thompson, an unclear and present danger favorite, Von D. Curtis Hall, who you will recognize from falling down, and Robert Patrick or the T-1000 from Terminator 2. Here is a plot synopsis, or short plot synopsis.

John McLean is waiting for his wife to land at Washington Delis International Airport, who among us haven't done that, when terrorists take over the air traffic control system. He must stop the terrorists before his wife's plane and several other incoming flights that are circling the airport, run out of fuel, and crash. During the night, McLean must also contend with airport police and a military commander, none of whom want his assistance. As always, you should watch the movie before listening to this conversation. It is available to buy or rent on iTunes and Amazon, or like myself, you might own the Blu-ray and watch that. Before we get to the meat of our conversation, let's look at it. at the New York Times page for the day of release, July 4th, 1990.

So what do we got here? Some very interesting stuff. Soviet hardliner sales Gorbachev on his leadership. KGB and military officials oppose curbs on parties' role in their agencies. As you might remember from our previous discussions or just knowing stuff about this, Gorbachev embarked on a series of political and economic reforms that really pissed off conservative elements of the Communist Party, and they are here expressing their concern about that. Iran-Iraq talks produced progress on ending long confrontation.

Reconciliation could alter balance in the region. For most of the 1980s, there was a terrible war between Iraq and Iran. Saddam Hussein was still the leader of Iraq, and the war had ended, but there still was not a formal peace treaty. I think. So this is, this is, moves in that direction. I'm not exactly sure how they finally resolve the conflict. As Soviets leave Hungary, disputerizes over the bill. Two articles that are interesting side by side. Man acquitted over major count on major count racial killing. The third trial in the, and the Bensonhurst racial killing ended yesterday when jurors acquitted a young white man of intentional murder, but could not reach avert on a second murder charge and a riot charge.

So this was the killing of Yusuf Hawkins, who was attacked by a mob in Bensonhurst, which at that time was an Italian, mostly Italian-American part of Brooklyn. Some of the people in the mob were convicted, but a lot of them were acquitted and leading to a lot of protests. And there were a bunch of racial attacks in New York in this era. It turned out later that the mob had been organized by the mob, a Gambino family hitman. think later confessed to ordering the mob to attack any blacks that came into the neighborhood and Gambino family was John Gotti's family. So I thought that was sort of interesting connection between the mafia and this, this racial killing. The racism of the mafia is like shown in a lot of movies, but I don't think it like is given like a political dimension

usually. And I think it's kind of interesting to think of it more politically. Um, black American sense of new patriotism. So this is a feature here, which says blacks are playing more prominent role than ever. And this year's Independence Day celebration, which comes as blacks seem to be experiencing a growing sense of participating in the nation's rituals and history. So I just, I want to comment on this real quick because I just kind of went to the full article. Yeah. And it's super interesting. Because I mean, for background for my comments real quick, you know part of the the controversy over the 1619 project and specifically Nicole Hannah Jones's lead essay beyond this stuff about the American Revolution is the kind of claim that

she's undermining you know national cohesion undermining sort of you know a sense of American's pride which to me is a massive misreading of that essay but part of also the thrust against it is it's like it's like this radical revision of an understanding of the country And it's funny because I've always thought that critique was in some way essentially adopting the conceit of the advertising because as a black American myself and one whose parents were in the military and who comes from a military family, what I read in that essay, it's more or less the kind of like black patriotism that I had known growing up. It's sort of a standard issue almost. And when you read this full article, you essentially see stuff, you know, written 29 years before Hannah Jones' essay that fits Hannah Jones' essay. So you have Maris A. Barboza, president of the Patriots Foundation in Washington, who at the time, I guess, was trying to raise money for a memorial to the Blacks who fought the American Revolution.

He says, they struggled to break free of slavery and in the process help build the country and its institutions. I got another quote down here or somewhere else did I see this other quote that was very oh you have a 45 year old woman quoted who says America would not have been great without us I mean sort of this is kind of this is this is sort of how black Americans have conceptualized patriotism especially in the post civil rights era so it was always interest to me to see that backlash because to me like from my perspective you know looking at the claims in the underlying ideas in Hannah Jones's essay, it's coming out of like a pretty

well-established tradition of black patriotism. The backlash almost seemed to be saying that traditional black patriotism wasn't legitimate. I actually here and there were like kind of confront people with that and no one would ever like kind of take the bait. But if you have any familiarity with the rhetorical tradition that Hannah Jones is working out of, it's kind of a conclusion that's like hard to avoid, especially when the critiques cease to focus on the American Revolution stuff and begin to move more and kind of the whole like broader conception she's she's arguing. What's also interesting to me in the context of this period was that like this was a, an interesting time in terms of like what was going on in the black

political sphere too. I mean, on the one hand, you had Jesse Jackson, who kind of made inroads in the in the in the democratic party but was sort of continually struggling with with the democratic establishment in a way and who were you know kind of trying to devise ways to to sideline him and uh the dLC was sort of like the democratic leadership council was sort of just like the how can we push jesse jackson out of the party committee um and there was also like a a rebirth and interest in in black nationalism which you can see with Spike Lee's Malcolm X, and you see it in other black filmmakers of this area, particularly like ones that were from middle class backgrounds, kind of re-examining black nationalism

from the 60s and 70s. I think a lot of people kind of like read the Nicole Hannah-Jones essay as an instance of black nationalism rather than this tradition of black patriotism that you're talking about, which I thought was kind of intentionally misreading it to find something threatening to national unity in it, which sort of lent credence to the claim that like, well, you know, like there is no space for for black people in American patriotism, right? Because every time you try to assert an American patriotism that has like a black face, um, people start to freak out and they're like, this is not right, Colonel, this is This is a broad divisive.

