Unclear and Present Danger - The Substitute

Episode Date: February 16, 2024

For this week’s episode of the podcast, we watched the 1996 action thriller slash high school drama The Substitute, directed by Robert Mandel — a prolific television director — and starring Tom Berenger, Ernie Hudson, Diane Venora, Marc Anthony, Luis Guzmàn and William Forsythe.In The Substitute, Berenger plays Jonathan Shale, a Vietnam veteran and mercenary who takes a break from the business of wet work after a botched operation in Cuba where several of his men were killed. He returns home to Miami to stay with his girlfriend, Jane Hetzko played by Venora, who is a teacher at a local, troubled high school.Jane becomes a target of the largest and most dangerous gang at the school, Kings of Destruction, and its leader Juan, played by Anthony, directs his men to attack her. She is seriously injured and while in the hospital, Shale maneuvers to become her substitute. His plan? To take down the gang, which is using the school as essentially an open air drug market.As he moves to confront Juan, Jonathan discovers that the gang is working with the school’s ambitious and corrupt principal, played by Ernie Hudson, to move and distribute ever larger shipments of drugs from foreign supplies. Eager for revenge after a friendly teacher is killed by Juan, Jonathan gathers his men to make an assault on the gang, its suppliers and their allies.The tagline for The Substitute is “The most dangerous thing about school used to be the students.” You can watch The Substitute for free on Amazon Prime or on Tubi or Pluto or one of those services.Our next episode will on Brian DePalma’s 1996 espionage thriller, Mission: Impossible.Connor Lynch produced this episode. Artwork by Rachel Eck.Contact us!Follow us on Twitter!John GanzJamelle BouieUnclearPodAnd join the Unclear and Present Patreon! For just $5 a month, patrons get access to a bonus show on the films of the Cold War, and much, much more.

I want you on me. Both of you, out! What were his exact words? That if I didn't back off, I'd wish I did. I can't boot him out without definite proof of wrongdoing. This guy is dangerous. Oh, I've been so happy to see anybody in my whole life. What's going on?

My students are trying to kill me. My name's Smith, I'm her substitute. Ha! I'm the principal. Oh, good to meet you. You're not one of our regular selves. Yo, Freddy Kruger, knock it off. It's not a manicure shop.

Oh. I'm in charge of this class. You ever been shot? Mr. Whatever your name is? Yeah, I've been shot. Who is he? The other day I was talking, and I just happened to glance back, and weirdest thing happened.

What? They were listening. Wait till he's off-school ground. I don't want to kill him right off. Life's a chess game, Juan. This is a crucial move. I want you to think it over. Welcome to 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. My name is John Gans. I write the substack newsletter on popular front. And I'm the author of the forthcoming, When the Clock Broke, Conman Conspiracists and How America Cracked Up in the early 1990s, which is a book about the 1990s. Yes, if you like this podcast, whether you're a new listener or an old listener, I think you'll want to pick up the book. It's basically the book is very much related to the podcast in vice versa. So as we've been saying, please pre-order if you were interested in the book, pre-order your local bookstore, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, whatever you feel like doing. I always recommend local bookstores.

But pre-orders are the things that really count for book sales. Yes. Thanks so much, Jamel. Yeah. And it's going to be a little while before it comes out, but I'm very excited to share it with all of you. Not too long, June, right? June, June. I guess it's coming up.

Yeah. For this week's episode of the podcast, we watch the 1996 action thriller slash high school drama, kind of. The Substitute directed by Robert Mandel, a television director mostly, and starring Tom Berringer, Ernie Hudson, who you will recognize from Ghostbusters, Diane Vinora, who you'll recognize from Heath, she plays Al Pacino's life in that movie, Mark Anthony, Louise Guzman. I mean, these are great actors. I mean, Beringer's side, these are great actors. in William Forsyth, who is barely in the movie, but he is there. In the substitute, Berringer plays Jonathan Shale, a Vietnam veteran, and mercenary, who takes a break from the business of wet work.

After a botched operation in Cuba, where several of his men are killed. He returns home to Miami to stay with his girlfriend, Jane Hesko, played by Vinora, who is a teacher at a local troubled high school. Jane becomes a target of the largest and most dangerous gang at the school, of destruction and its leader Juan, played by Mark Anthony, directs his men to attack her. She is seriously injured, and while in the hospital, shale maneuvers to become her substitute, his plan to take down the gang, which is using the drug as basically a drug market. Using the school is basically a drug market.

As he moves to confront Juan, Jonathan discovers that the gang is working with the school's ambitious and corrupt principle, played by Ernie Hudson, to move and distribute ever larger shipments of drugs from foreign suppliers. Eager for revenge after a friendly teacher is killed by one, Jonathan gathers his men to make an assault on a gang, its suppliers, and their allies. The tagline for the substitute is, the most dangerous thing about school used to be the students. And you can watch the substitute for free on Amazon Prime,

which I think via one of their free services, or I think on Tubi or Pluto or one of those things. So this is an easy movie to find for free. It will not surprise even learn that I actually just like have it owned it digitally. I'm actually surprised that you own this movie. I don't even like it that much. It was just super cheap the first time I watched it. And I was like, you know what?

Why not? The substitute was released from April 19th, 1996. So let's check out the New York Times for that day. Well, it's a little sadly relevant again. Here it says the big headline is Israeli barrage hits UN camp in Lebanon, killing at least 75. All are civilians. Grave error, Israel says, death spur drive to halt conflict. The Israeli army fired an artillery barrage into the United Nations peacekeeping camp today,

killing at least 75 Lebanese civilians and wounding more than 100. The attack, which Israel said came in response. to rocket and mortified by guerrillas near the base was by far the deadliest yet in the eight-day-old offensive in southern Lebanon. The civilians were among hundreds of local people who had taken refuge in the camp, the headquarters of a Fijian infantry battalion. Most died when the shells set a recreation center and two prefabricated and two prefabricated buildings ablaze. Israel said the attack on the base was a grave error. It prompted worldwide outrage and a rapid intensification of diplomatic efforts to bring a halt to the conflict.