When you, if you actually look at the text, it's quite patriotic. It just kind of reserves a special place for the black freedom struggle in the national story. So that I thought was interesting, which is that like misrecognition of these two different traditions. I mean, I'm sure that they speak to each other and they have things in common and not, you know, people grow up with hearing lots of different things. and, you know, they're not in, you know, competition so much as they're kind of synthesized. But, yeah, it's interesting that this kind of repeated itself because a similar conversation was going on in the country at this time. I mean, part of what's happening here is just that, like, to a certain extent, I wouldn't expect people to have this knowledge. But, like, people don't really know what black nationalism is.

It tends to be thought of. It's just sort of being like, oh, if a black person is angry, then they're a black nationalist. And it's like, that's, you know, there's a broad spectrum and tradition of black political thought that can't really be reduced to being like a Democrat or Republican. And I assure you that on sort of the broad spectrum of this, this black political thought, these traditions, there are many angry people. Most of them are not black nationals. Right.

Yeah, that's a very specific tradition that has, you know, a set. of thinkers and remedies, which is not the same as black militant thought in general. Right. And since we're in the 90s, I mean, this will I think become relevant at some point in our podcast because we will almost certainly encounter Farrakhan as a figure in something or some Farrakhan analog. And Farrakhan is interesting to me, for a lot of reasons, one of them is just how it kind of confounds mainstream political analysts who see his hostility to racism and say, well, he must be on the left, whereas I see like sort of like his patriarchal nationalism and as like heteronormitivity and all these other things and say, well, this is a conservative figure.

He's just a conservative figure who like doesn't like racism. Well, that doesn't. Anti-Black race is me. I mean, he's a. Yeah, anti-black racism. Yeah, let's be specific. I hope this won't upset anybody. But he's, he's a national socialist.

I mean, he's a, he has a, an extremely community. defensive attitude racially and I mean he's he's also believes in capitalism to certain extent but there's there's there's a degree to which it's you know like it's a racially informed you know politics of national defense and development it's difficult yeah so I get why it it it freaks Americans out because like any kind of collectivist thought they immediately kind of assigned to the left or any kind of critique of American white supremacy they put to the left, but they don't kind of see it in a longer tradition of nationalist thinking. Right, right, right.

So, yeah. All right, let's move to the movie. Yeah. Okay. Let's start with a few notes in the film and its production. Die Hard 2, obviously the sequel to 1988's Die Hard, which is directed by John McTiernan, who directed The Hunt for Out October, and who will direct Die Hard 3, Die Hard with a vengeance. Die Hard represented a real departure for Bruce Willis, who, if you aren't aware, depending on how old you are listening to this, made his name as a romantic and comedic actor on television.

They don't really show episodes of moonlighting anymore, I think for music rights issues, but moonlighting was the show that he starred on and kind of made its reputation. And in the same way that people were a little baffled when Michael Keaton was cast as Batman, people were a little baffled when they heard about this new action movie starring Bruce Willis, who just was not, that wasn't his vibe. And it's interesting, if you look at Willis's career in the wake of and after Die Hard, how he does try to balance kind of his roots in comedy and drama with these action films. And so immediately after Die Hard, he takes a role as a Vietnam veteran or PTSD and Norman Jewison. film in country and he received a golden globe nomination for that um he played the voice i don't know

you probably remember this i remember this because it was just sort of like a movie that was playing all the time on cable uh he played the voice of the baby and look who's talking yeah oh my god that was always on tv yeah it was like everywhere yeah and it was everywhere because that movie which was made for a very modest seven and a half million dollars uh grossed like 300 million dollars. America could not get enough of this talking baby lost its fucking mind over this talking baby. Yeah, it's really true. And that's totally been forgotten. And nobody talks about it anymore. It completely dropped off the face of the planet. Right. Yeah. Yeah. If you were to say to someone, what was the top grossing movie of 1989? I think it might have been

Batman. I got to check this. Right. But no one but a nerd is going to guess Luke who's talking. right it's sort of like yeah batman maybe some like you know adult drama that grows a ton no one's gonna say oh the movie for bruce what willis like was a talking baby yeah it's true um and i don't until you brought it up i haven't thought about it in years and then and then you it just all came flooding back to me i was like oh my god that was everywhere it was always on tv there were sequels every thought it was the funniest fucking thing in the entire world the year diehard two came out. Willis reprised the role for the sequel. Look who's talking to. He was also, he took a starring role in Brian De Palma's big flop, his adaptation of the bonfire of the vanities.

Brian DePomalmers tried comedy a couple times because never really worked out. Helps to have a sense of humor. Yeah, helps to have a sense of humor. I love De Palma, but he does not have a sense of humor. Not intentional. But this is all to say that like Willis kind of alternates between these action roles, that made him a superstar in these like dramatic and comedic roles he's in the last boy scout the same year he's in hudson hawk a very strange movie um he is a supporting actor in the phenomenal zamekis film death becomes her and then he's also sort of like a homicide detective and striking distance and then like he's in pulp fiction the same time as he does a narration for north it's sort of his that's his whole thing it's not really until after the 90s where it becomes much more

of a wrote action star, although he, you know, gives great performances in movies like, you know, Moonrise Kingdom. Like when he's given something really to put his teeth into, he can really do it. Unfortunately, of course, Willis is retired from acting because of basically mental deterioration. It's really sad that he is, that's how he ended his career. But he's a great actor. I think, I think Bruce Willis is genuinely a tremendous actor, and we will cover more of

his movies on this podcast. The last Boy Scout doesn't quite care. count but the third diehard film does as does the jackal a very strong remake of the day of the jackal mercury rising part of the genre of 90s autism movie armageddon the siege and i think i think 12 monkeys might count too i got to let me should watch that watch yeah and then as for runny harlan the director uh you know if you if you've watched kind of like a solid to mediocre 90s action film. You probably watched a Ronnie Harlan film. If you're a horror hound, you've seen his first big one, which was a nightmare on Elm Street 4, The Dream Master, sequel to A Nightmare

and Elm Street 3 of the Dream Warriors. I think those are two pretty good movies. But it's like they are, you know, pulpy. Cliffhanger, which is a Stallone vehicle with, what's his name? I'm going to forget his name. I'm going to forget his name. John Lithgow, not John Lithgow, but an actor, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a Southern actor. He was in the Guardian's movies now. He has a great Southern accent. Michael Rooker. Yeah, Michael Rooker.

Yeah. Oh, right. I've seen that guy, yeah. Yeah, yeah. The Long Kiss Good Night and Deep Blue Sea. Oh. The Mutant Shark movie with L.O. Cool J. A movie I love for its great L.O. Cool J. theme song.

Is that my hat is like a shark's fin? Yeah, yeah. Deepest, coolest, my hat is like a shark's fin. Yeah. Terrific film, cinema. But that's Rennie Harlan stuff. But he, I mean, he knows him to make a movie. I watched Die Hard, too. I've seen this movie a bunch.

I watched it this time with the director's commentary, so with Rennie Harlan kind of walking through the film. And like hearing him explain the various setups for the big action sequences, kind of the sets, that kind of the work of a, you know, it wasn't, this is a movie that takes place during winter, but they could not find any snow anywhere. So the work of trying to find snow, all that stuff was actually super interesting. So I would recommend you watch the movie. If you watch the movie, if you're watching it again, the Rennie Harlan commentary is pretty great.

you know we did a quick plot synopsis but it's worth the saying you're not going to walk through the plot but i mean you kind of get the idea bruce willis ordinary guy once again caught up with terrorists and the whole movie is basically sort of like a you know kind of escape the airport kind of thing while trying to make sure that a bunch of people don't die i don't uh it's not that much of these movies no good i mean he's just a normal cop he's an NYPD cop. This one takes place at Dallas. Not really. I think a lot of the interior shots are LAX, actually. And that's, that's it. I think the thinking about the politics of the movie and up with this over to you, John, this really seems to be another one of the kind of like Iran-Contra

inspired movies that we've seen. Yeah, I'm not going to say it's a left-wing orientation. But it has kind of this like this right-wing dictator who is being extradited to the U.S. right? and sympathizers within the American military establishment are trying to go through this complicated terrorist attack to get to free him. And it's got a clearly right-wing enemy, which I like, not a communist, some kind of contra or right-wing Latin American dictator. Noriega also comes to mind as someone who was extradited to the U.S. Well, we kind of went and got him.

But insofar as it has politics, those are sort of them. But the politics are very, I guess these guys are supposed to be slightly fascist, right? So they have this little cadry of this colonel and, you know, he's gone rogue from the U.S. military. And they're kind of militant anti-communists and they're trying to save this guy because he was actually one of the good guys. So there's a slightly, slightly fascist tinge to the bad guys in the movie. you know, Bruce Willis is not political. He doesn't have a... Nobody in the movie really has like a political consciousness about what's going on, obviously.