Yeah, I mean, you know, the situation in Lebanon continues apace. Hezbollah launches barrages at Israel, their counter barrages, their civilians in the way. Israel has pulled out mostly from southern Lebanon and has tried to enforce some kind of a buffer zone with limited success. And here's another article on the same topic. Voicing regret Israeli leader offers a ceasefire. Prime Minister Shimon Perez expressed regret today over the deaths of at least 75 civilians in Israeli artillery strike and said Israel was prepared to accept an immediate ceasefire

if its Islamic guerrilla opponents did too. But Mr. Perez defiantly insisted that Hezbollah guerrillas had provoked the attack on the United Nations base where the civilians were seeking shelter. He said Israel responded to guerrilla fire from near the base, not knowing that it was packed with civilian refugees. United Nations officials had fired two Katusha rockets and several mortar rounds at Israel, and Israelis from positions only a few hundred yards for the base. We are not bud thirsty and we're not looking for adventures. Graham, Mr. Perry, is declared after an emergency meeting of his cabinet,

which authorized him to seek an immediate end to large scare and artillery strikes that sent hundreds of thousands of Lebanese civilians flee northward in panic. Well, much different tone from Israeli leadership these days. I mean, there's many things to criticize about Shimon Perez, but he is not Benjamin Nintyahu. And here's another piece about the Middle East here. Gunmen in Egypt kill 18 an attack at Torres Hotel. Islamic Group is blamed. Terrorist raid is most violent of a four-year campaign and ends reprieve in Cryro.

gunmen with automatic rifles and pistols opened up fire early today on Greek tourists outside their hotel, killing 18 people and wounding at least 17 others in the most violent attack on foreigners since tourists became targets here in 1992. Hours after a 7 a.m. attack, no group had claimed responsibility, nor did the government officially accuse any party. But if senior Egyptian officials said they suspected cells of the Islamic group, of Fundamentos Muslims who have waged a violent four-year campaign to undermine Egypt's secular government. Their former spiritual leader, Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, is serving a life sentence in the United States for an involvement and plots to bomb several New York city landmarks.

In a statement from prison made public this week, the Sheikh called on his followers to avenge him, saying he was treated shabbily, prevented from praying when he wants to and subjected to frequent strip searches. Well, this kind of terrorism and this group is kind of on the road to al-Qaeda. We kind of have seen this too in recent movies and recent New York Times headlines as the kind of evolution of terrorism from being something that was sort of done. Terrorist groups would claim responsibility. They would usually have a concrete demand, like the release of some people. people or some kind of political demand. And then there's kind of newer Islamic fundamentalist terrorism that just sort of sought

to do as much destruction as possible. And the groups would often kind of occlude or attempt to obfuscate their involvement. Let's see what else we got here. We haven't talked about the Oklahoma city bombings, but there's a, article related to them. Blasthole is no longer in deaths but in shattered lives. The Shark Nosed 1968 Plymouth Roadrunners alive again. Rick Tomlin, a middle-aged civil service, has been working in a spare time to help his son restore it. But that project was cut short when a truck bomb tore through the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building killing Mr. Tomlin

and 167 others years ago, one year ago. Jeremy, his 22-year-old son, finished the work himself now and then he steers the old car onto one of the thick black remnants of tar and gravel that link the wide-swept country around Piedmont, just 30 minutes outside of Oklahoma City for up begins a slow Sunday drive. Then he gets to thinking about his father, about their life together, and the manner of his death, and I just stomp on it to the floor and let it run. I mean, this is a human interest story that's quite sad about people whose family members were killed. in the Oklahoma City bombing, which up until 9-11, I believe, was the worst terrorist attack in American history. Yes. Carried out by Timothy McVeigh with help from Terry Nichols, kind of far right, extreme right, neo-Nazi-inspired terrorist who were involved also in the militia movement, which was big in the 90s. And it's kind of just part of normal politics now.

I mean, it's, it's, I don't mean to joke, but I think a lot of the, a lot of the political energy that once found its outlet in groups like the Michigan militia and kind of politics that, that Timothy McVeigh was attracted to was now very close to, I think just the mainstream of the Republican part. Yeah, pretty much. I mean, even then there is like flirtation from the Republican right with these people. But I think you're, I think you're, I think it's fair to say that now it's just, it's just straight up, you know, mainstream Republicanism. Right. And I think that in, you know, sort of perversely, a good and bad, you know, thing has come out of that is actually, that may have actually reduced some violence because, you know, when you're actually have to have the, uh, you know, the ear of elected officials, this kind of political expression is less necessary. On the other hand, you know, it's much worse that these sorts of politics is kind of incorporated into, you know, the normal processes of our democracy. I don't get to it in my book,

but I definitely talk. My book ends sort of with with Waco Burning and Timothy McVeigh witnessing this But I definitely talk about the extremist survivalist militia far right and its birth in the 1990s. And it's closeness in a way to, it's always a little closer to mainstream politics than you would perhaps suppose. So there's not, I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of very good books about Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing. but I think like maybe some slightly under commented component of modern politics. I think that's right. There's there's there's some, you know, Catherine Bellew has written, written much about this. And she comments on this.