They're just like, there's a terrorist attack and they're the bad guys. And we just got to help out and do our jobs. I don't know how Bruce Willis or McLean is always at the wrong place at the wrong time where he has to like be... I guess that's just the way action movies work. He's always saving the day. The politics are pretty lightly worn. But it is interesting to me that, you know, after the Cold War,

you know, or even at the late parts of the Cold War, they're experimenting with other villains other than just like the Russians. There was a few sprinklings of Arab terrorists, which gets bigger later. So yeah, I'm not going to say that this is a left-wing movie by any means, but it was interesting to me that it had a right-wing-coded set of villains, and the military turns out to be. the bad guys in the movie. Kind of subverts some action movie things where it's like, oh, the military comes

and they're going to be hyper-competent and save everybody. But no, in this movie, everybody in the military is unreliable or evil and the only, the civilians kind of doing their jobs. Okay, I'm not going to take this too far. One might say the working class

is sort of like contributing the engineers and the staff and the air, airport and everyone's trying to, and McLean is just a civilian, even though he's a police officer. I think in Telfare has politics, those are them. It's a strangely anti-militaristic movie, but isn't that kind of true in all diehards? Like, there's a weird thing where they really hate these, like, the bad guys are these, like, hyper-organized, sometimes German, goons, and he's, like, sort of like this scrappy

working class hero fighting against them. There's like a weird anti-elitism. It's like a, it's a left-wing populism, let's say, about the die-hard movies. Yeah, I mean, so in the first diehard, Hans Gruber is a, you know, he's a kind of coded this a feat European criminal who is totally an elitist, totally someone who represents, you know, he gets in the confrontations with the owner of Nakatomi Plaza. That's more his element than confronting someone like Willis. And there's even a scene in that movie when the FBI asks him what his demands are and he makes him sort of like, you know,

I want you to release. He's political prisoners, et cetera, et cetera. And then afterwards, sort of like, that's all bullshit, obviously. Like, I'm just here for the money. And in the next diehard movie, the villain is Hans Cooper's brother, who is also kind of like another elitist European type. So I think, yeah, in these, at least these three entries, there's something there. I mean, I just, in some earlier movies in the podcast, you really did encounter quite a bit of this almost trope, right, of kind of military officials or ex-military officials who, because

of the fecklessness of the civilians, has had to take things into their own hands, either for monetary gain, there's something they're going to get out of it, or because they want to shape the political world in some particular way. So in the package, we have the military bureaucracy trying to engineer the continuance of the Cold War. You know, in the clear and present danger, in the second Harrison Ford Jack Ryan movie, we have the bureaucrats waging a secret war, trying to hide it from Congress, trying to, I mean, that's just like a Ron Contra straight up. That continues throughout quite a few of these movies, because it's not necessarily like a specifically political movie or specifically military thriller, it's not as sort of like plugged

into that. But it's it's there. It's like under siege in that regard. Under siege is another movie that kind of deals in this trope and deals with it very lightly. Like it's mainly just a showcase for Stephen Segal. And also it's like another diehard kind of movie. So I mean, there's that. But this mistrust of the military that we don't really see anymore. No. What you see more often, it's kind of your protagonist's ex-military themselves, and they may be served in the Middle East or whatever, or their special forces, and they bring those skills to bear on the crisis facing them, but actually the institution of the U.S. military itself as being a potential adversary as something that if it's not rained in, is dangerous and untrustworthy,

that's like not really a thing that we see anymore in the same way that we don't really see the lazy shiftless cop as like an archetype in movies anymore. Not to say that the United States in 1990 or before then was somehow kind of like anti-military anti-cop, obviously there's still, I think the broader cultural attitude is kind of a support the troops, you know, support the boys in blue kind of thing. But there still was at least like, it seemed to be space and like mainstream popular culture for the kind of skepticism towards these instances. institutions or at least like willingness to to present members of them as being something less

than you know the ideal citizen they don't do anybody in movies anymore who is like ethnically specific or class specific they're not like this guy's a cop from new york like he's got talks like this like that would also add like a degree of like if not class consciousness and sort of just like wrote populism to stuff where it's like I don't really get a along with authority. Like, I'm going to do my own thing. Like, that was more of a trope in movies, and you don't see that that much anymore. Like, in all these movies, like McLean has to deal with the institutions and the institutions aren't working, so he has to go and take things into his own hand and improvise. And he's just like, on his own initiative,

he's able to figure out what's going on. And they don't want to listen to him. The institutions are always trying to push him out and sideline him. And he has to kind of go and fix everything himself. I mean, I guess you have his characters who are like, this institution is holding me back. I'm a genius or I have some special talent that I need to, like, assert myself. That used to be just such a thing in movies or it's just like, he's a cop, but he's not, like he doesn't get along with the other, with the whole program, like Serpico, you know, like, you know what I mean? Right, right, right.

Like, it's a, I think that was a much bigger part of, like, male American consciousness, which is just like, I'm smart. Nobody. I'm smart. I got it all figured out. everybody else around me is an idiot like I'm the only person who can fix stuff and like no one listens to me of course who's asking my opinion but you know if you listen to me maybe you know like this whole this whole attitude of like being the one guy in the world who actually knows how to

fix things is not something you see that much anymore I feel like I don't know it I don't I leave this to you because you watch more contemporary movies than I do but I haven't aren't people like pretty cooperative and like nice in these movies I don't know Maybe that's a mystery. Yeah. Two thoughts. And I'm going to, I'll sideline the other, because the other one is related to die hard and die hard. You know, this type of movie, the hostage movie, which doesn't really exist prior to die hard.

There are disaster movies. There are all kinds of movies where a singular individual has to accomplish something. But this sort of hostage movie where the protagonist's opponents aren't just the terrorists or whomever who has taken these people hostage, but also the institutions like the bureaucracy or the police or whomever who are tasked ostensibly with saving the hostages but cannot do it, cannot accomplish it. That doesn't really exist prior to die hard. It feels very like Reagan America in terms of it's like ideological orientation. Entrepreneurial.

Yeah, like private sector will do it. The government is incompetent. Yeah. Right. I mean, basically, basically. Talking about contemporary movies, it's odd because. you have, you know, the overwhelming dominance of, like, the IP-driven superhero movies, which on one hand are this, like, celebration of, like, individual strength and power,

like, these, like, you know, literal supermen and women, mostly men who are, you know, who dominate their enemies, but their supernatural strength. But, like, the whole part of the whole conceit of these franchises is that you get to see these people working together, right? Like, you watch the Marvel movies, you know, because you're like, oh, I want to see who, you know, Shang Xi, whether he joins the Avengers. I want to see how Dr. Strange interacts with, you know, Captain Carter. I hate that I know these things. Yeah. Because I watch these movies.

You know, you want to see how all that stuff interacts. And so there is this kind of like, there is this kind of like, you know, liberal ethos of cooperation in teamwork embedded in these, even if the actual archetype is sort of like, you know, questionable. The other thing, though, you know, maybe one reason this isn't present in our pop culture is because it is president in our national politics, right? Sort of like, I mean, what was Trump? Trump's big line in his 2016 convention speech, except for me. Republican nomination was I alone can fix it. Yeah. And that's been, that's sort of like his, his, uh, Trump's appeal to many voters is as of

this kind of singular figure who can wipe away, you know, the bureaucratic detritus, the deep state and solve the problems facing Americans. And so I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to willing too hard on this, but there's an extent to maybe the app, to which the absence of this trope from, um, contemporary kind of action adventure movies is kind of a reaction to the fact that like it is part of our national life in a way that wasn't really true even in the Reagan years um you know even in the in the the the the Reagan term three George H.W. Bush which you know he his kind line that people were meant remember him forward it's like a thousand points of light or something like let

you know let civil society handle these things which is like a like in a lot of ways like a totally anti-Trumpian kind of perspective and it's moving attention away from a singular locus of authority. Yeah, I completely agree. Trump is definitely like something that a lot of these movies primed people

for, which was just like, he's a guy, he's from New York. Like, he's really smart, but he's street smart. And you can fix stuff. And that is definitely like McLean and related characters. It's so funny. as you were saying that this movie is just such a repertory theater of

the kinds of movies we've been watching because it has Dennis Franz who's definitely been in these movies and what's his name? You know who I'm talking about. You just mentioned him. Fred Thompson. Who's like in all these movies. Once you like watch enough of these

you kind of cross over into another world of these movies and you're just like this is the way the world works and this is what people are like and it's like it's strange you kind of like realize what it was like to be a movie viewer at this time period and like take all this stuff for granted. And you're like, oh, yeah, like, this is just like what people thought the movies were like and and like by extension in some weird way reality. I was just cracking up with some of

the like the one-liners in this movie and how corny they were. Like he, what does he say to the guy he's like the the general way as he goes, the land of the free. And then. And, like, he's like, he's like, not yet. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah, there's just, like, incredible, like, kind of corny action film one-liner in this movie, which I think, like, for it not being a great movie, actually makes them almost better. The two things that stuck out to me on this watch, we're sort of, like, I'm always interested,

I'm always fascinated by the presence of, like, black male authority figures as kind of, like, you know, as a cinematic trope right like john amos comes on screen and you you cast john amos for that role and john amos was a big guy he's very dark skin he's bald you cast john amos for that role essentially to communicate a certain amount of like trustworthiness and competence like oh a person like this with this bearing is someone you can trust and um be comfortable leaving them in control and command and i always just find that interesting. I don't know if I have like an analysis of it. Especially, but it is, it is, it is a thing that begins that you really don't see before

the 80s. No. In terms of, I mean, these kinds of movies don't really exist before the 80s. You know what I think it was? I think it was people in Vietnam, white people in Vietnam having black NCOs for the first time. Yes. And being like, seeing black people in a position of authority and something that they needed to rely on and trust to survive, and I think that that was a big part of it. I think I think that's right. Again, the politics of this movie are not particularly sharp. They're only there insofar as you can kind of like gleam them from the use of

cinematic tropes and the kinds of the nature of the plot. If there's a Ron Contra twist to this kind of represented by the fact that the general they're trying to get is Franco Niro's like, you know, South America. an ally former ally there's a bit of the vietnam stuff too and just kind of like the general sense of betrayal the military um character seem to have having a note about this because i do watch a lot of contemporary action movies that's us stand out is like the level of violence uh that's in this movie and i don't like a bad way but just sort of you don't often see in big hollywood studio pictures kind of like really gratuitous violence anymore part of that is just

the technology, like, to my eyes, digital blood just doesn't look all that gory. And so even something like John Wick, which has lots of digital blood, that doesn't strike me as particularly gory. Yeah. But John Wick is like an exception. Like I see that most Hollywood action movies are pretty bloodless. They're still pretty violent, but they're pretty bloodless. But in this, Rennie Harlan is like, there's squibs everywhere.