But there's so, I think, a general mainstream reluctance that kind of make direct connections. In the same way that there's generally, I think a mainstream reluctance to make these sorts of like direct connections between the far right. the violent far right and the mainstream right. I was just talking with a friend of mine recently about how, you know, looking back, I mean, I think at the time this was obvious, and I wrote about this at the time, but looking back, it's sort of like uncontestable that there is at least some kind of thematic connection between the fact that these two events happen literally back to back, literally back to back. The Charleston church shooting and Donald Trump announcing his campaign for president.

Yeah, it's not exactly an act of violence. But, I mean, the entire thesis, I don't want to turn this into a symposium on a book, but it's relevant, is that, you know, my book connects directly David Duke running for governor in Louisiana and then Pat Buchanan deciding, hey, maybe there's a appetite out there for this kind of stuff. Right. So there is a definite, I think it's just like, I think people, extremism, you're like, well, what effect does it have on mainstream politics? I think it's actually a really interesting question and a question my book tries to kind of understand and I think a lot of good books try to understand. It is more complicated and more important part of mainstream politics

than I think a lot of people fully appreciate and realize. And I think the thinking of it is extreme, thinking of his marginal, tends to kind of obfuscate actually how it plays into the dynamics of politics. I think that's right. um anything else on the on the page here i don't know anything looks interesting to you i just want to note real quickly senate defeats dole revision to health bill medical account plan turned back 52 46 it's just uh bob dole tried to kill a health bill with an amendment

kind of standard story on a procedural uh maneuvering this bill though i believe that this bill if i have this right is what people will know as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or HIPAA, you may recognize from insane people on the Internet telling you that they can't. You can't tell them to get vaccinated because of their HIPAA rights. HIPAA, Title II, is about basically like health care administration, medical liability, health care data, privacy, how people know it, know it. Title I is basically sort of like allowing people to maintain continuous coverage after, if they, like, lose their job or whatever. Not COBRA.

That's an 86 bill. But this is you can, you can continue purchasing health insurance, you know, as long as you don't have a significant breaking coverage or something like that. Anyway, kind of an increment, kind of a classic incremental, you know, reform of the Clinton years. And basically the thing that kind of emerges after the failed attempt to do kind of more substantive health reform at the beginning of Clinton's presidency. The effort to expand health insurance coverage to say nothing of sort of like expand the government's role in it is. a long one and mostly met with failure until of course pretty recently.

Yep. So that's it for me. Okay. So we watched the substitute, which I think I believe I've described on this podcast before as stand in deliver if the teacher beats the show of the kids. And I, you know, we're rewatching it. I stand by

that description. This is kind of weirdly a bit of an inspirational teacher movie, but also this inspirational teacher kills kids. He throws them out of windows. Throws him out of windows, beats the living hell out of them. I gave kind of a brief plot summary at the top, but basically this movie, you know, again, it begins with Tom Barringer.

He failed, botched mission. He goes back to Miami. makes his way after his girlfriend's beat up by this gang, it's a substitute teacher. And the bulk of the film is him as a substitute teacher, both trying to mentor the kids by telling war stories, I guess. The movie doesn't really have a sense of what teachers do. Mentor students trying to find the good ones,

but also trying to get to the bottom of this gang in the high school, which, and I feel like there's, I think there's a lot to talk about this movie because it is basically sort of like a portrait of suburban fears of like the city and of urban schools and I got I got a little I was so I guess how I put this I was so blown away by how just like nastily reactionary this movie is oh yeah that I ended up watching another one in the genre, an earlier one, The Principle, starring John Belushi, or Jim Belushi, sorry,

from 87, which is actually, surprisingly, like, less, I mean, it's pretty racist, but it's like less racist. It's not so, like, it's not as ugly as the substitute is, but sort of in the same point.

There's another movie similar to these from later in the decade called 187, which is insane, starring Sam Jackson, It started Sam Jackson to make it seem like a little, I mean, that movie is terrifically racist, and having Sam Jackson be the protagonist makes it a little less so. I also started watching this morning while I was at the gym, lean on me with Morgan Freeman, which is sort of more in the inspirational genre. But again, that movie begins, well, this begin, when it moves to the present day in the movie,

the first, the musical cue is Welcome to the Jungle. and it's inside the high school and then when the students come out who are mostly black that's when you hear Axel Rose scream Welcome to the jungle So this So this notion

This is such a huge Dangerous Minds Dangerous Minds of course Michelle Pfeiffer Yeah it was a year before this movie Which I have not seen in a long time John I'm gonna watch all these movies I'm kind of like fascinated by this mini genre of film, all of them being sort of like, you know, they all take place in cities.

It's in Miami. They all take place in urban high schools. And it's the students are always predominantly black and brown. And it's sort of like these are law, these are lawless places, basically jungles. with students that are little better than animals. And the only thing that could bring any kind of order is the steady hand of like a some sort of patriarchal figure. Sometimes that figure is black. And in those cases, interesting sort of like, there's a lot of like, you know, kind of classical

black conservatism is like a lot of rhetoric there. but then in the case of the substitute it's it's a white man and it's very much sort of like a patriarchal white man needs to bring violence and put in and inflict violence on these subhuman children in order to bring them into civilization yeah it's crazy yeah i don't know what did you think john well i mean i can't disagree i think that basically yeah like it this is a it's funny that this movie came out like a One year after, Dangerous Minds was like a big cultural phenomenon because it like, because of the song with the Gangstis Paradise by Coolio. Coolio. Michelle Pfeiffer. And it was like, you know, there was a lot of concern in this era with the inner cities and with inner city children. Gangster rap music was big.