There's like, you know, gushing blood. You see like direct head shots. I mean, it's pretty, it's pretty striking. for something that is like built towards a big summer audience. Like this is not this is not something that is being released in February. This is a movie aimed for summer moviegoers and teenagers, teenagers and young men. So I just thought that was interesting. I think the comment on to go back to the Reagan point.

As I think about it, I feel like it's a thing you can kind of unspool throughout these three first diehard movies. We'll talk about die hard with the vengeance when we get to it. But the conceit in that one right is that John McLean is basically partnered up with Samuel L. Jackson, who is a black nationalist, plays a black nationalist in New York. And who is presented in this sort of like this kind of like the real racist frame. Right. Right. Because he's like a copy. He's like, actually, I tolerate all kinds of people. Like, why do you have a problem with me as a white guy? you know like right right exactly yeah um and that that feels like very Reagan you know like a very very Reagan uh Giuliani very Giuliani very Giuliani very Giuliani here in New York yeah yeah yeah a kind of

conservative racial politics that wasn't like that wasn't it's too strong to say that it was like a racist kind of conservative racial politics but very much a kind of like well you know blacks are kind of racist too right but but that that that kind of Reagan thread, I think, really stands out in this one because you have not just the military as the antagonist, but also you have kind of the police, kind of the more traditional police represented by Dennis Franz as being incompetent. And then just the bureaucracy of the airport is being incompetent. And then it all takes place outside of Washington, D.C., right? Sort of like the backdrop of all of this is, you know, an ostensibly incompetent,

feckless federal government. And so John McLean, our New York cop avatar, maybe not of the working class, but of kind of like, you know, the white ethnic middle class put upon by government and put upon by, you know, various other people that doesn't respect them. Right. Our white ethnic middle class stands tall against these other institutional no forces. In terms of the violence in the movie, I mean, there was a lot of concern in this hero. There was lots of writing and discussion on television about violence and movies. And it's interesting because people are sort of still of the belief that it was only going to get worse and movies were just going to get more sexually gratuitous and more violent. And they kind of

stopped. It's interesting. I mean, I'm sure you have many, many thoughts on this. But like, Yeah, like both right and left, there were left wing, not left wing so much as liberal, had complaints about the degree of violence and profanity and sexual gratuitous stuff in movies from the, in the 80s and 90s. And all of a sudden, it just kind of stopped. And I don't think it's made the country a safer or less violent or scary place. I mean, I think that there's less violence or less blood, but there's something more sinister in some of these movies, which you can see.

I this maybe is unfair but there's there's something more antisocial and um I don't know in some of in some of the the like actiony movies or thrillery movies that's such that they still exist there's a kind of like celebration of like really like with all this like tactical stuff like really death squatty antisocial stuff and not so much like oh yeah it's a bloody movie but like people are fundamentally like social creatures have relationships aren't like these weird mass killer types you know what i mean like the the movies were violent but it was like they're kind of like normal people just put in situations at highly violent situation i mean there's exceptions there's highly exploitive movies with psychopaths in this era too but like everyone blamed

columbine which happened after this on the degree of violence in movies and lyrics and video games. It doesn't seem that like calming down violent movies has really, or TV has really, like, made the country a nicer place. No, just to, so just to first comment on the political concern with violence and media, I mean, this was, this was a big thing. You have Tipper Gore's activism in the late 80s about music. You know, famously, there is a court case involving two live crew.

explicit the explicit lyrics in their songs yeah i think that came out uh their their song band in the usa came around the same time as this movie right right i have vague memories of like watching you know watching uh network news with my parents and hearing bill clinton or whoever talk about the v chip um which was a computer chip this was but been later in the 90s in 1996 and 37, a computer chip that would insert in the television to kind of like block certain materials. This was supposed to be used to help protect America's youth from the scourge of violence or sexuality and media. It was a provision, the V-CHIP is a provision in the telecommunications Act in 1996. And I quote Clinton here, I wish I could do a Clinton voice

because I just think, in my brain, he always sounds so sleazy. If every parent uses his chip wisely, it can become a powerful voice against teen violence, teen pregnancy, teen drug use, and for both learning and entertainment. We're handing the TV remote back. I'm going to do a Bill Clinton thumb on my fist and pointing. We're handing the TV remote TV remote back to America's parents that they can pass on their values and protect their children. In the end of politics 1990s, this was one of the big thing.