There was big, what are we going to do about these kids? How are we going to reach these kids? And Dangerous Minds, actually, which was based on the memoir of a. a woman who was a Marine, kind of like the character of this movie, and then became a teacher, but was, you know, like, kind of, like, loved and supported her students, like the actual guy and stand and delivered, the actual math teacher and stand deliver. But, you know, it was also kind of patronizing and racially problematic, let's say. But there was also this notion of, like, oh, we need to give back to these communities and, you know,

like, these are underserved communities. And there was also like a pure, a purient fascination at that time with gang culture, gang signs, gangster rap, obviously, the colors, all the different outfit, you know, like, like the 90s really brought that. I mean, there were some of that in the 80s, but the 90s really brought that into like mainstream style. So like it was this weird combination of this like fear and fascination with the ghetto, right? Like that's like when ghetto as a style like because. like extremely, you know, like every white kid starts dressing that way. That stuff hadn't really happened that much before the 90s. We take it for granted, but it's sort of like that really took place in the 90s with the mainstreaming of hip-hop. So like the culture is sort of like try to digest this thing. And this movie has like so many mixed messages, as you've pointed out, where it's like

this movie, like Tom Berringer, I think is a very right-wing coded star, much like Steven Seagall. What is his politics? I think, I don't know. I don't know what his actual politics are. But all his movies, like, sniper, you know, like, these are movies that I get very reactionary vibes from. I mean, yeah.

So he's in Platoon. He was nominated for an Academy Award for in Platoon. But he's in Gettysburg, which is a very right wing-coated movie. Because it's like kind of like a lost causey. Yeah, yeah. the noble confederates what else his roll in sniper is like he's like a real soldier and like he's willing to kill and the other guy's kind of a pussy right and like right so like teach him not to be and like too civilized and has lost his his edge so like and and in this movie he's like he's like

this extremely figure of the 80s almost like he's a he's a he's a he's a he's there's something very 80s about this movie and that was a 90s movie first it's just depiction the way it depicts drug dealers. But he's like a mercenary. He's like, he's like, oh, there's a photo of him in Nicaragua. He's this very Reaganite phenomenon of like soldier of fortune kind of stuff where they're doing like these semi-private military operations. And they're like, what we really need is to like get the best of the best. And we'll, and we'll send them down to these communist places and they'll be able to form death squads. So he's basically like a death squad leader. And then he's like, but he's like, I'm going to go and help out these kids. He's a

Vietnam veteran, too. Right, right. Yeah, you're right. The fantasy is like, this is like a very like, yeah, like it mixes two things because Dangerous Minds is sort of liberal, you know, like, oh, if you go into the community as a white person, like, and do your best, like, you can make a difference. And it's got that. His, like, his girlfriend is kind of do gooderish in that way, but she's also kind of fed

up with the bad kids. And he, but it mixes it with this extremely right wing conceiving. which is like, oh, you know, what we need to do is basically militarize the solution to these problems and bring in mercenaries and special forces, which was like a big thing, you know, also in the 80s and 90s with inner city problems. It was just like, you know, Ross Perot talked about like we need to, you know, treat it like an actual war and start shooting drug dealers and, you know, the way the LAPD behave, they liken their behavior to like counterinsurgency. warfare and Vietnam. So you have all these themes kind of competing in this movie. And this movie kind of is like weird mix, as you say, of Stand Deliver, but he kicks the kids' asses of like this liberal give back thing.

But then, you know, the guy to do it should be like this weird mercenary soldier. Not even a soldier. Like this guy's like death squad, dude. Like, it's so weird. I'll say it's not even like giving back because when he's in the classroom. He's teaching them nothing. He's teaching them nothing. He teaches him nothing.

Bad history. He's sort of like, I mean, it's kind of funny because he has no idea what they're learning. And he kind of walks in and he's like, does anyone know where Vietnam is? And he's just, what? Yeah, he starts teaching with the Vietnam War, but his way of teaching about the Vietnam War is like put it in language they can understand. So he's like, the gangs in the north and the gangs in the South wanted to take over the gangs in the South.

And you're like, this is doing them a disservice. like they would be better off like not being taught this why were we there and he's like to fight communism and the kids like a kid's like that's where my mom left cuba um the movie's really anti-castro i mean which makes sense but it's like it's like kind of it's it's more antichastro than it needs to be if that makes any sense it's it's it's like ideologically antichastro well it's a right wing movie. It's like this weird right wing movie where they're like anti-castro, anti-communist mercenaries, but then it's, but then it tries to do, it's like this, it's like tries to do that and it's like, and we'll make dangerous minds. The thing is, is like the fucking gangsters and

the whole high school and everything is super West Coast coded. So you're like, like, they're like, oh yeah, they're Cuban and black, but you're like, dude, they're trying to make this high school look like it's like south central because that's like in the cultural consciousness there's like no geographic specificity they're like yeah it's the ghetto whatever like so it's just like you're like i didn't i i watched this movie when i was a kid which is insane to think about and like certain certain parts of it kind of and i got it like mixed up with dangerous minds in my head and i was like what was the movie where like she gets she's like getting chased into the car by all the gangsters and And I was like, oh, it's this one.

I got it like confused with dangerous minds in my head, which I actually don't know if I've ever fully seen. And so like it, these movies all kind of turned into a mush into my head. But yeah, it just like has no specificity of place except for like there's the Everglades. And like the bad guys like a Seminole Indian, which is pretty fucked up to like pin that drug dealing on the fucking listen. All the brown people are. They need the stern hand of a white disciplinarian. There's also like the one black character who's like, well, there are sympathetic black characters, but like they're all like they need the white people.