Sort of how do we protect the decency of America's youth from the bozos in Hollywood who want to saturate the airwaves with filth? I mean, to be honest, a lot of it was pretty fucked up. Like, I mean, people complain. People complain about how we live in a less in a censorious time. And I get it, like I, you know, coming from spending my childhood in the 90s and early adolescence in the 90s, when there was a little bit more of a easygoing attitude towards some things.

I'm like, come on, what's the big deal? Like this stuff, kids like, you know, figure it out for themselves or, you know, like, people are smart. They're going to hear bad things. But they can form their own opinions. Like, you don't have to spoon feed. But, dude, if you ever listen to the Howard Stern show, like, it was fucking wild. Like I was shocked I mean they say the N word I mean like you not like hard R and like and you you can't

really do it was obviously to be like provocative it wasn't like oh this is a use use mention distinction sort of thing they were using it I mean not using it like as a but they were just using it because they knew it was naughty and like it so it was and and like the things that people sat and got away with um in public on the radio they're pretty pretty fucking crazy if you look back at it and you're like I just cannot believe that this was just an accepted part and people complained but this was the era of political correctness and a lot of the stuff still existed so I mean like it's a hard balance to draw I mean I don't I think some of the critique of cancel culture and all that shit and political correctness is bullshit I do I do think

that there is sometimes especially with the arts. I think, you know, people in politics, obviously, of a different standard. I do think with the arts, there's got to be books, films, music. There has to be a slightly larger idea of what's acceptable. But it's incredible that, you know, I'm still shocked when I go back and see some of the things that flew in the 90s and I'm like, it's better. It's better now that this stuff isn't so around. This was, it's gross. I don't know if it made people, worse, but I think it made people more callous. No, it's cynical and it's just kind of sleazy and gross, like a lot of it. You're just like, dude, this is just kind of felt. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I will, you know, when watching a movie from this era and I hear someone used like an anti-gay slur.

Yeah. It really does, like, shock me. I'm sort of just like, oh, wow, people just like drop that shit in the middle of movies. I mean, you remember, like being a kid in that era, it's just like, it was just and then now it's like for a good reason it started to become unacceptable as I got older but like it was just everybody said it all the time it was really really fucked up and then you're just like oh that wasn't that well now it's going to be a long time ago I guess but it wasn't that long ago you know like that this was and it's incredible how it and and heartening in a way that these changes can happen you know like that these things these things do do go away or people people get more sensitive about it or feel like they shouldn't say it. Look, I'm sure a lot of people, a lot of places

when no one's around still say slurs. But, um, you know, in general, those things are not stuff that you hear so much in public or in movies. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Like, I don't think that, like, I obviously think like there, if it's a movie about this time period or deals with the subject matter, obviously you're going to have characters who speak that way. And that just makes it historically realistic. And there's no reason to, to avoid that. you know, especially if you're presenting it in a critical light. But yeah, it's just like, I think for the most part, most of the changes have been positive. And the, you can still make, I mean, I think that the reason why interesting movies are in short supply has more to do with the market and the way that the studios are set up than social codes prohibiting racy behavior, racy thoughts or, or,

speech on the screen or subject matter. I think it's more, it's less to do with cultural changes and more to do with the market changes. Right. Because you still have indie movies like Quentin Tarantino movies, which, you know, not everybody likes, but I think that they're kind of interesting and they're kind of edgy and he's just got a different funding supply and he's not all of Hollywood. He's an independent filmmaker.

So I don't know. Yeah. Before you wrap up, I want to do comment on the observation you made. just about the, you know, Bruce Willis's character, John McLean, is presented as a fundamentally social being. I mean, sort of his motive, his main motivation here is his wife is on one of these planes. My wife. And, yeah.

Yeah. You know, John McLean, they ask him, you know, what is your deal? And it's just like, my wife. And that's the movie. He's a wife guy. Yeah. And, but he, I mean, this is sort of part of. of, like, he isn't a lone vigilante. He is a guy who wants to, like, save his family. And that is,

I think, uh, I think you're right to notice that in more modern action films, or is this kind of like tactical death squatty vibe. Yeah. Or your protagonist is basically sort of like untethered from human connection. Yeah. That is is, is kind of, it's kind of weird and off putting. I mean, everyone likes Taken, but like you know, going to find his daughter, it's kind of just a pretext for Liam Neeson in that

first movie. He's really out to, like, beat the shit out of some Armenians. Yeah. Wait, what are they? Armenians? They're Armenians. Why do they have to pick on Armenians? I think they're Armenians. Okay. I think so. They're either Armenians or

Turks. I mean, they're Okay, there's some kind of foreign to take in films. They're not, they're not, I think that the big boss of the movie is like an, like an Arab, you know, fat cat. Okay. But I think they try to save that. They save that for the end. I think for the most part, it's like from other Eastern Europeans.

Uh-huh. And then like some skeezy French. Oh, Albanians. Albanians. Albanians. Albanians. Yeah, okay. Albanians.