And there's like, um, who's that actor? I know that actor. Ernie Hudson. No, no, the good, the good black teacher. Oh, um, uh, Glenn Plummer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he, he's also in menace to society and, uh, he's in South Central. He's like a good guy, but he's, he like, when the sleazy black politician principal, who's like this like fucking Kwame Kilpatrick slash like, who is the mayor of DC who was so famous?

Marion Barry. Marion Barry kind of like object of right wing disdain where he's like, he's a sleazy black politician with a gold Rolex and you're like, give me a fucking break, man. I, you know, I honestly forgotten about that whole element, but it's from. of like it is again it's like another level of racism on the right and it's like it's the kids or animals and be the black figure of authority is yeah sleazy and slick and using them yeah and untrustworthy and corrupt right and then the one the one good black guy is not too smart and he's evil he's easily taken in by the the the sleazy black politician because when Tom Berringer lays the truth on him about it, he says, oh, you're, you, you were, like, trying to keep the black man down, like, and you're always trying to set us against each other whenever there's a black man doing well, blah, blah, this is the most, like, idiot Republican shit to be like, oh, yeah, well, that's what they say, but, like, actually, this guy was really corrupt. It's just, like, like, so straight up fucking idiotic. But then he, he gets killed by that, uh, he's preyed upon by the evil black guy. So like the good black guy is is like requires the help of the of the of the of the of the of the tough white mercenary military guy to come in, not even a cop. And like can't see through the corruption of the black politician, you know, the proverbial sort of metaphorical black politician who's who's, um, coordinating the gangs. You know, yeah, all the brown people in the movie are bad. Like, or stupid. There's no. They're like. While they're good, they're stupid and like they can come to the support and the aid of the main character, but they have to listen to him because he can see through it.

And he has like a little kind of multicultural team. You know, like it's like we talked about this before, like the multicultural military thing, which goes back to like World War II movies, like platoon movies where it's like got like all the different ethnic groups, usually not a black guy. But like later we got Italian, we got Polish, we got a Polish guy. And sometimes a Hispanic, a Rodriguez or a Gomez or something like that, and a Jewish guy. But there's usually not a black guy until they put a black guy in Force 10 from Navarone, which is a movie I really like from the 1970s. But have you seen that, Jamel? No, I haven't. You would love that movie.

We got to talk about that. But it's got Harrison Ford. So the, yeah, so basically, yeah, the movie is pretty. where a lot of these like hood school movies I guess are kind of condescending but like realize that the people involved are sort of like you know people this movie is like just one of the most extraordinarily bad ones of its of its genre and it's just incredible to see that it was made and I could just like see this movie just being still beloved today by by Republicans I'm surprised I'm honestly surprised

that this kind of thing hasn't made its way back given a lot of given the fewer mongering over city is after the after 2020 um after through the black lives matter protest um uh i just sort of like you know san francisco and chicago i'm surprised at like the daily wire hasn't tried to produce a movie along these lines um i think it's worse now i think that they basically the idea of the right now is like the hordes the the subhuman hordes of the city like can't even be governed you know like I think it's like it's it's it's beyond like like you need a talk like this is like sort of well maybe even slightly to the right of Giuliani politics or something like that it's it's slightly

to the right of Giuliani politics I would say it's like a person who liked this movie would could vote for Giuliani but is like kind of edging towards like maybe the militias are on to something. You know what I mean? Like, that's where the politics are of this, of this, this movie's like moving towards the extreme right, but still has some like normative things going on. And I think now it's just like, you need an AR-15. That's basically the answer. It's like, we just got to shoot black people. Like, that's the, that's basically, I think, the difference between today and this movie. It's just like any kind of like pretense of being like, well, we could do this paternalistic stuff. I think it's just gone. I think that

the level of, of fear after, uh, the George Floyd protests, especially has become like near psychotic and like, yeah. Right. Because, because here, this is inspired. Oh, yeah. Let's think about the distinction here. So this movie is inspired. I wouldn't say I, this movie is informed in the zeitgeist. Is this not just sort of fear of cities, which is kind of a perennial thing, But 96 is still within the world of the crime wave of the 80s and early 90s. The drug war is definitely in gear. As you mentioned, gangster rap is very much in circulation. And there's the image of the ghetto is, like you said, this image of fascination,

this image of fear, very much circulating and kind of mainstream culture. The previous year is when the criminologist, John J. DeLulio Jr., John J. Delulio Jr., coined the term Super Predator. Oh, yeah, I was thinking about that while I was watching this movie. And the Super Predator theory

was that basically there was a growing population of urban youth who were basically sociopathic and would commit crimes without remorse. In 95, 96, I believe there was a Newsweek article

titled Super Predators Arrive. Here's a choice paragraph. Criminal justice experts have predicted the arrival of the super predators, a generation of teens so numerous and savage that they'll take violence to a new level. Quote, it's Lord of the Flies in a massive scale,

says Cook County State's Attorney Jack O'Malley. We've become a nation being terrorized by our children. O'Malley recently reorganized the juvenile division because of the growing number of very young offenders. Those states that fail to prepare for the super predators, he says, we'll regret it. They can always wait until the kids get out on their 21st birthdays.

So there's like this panic about, you know, basically young black people being savage killers. And this is, this obviously is seeping its way into popular culture. I think the substitute reflects that, that thing that is happening to in popular culture and in the broader culture with this sort of pathologizing of inner cities. inner-city schools, young people, and all the like. Of course, that is not to say that there was not violent crime or that there were not troubled schools. But the image being presented is that this is basically sort of like an inevitable monolith of dangerous young people. In the real world, of course, there's a massive crime decline in the years after super predator theory is articulated.