Oh. Not as, not as messed up to make fun of Albanians as Albanians. yeah yeah you're right not as messed up still still kind of uncomfortable yeah for sure um but like that character is like very much sort of like you know he's a he's a lone wolf killer type and that's very much um very much kind of a popular archetype for action hero the fallen movies with gerard butler that's basically his character this sort of uh this like lone of the Death Squadie type who's uber competent. And I think

that does represent kind of a shift. They're not jokers, you know? Like the old guy, like, in the old action movies, they're like, I'm a funny guy. I forgot who said it. Some writer very intelligently once said that American masculinity is not about toughness or individuality, but about

thinking that you're funny. And like a real card and a cut up. And I think that that's changed. It's like the guy, like the jokey, the jocular action hero like making one-liners and being like, how do I go to this situation is not really something you see much more of these like really

serious guys. Right, right. I mean even in the age of like the reided out monster actually. Yeah, they were like joking. Shorzinger. They were, yeah, they had one-liner quits. Yeah, yeah. And that's that really has gone. And I think that does reflect something about sort of how

Americans are conceptualizing themselves, at least in relation to these kinds of movies. Because as I think about it, I mean, dirty hairy was funny. I mean, part of the part of the Eastwood's monologue in that first movie when he has a gun to that guy's you know face he's like he's like cracking jokes a little bit so yeah you have some of that you definitely have that in these superhero movies but in more conventional action films the quippy jokingness has really yeah falling away yep yeah um final thoughts on die hard

two die harder this is the first time i saw it i haven't i've seen die hard three three for some reason, but not two. I don't know if I've even seen. Well, that's because Die Hard 3 is good. Yeah. I don't know if I've seen Die Hard 1 or like all the way through, to be honest with you. So it was an interesting new experience for me to get, uh, initiated into this piece of pop culture at this late age, relatively late age for that kind of thing.

And it was fun. It's not a great movie, but, uh, I was entertained and yeah. Yeah. I've seen this movie a bunch. I own all, I own all but the most recent diehard movie on physical media. And I think of especially this one and like the ones after the third one as being movies you can kind of half watch. They're not really good. There's some good action sequences. You put them on. You do other stuff. You'll look up when, um, uh, when things get exciting. A friend, some friends call them hangover movies and that's basically what this is. But I, I do

think that this, even though, as we've been saying, the politics aren't particularly well defined, I think this being kind of like it's a big budget Hollywood action flick and yet still sort of speaking to some things about American culture that really have changed in the last 30 years. I think that's, I think that's, I think that makes it interesting. I think that makes it sort of worth watching with that in mind. So if you haven't seen, if you've listened to this entire conversation, you have not seen die hard to, check it out. and sort of keep with an eye towards kind of things about tropes and, you know, types of characters

that we don't really see in movies anymore, but that do reflect something distinct about American life at the beginning of the 1990s. That is our show. If you're not a subscriber, please subscribe. We're available on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, and Google Podcasts. And wherever else podcasts are found, if you subscribe, please leave a rating and a review. you. It helps us climb up the rankings and become more prominent, which is always fun. Want more people listening to the show. You can reach out to both of us on Twitter. I'm at Jay Bowie. John, you are. At Lionel underscore trolling. And we have a Twitter account as well that's at

Unclear Pod trying to make better use of it. So follow the Twitter account, trying to post some stuff and turn it into something actually kind of engaging. So there's that. We also have an email feedback that's a you can email us at unclear and present feedback at fastmail.com. And for this week in feedback, we have an email from a listener named John. It's titled DocuDramas. I've been enjoying the podcast and its analysis of this type of post-Cold War American culture. I was wondering if you guys should be looking at the number of docu dramas or fake documentaries that came from this era. Films by major networks such as the alien encounter depiction without warning from 94,

the insane HBO second civil war movie from 1997, and World War III from 1998 are a few that came to mind. World War III is one that I think would be particularly interesting for the podcast, as it depicts with great detail, a hot war between the U.S. and USSR in 1989 and seeing somewhat prescient with the current war in Ukraine. Anyway, enjoying the podcast. We did one of those by Don's Early Light was one of those. But we should, yeah, I would be up for these. I totally forgot if they existed. I don't know about the Second Civil War one, but I think we should watch that.

Yeah, that sounds fun. I would definitely be down. I think that'd be good content. Yeah. Episodes come out every other Friday. And so we will see you in two weeks with another movie from earlier in the timeline. You know, I made this big master list in movies, but there are things I missed. And this is one a reader recommended, so we're going to watch it.

It's Deep Cover, directed by the Great Bill Duke. A quick plot synopsis. Black police officer Russell Stevens applies for a special anti-drug squad, which targets the highest boss of cocaine delivery to L.A., the Colombian foreign minister's nephew. Russell works the way up from the bottom, undercover, until he reaches the boss. Deep Cover is available for rent on Amazon and iTunes. You can also buy a copy from Criterion,

That's a copy I own. And we're going to have a guest for this episode. So stay tuned for the guest. Our producer is Connor Lynch. And our artwork is from Rachel Eck. For John Gans, I'm Jamel Bowie. This is unclear and present danger. We'll see you next time.

You know,