Yeah, no, I was just, this discussion made me grab Mike Davis's city of courts and just to see how, you know, how much this fear had infected basically not only white but black America too. I mean, I mean, there's that famous book locking up her own, but this is interesting. Although Jesse Jackson continues to campaign for the rescue of ghetto youth, including hardcore gang members, others argue that vigilanteism has become the order of the day. In an essay written from Oakland Ground Zero, the novelist Ishmael Reed, who is a black radical novelist, and it's very surprising you would say this, predicts that the time is fast approaching when the black working class, people have put in time at stupid dull jobs all their lives and suffered all manner of degradation so that their children might become achievers will have to take the offensive against black terrorists, the brutal crack fascists. comparing the daily existence in East Oakland or Watts, the impression in Haiti under the Tonton

Makuts, Reed scorns white liberals from the hills who have out of Nicaragua bumper stickers on the Volvo, but are perfectly willing to tolerate drug fascists who prey upon the decent citizens of Oakland. So perhaps an unlikely constituency for a Tom Berringer type intervention. But, like, yeah, I think it's easy to remember that, like, I mean, it's easy to say some of this was a hysterical overreaction, but I think like a lot of people were, the situation of poverty and despair was so bad that I think a lot of people felt sort of,

a lot of people you would expect to have reasonable or sympathetic views were kind of at a loss. Right, which is why there's, I mean, like I said, there's a lot of these movies more than you'd think. And something like, something like lean on me

I can see that that which which has Morgan Freeman as this disciplinarian tough principal who goes to this very troubled school not unlike the one

in not like the one in the substitute and in fact I was about to say the one of the substitute may be more of a caricature but not even because lean on me you see there's a shot

of a of a slick looking black man bringing drugs to a school that a kid picks up to sell. So, like, very much in the same, you know, mold. And the Merkin Freeman character is, like, he belittles the kids. He mocks them. He is actually pretty horrible to them in a way that I actually think that there probably was a real constituency among black Americans for, because he also combined

this but sort of like a you can't blame white people you got to you got to work work hard you you know pull up your pants um show yourself some self respect it's get some dignity like those are very common kind of like the the lay conservatism of the black community is in there um so that's one end of it which is still conservative like this is the fundamentally conservative genre right um but there's that and then the end of it. then there's this there's the view of it from perhaps like a right wing republican which is much more like these people are subhuman right right right or children at best right um and need the stern guidance of you know of a white man to establish order the the principle which is the the

Jim Belushi movie is, like, very, very similar to the substitute. Belushi obviously is not as, is not coded as competent or as upstanding as Barringer is. Belushi's character is like a drunk and he's recently divorced and narrow do well. And yet, the movie still is very much of the position that this school, in order to have any hope of thriving, needs not just the stern hand of a white man, but a white man who's willing to inflict violence on the students. There's like this, this white guardian figure, which is like, or guardian or hero, white hope. Like, like, there's fear of like black violent. Like, you see this in a lot of movies that are like, the gangsters are tough, but we got a white guy who's even tougher, you know, like, that's

such a dumb fantasy. And you see this in projecting out to like mobsters in movies, too. They're like, well, at least we got, you know, they got the, they got the, they got the crips and the bloods, but we got, you know, La Cosa Nostra, and, you know, we're tougher than they are. Like, there's just all the, and then this movie is like, oh, you haven't seen a real tough guy yet. We got this guy and he was in Vietnam. I mean, plenty of black people are in Vietnam, first of all. Second of all, like, you know, it's just like, there's always this searching for this kind of, no pun intended, but I think there's something there. Trump card of a white guy who's like tougher than the, tougher than the black guys, right?

Like, and is like, and smarter. And it's like, yeah, you can bring your homeboy gangster shit, but I like kind of do karate on you. You know, it's like, it's very stupid. And it's very, it appeals to a very childish part of the brain. But you see this in a lot of movies with, you see it a lot in, you see it in a little bit like Bruce Willis's character. We talked about diehard, right? You know, it's like, you know, a white character who like has a drop or is a slightly tougher than. even the toughest black guy, right?

Rocky. You know, it goes back, which we talked about last time. It goes back to Rocky. It goes back to Rocky. It's like a white working class guy who is not scared to stand up to the black guys. And this time it's like literally like the state. And I think that that's like, dude, you cannot underestimate that these patterns of thought are the same things that people when they look at Trump, like they have these fucking movies. in their heads and they're like, that's our guy.

Like, that's our guy who's going to do the, you know, stand up and say the racist thing to the person and, like, kick their ass. You know, like, it's the same idiotic cheering for that kind of hero. Trump and those politics kind of represent that. It's just like Trump is like this wise guy, right? You know, like he'll, he's not afraid. he's he's not politically correct he'll say what he needs to do it has to say you know like so i i just think it's worth thinking like a person who comes out of popular culture too it's like it is just

that stupid yeah you know like it is it is like when you watch movies like this you're just getting pretty much unfiltered and uncut what like the political like could the political worldview of of a certain kind of right winger is and like it's just not very much more complicated than the way it is represented in some of these movies scared of black people want a tough white guy to deal with them it's tempting to make it far more complicated than it is but then you you you kind of listen to what these people say and it's sort of like you know at least in terms maybe not maybe not the maybe not the you know more intellectual types but you know you see people complaining about seeing black people in commercials

right sort of like it's everything's refracted through popular culture their understanding of what the united states is understanding of what is normal this is what's so funny about those like return accounts right it's always like posting an advertisement from the 50 is like return black people yeah it's like what do you talk this is this is an advertisement this is made up so it's so funny that they're nostalgic like they're also this is like funny when the 90s now are becoming the subject to nostalgia which to me is so I think we've both joked about this on the podcast before it's just like look the 90s were fine and in some ways nice but like so banal in a certain way right and then like to us because we grew up in them and they're like there's like pictures of like

fucking kids playing Sega Genesis as if this was like some kind of fucking Norman Rockwell vision of America. And you're like, are you kidding? You're becoming like reactionary nostalgia for 30 years ago, literally like when the country was just like, I don't know. It's just not a heroic time in our country's history. You know, like it's not a, it's not like one of the great moments of our past. It's it's suburban, secure, unreflective life, which is being. kind of idealized. Like, okay, look, problematic, the 50s, there's some, it's sort of, but look, look, look, I understand, I understand the kind of being, not nostalgia, but having romantic

notions of the 1940s, right? So, you know, you got the New Deal, you got the war. I can see the problems with it, but I get it, you know, it was a heroic time in our nation's history. I can see that for certain parts of the 60s. the civil rights movement, kind of tragic feelings about Vietnam, tragic feelings about the anti-war movement, you know? Again, kind of like a important moment in our history that was like, but like it's now

this focus on the most banal and basic things as being a subject of like, they're taking this stuff away from us, we're losing the good things in American life. And again, sorry to bring it back to this, but Trump absolutely. represents that kind of banality because he's the most banal billionaire you could possibly imagine he's just like I love Rolexes and and Mercedes and well done stakes and it's just like this shit is like luxury at its most accessible and basic right like Trump's brand and he's like I love and even Trump as a sexual creature his sexual taste I mean he's a rapist it's for with this should be mentioned in this, not to, not to minimize that at all.

But his sexual taste is so like he likes porn stars. Like he's not like he's just extremely pedestrian in all of his tastes and attitudes. Like you'd think a billionaire would be, you know, someone, even an evil one with some weird, sophisticated tastes that they've cultivated over the years. Not Trump. Not Trump. And that's what makes him popular because he's like he likes he likes normal stuff. His favorite favorite movie is like Bloodsport.

He like has a cut of Bloodsport with all the talking taken out and it's only the fighting that it's a funny thing to think about just because Bloodsport is not a movie very much talking at all. I know exactly. Like you couldn't even tolerate that. Yeah. Couldn't even tolerate. He's so stupid.

And like and so like I think that that's just, you know, like you got to like be plugged into this. you have to be you have to be plugged into this world of stupidity that takes movies like the one we just watched really literally and it's just is has no irony about them they just flow into your brain and form the basis of your idea of reality and once you can flow with that when you can watch once you can get into the Dow of these things and you can watch these movies and then you realize there are some people for whom this is just the way the world is. And then it all just becomes perfectly clear. Like people who think wrestling, it's the exact same phenomenon as people who think wrestling is real. I think that's right. I think that's stupid. I think it's a good point at which to wrap up our conversation about the substitute. Am I going to recommend this movie? No. It's, I don't think if he's even that good

on an action level. It's not, it's not, I mean, although it was cool when he threw the kids out the windows. That was, I was like, I had my own Jamel Bowie violence moment there. I was like, all right. It's, I think that if you're interested in the 1990s as of a historical period, this really is like a fascinating text. Yes, sure. It is not particularly good. I mentioned the director or the TV director because it's shot like a television show. It's just kind of plain to look at.

Yeah, it's not good. Ernie Hudson's good. Mark Anthony is good. They're doing a lot with what they're given. But this is not the best of this type of movie. but it is still quite an artifact. So I'm going to recommend it as an artifact. There's also a bunch of sequels.

There's like four sequels to this movie, like direct the video starring Treat Williams, the late great. And I might watch one of those because I do like Treat Williams. And I'm kind of curious to see where they go with this conceit. Yeah. All right. That is our show.

Um, if you're not a subscriber, please subscribe. We're available in iTunes, uh, Spotify and Google Podcasts and wherever else podcast are found. If you subscribe, please leave a rating and a review. It does help people find the show and you can reach out to us on social media. If you'd like to, you can, uh, also reach out to us on at unclear and present feedback at fastmail.com for this week in, uh, feedback we have an email from Jordan titled why by military father really dislike Crimson Tide.

It's a bit of a long email, so I'm just going to go to the meat of it. My dad took me to see Crimson Tide in the theater when I was 12, and it was immediately one of my favorite movies. However, as I was excitedly leaving the theater, my dad looked annoyed and told me he hated it. I was baffled at first. The reason he hated it is kind of relevant to the read on Hackman's character and the core attention of the movie. By that point, my dad was a lieutenant colonel in the army, but earlier in his career, he had been one of the officers who's one of the steps involved in the chain to author of rise on nuclear strike. He got annoyed by Crimson Tide because he felt Hackman was right. Military nuclear protocol dictated that you must follow your most recent authenticated order.

And apparently, in his training, he had been specifically warned about the possibilities of the Soviet Union, transmitting messages calling off attacks that were designed to cut off halfway before authentication. Anyways, that is what he stuck with me when I rewatch Crimson Tide. With that background, I don't view Hackman as some kind of unhinged admiral with no family back home. He was following military protocol, and there are valid reasons why you'd ignore a half-sent message that couldn't be authenticated. But even as a 12-year-old, my thought was always, but if we ever hit that stage, what's the point anyways? We're almost all going to die in a nuclear war. So what do you lose by being cautious?

So, yeah, I think Denzel and Hackman are both right. Hackman was following protocol that had been designed for sensible reasons, and Denzel was following his personal ethics. If the message had been fake, by the time the subsurface, it would have probably been too late to do anything. Just that extra bit of context you all might find useful. Yeah, I mean, I had that thought too watching the movie, sort of like, you know, what's, what's the harm ultimately? It's not like anyone's going to win a nuclear war, so why not? Take a moment. Jordan mentions a little later in the, in kind of a postscript that they wonder if all the mad, mutually assured destruction worked as a deterrent, how it would have actually played out in real life.

They asked, if one of you were the person who has to flip that nuclear switch and the Soviet Union had fired a barrage of nukes at the U.S., do you think you'd have done it? I can imagine at that point I might think, were screwed anyways, what's the point in making it worse for everyone else? Well, I would probably authorize a full nuclear strike. Mike. It is, there are these incidents, right? There is the incident in 84 with the balloons that would be Soviet, the Soviet missile

detection, right at a nuclear launch. And the guy at the desk was basically sort of like, I don't know. I don't know if it is. And I'm not going to, I'm going to say that it isn't. Yeah. Right. And I do, I do wonder, like in, in practice. practice, like with the people who are responsible at these various points, like, do they just

say, no, I'm not going to do that? Yeah, I think it has come close. And I think there are actually instances of orders being ignored or delayed very much like actually happens in Crimson Tide before it could be confirmed. I think it would be extremely difficult for anybody to be the author of nuclear war. and that's why the kind of mutually assured destruction doctrine has worked so far. Yeah, I don't know what would happen. I think the problem is, is like, that could kind of work into nuclear strategy is like, well, a first strike could work because they might think that there's no point in replying.

I mean, it gets to such a sick and disgusting, like, types of calculations you make when you start to think about these things. I'd like to think that humanity is rational enough that mutually assured destruction works. But, you know, a lot of people were saying, well, a lot of people were, I don't know how Val this is, but like a lot of people are worried about Donald Trump being in charge of nuclear arsenal. I think he's too much of a coward to really want to do that kind of thing. He's not crazy in that way. People are worried about Putin, right?

Because they were like, well, he seems to be behaving irrationally. he might be ill so what happens when he gets these crazy views about the world and you know and there's like some interpretations of the attitudes of the Russian ruling class that they will never allow another early 90s collapse they would rather fight a nuclear war or go to war with the United States than to face the humiliation again God knows if that's true I don't know but anyway I don't know this just i don't know i i hope i go through the through my day usually believing that that no one will do this if i was in the situation i don't know i don't think i could bring myself to launch a thermonuclear strike on against an entire nation of people i mean that that is

your it is a an act of mass murder on such an intensely a touch scale that I just don't think I could do it. Even if I knew I was under, I was about to be nuked myself. Out of anger, I couldn't. In anger, I couldn't. And a desire for revenge, I just don't think it would be worth it. I mean, I don't know. If they were going to kill every American, would it make me angry enough to want to kill every?

I think that's the other thing. Like, wars are, you know, we talk about thoughts being, you know, wars are obviously strategic, but there's also a degree of passions involved. Would I feel passionately, if, if I knew that Vladimir Putin had decided to kill 350 million Americans or whatever, would I be hateful and angry enough in that moment to want to kill 180 million Russians or I don't know. I don't hope not. I don't know. What about you, Jamal? I mean, horrible thing to think about, I can't imagine. I feel like at that point, it's sort of like, you know, what are your deep-seated beliefs in mind? I'm not going to, I'm not going to be party to this. No, I don't want to be party to that.

Also, like, who knows? I mean, like, the karma involved in being involved in that would be very bad. Right. At that point, it's sort of like, I don't know what is after this. Right. I'm not going to, I'm not going to risk it, you know? I'm not going to. Yeah.

Like, you're going to be, you may be coming to your judgment very soon, and then you'll have a lot to answer for if you do, if you have done something like that. So I do think that that's a little bit too, too, too evil even for, even for me. Thank you for the email, Jordan. Very, very thoughtful and thought provoking. I would authorize terror bombings. Oh, yeah, of course. Or German cities. Certainly.

Yes, yeah, no question. Yeah. That is our episode. Thank you. The episodes come out every other week. And so we will see you in two weeks. I'm looking at my list here. We are at the substitute.

We will see you in two weeks with a great movie. One of my favorites, Mission Impossible. Yeah. Directed by Brian DePalma. Starring Tom Cruise, starting noted crazy guy, probably bad person, Tom Cruise. Also noted bad person, John Voight. Yeah. But starring a great cast of actors, Bing Rames, Henry Zerney, Kitrich, Jean-Renaud.

A lot of great actors in this. Emilio Estevez. So we'll be doing Mission Impossible in two weeks. Maybe we'll have a guest. I'm not entirely sure about that one, but we'll see. If you've never seen Mission Impossible here, is a very, very brief plot summary. When Ethan Hunt, the leader of a crack espionage team

was perilous operation that's gone awry with no explanation, discovers that the mole has penetrated the CIA. Sorry, not the CIA, penetrated the IMF. He's spried to learn that he's the number one suspect, to clear his name, Hunt now must ferret out the real double agent, and in the process, even the score. There's always a mole in the IMF.

Someone's always being disavowed in these movies, and I love them all the same. So that's mission impossible in two weeks. If you do not subscribe for a Patreon, our latest Patreon episode is on the Odessa File, also starring John Voigt. We got a lot of John Voight on the pods right now. We covered, so we covered the addesifile, this past episode of Patreon, previous episode of Marathon Man.

You can get access to both of those for just $5 a month, send it for a Patreon. Patreon.com slash unclear pod. If you, there's apparently a free subscription option as well. You can do that too. And if you do that, you will get access to the first few episodes of the Patreon. More will get unlocked every so often. But if you want to get everything on the Patreon, which at this point is like well over a year's worth of content,

covering a lot of different movies, all of them very good, just $5 a month. And at patreon.com slash unclear pod. And that's it for this week. For John Gantz, I'm Jamel Bowie. This is unclear and present danger, and we will talk to you next time. I'm going to be able to be.