Movies that are secretly "republican..."

[RandomKoolzip]

I nominate The Wizard of OZ. I always loved this movie, but seeing it the last time a about a year ago, I got a disturbing thought as my brain was making odd connections:

Okay, the protagonists all need services (Dorothy: transportation, Scarecrow and Tin Man: healthcare, Cowardly: Lion Psychiatric care) and must rely on the stae (Oz) to provide them. The Wizard becomes angry and resentful of these parasites draining Oz's coffers for their welfare. The frightening, gigantic visage (Big Government) of the Wizard of Oz is ultimately revealed as tiny little man. The characters have a confrontation.... Finally the benevolent hand of the government informs the needy ones that they have the ability to solve their problems on their own (bootstrappism) free of the intrusive guidance of social services. I mean, come on, isn't this the message of conservatives to the poor in a nutshell?

Or is this just really strong cough syrup?

[Maddy McCall]

1. No...that has long been discussed and agreed upon...

http://www.metaphilm.com/philms/wizardofoz.html

[RandomKoolzip]

2. Holy Shizznit! That's great.

Thanks for that... I thought I was hallucinating! I've always loved the Oz books and the 1939 movie, but now I'm faintly disturbed by the whole thing.

[chimpy the poopthrower]

35. then read this and feel better...

http://www.wccusd.k12.ca.us/elcerrito/history/oz.htm

in a nutshell -- the Wizard of Oz story is deliberate political allegory with a populist slant

[Jonte_1979]

4. "The 6th Day"

Pure conservative agitprop.

[Dr Fate]

3. Easy Rider

Two rich upper-middle class dudes deal coke, buy expensive bikes and then exploit prostitutes (just like rich frat-boys going to Grateful Dead shows & strip clubs) instead of protesting, registering voters or doing ANYTHING to advance real Liberal causes...

They claim they are trying to "find America"- but in reality their journey is about self gratification.

This movie personifies that portion of the 60's "left" that was there only for the drugs & sex- they cut their hair and went back to Reagan when the party was over. Dennis Hopper did this in reality, as did many of his counterparts that he was fictionalizing...

[RandomKoolzip]

5. Oh man, great choice...

I always wondered why that movie rubbed me the wrong way. Lester Bangs, the great rock critic, had a few interesting things to say about Easy Rider...said something to the effect that he was pissed that this movie that was supposed to be the Rebel Without a cause for his generation featured two leads who were so boring and self-centered.

What are some others?

[cspiguy]

6. Braveheart

n/t

[JohnKleeb]

30. nah why you say that

Just because Mel Gibson is a republican. His politics turn me off but Braveheart for me at least makes me have a mild dislike of the English. No offense English DUers its just well you see the Irish Catholic IMO was much like the Black Southerner or the Black South African more like the latter imo but has portions of both. Yes I know Wallace was Scottish but the English were real cruel in their day to all. I know my country is far from perfect historically too so dont remind me.

[JackDragna]

20. That's actually why "Easy Rider" is liberal.

There are two moments that indicate that Easy Rider is very much aware of the self-aggrandizing nature of its characters. The first is when Jack Nicholson's character talks about people being most afraid of being free. He's criticizing society in general, but he's also taking a shot at Fonda and Hopper. They're trying to live in peace with others, but they're only going cross-country because of a drug deal. In that sense, they're not really free.

The second part is when Fonda gets after Hopper about their trip at the end of the movie. After they get rid of the drugs, Hopper goes off about how they've solved all their problems..Fonda responds by saying that the two of them had "screwed up." My interpretation of this line is that Fonda sees that he and Hopper are hippies just for the cash and hedonism, as opposed to the people they meet living in the Texas commune.

[zekeson]

36. Agreed

The author of the film, Terry Southern sez:

TS: Well, I'm glad that anger and bleakness came through. Because Dennis Hopper didn't have a clue as to what the film was about. The thrust of the film, from my point of view, the philosophical position is that it's supposed to be an indictment of the blue-collar thing, the truck-driver people of America, for their intolerance and their support of the Vietnam war. It's supposed to be an indictment of the worst part of mainstream Middle America, as personified by those two assholes in the pick-up truck. Bigotry incarnate. And the final sequence is, I guess, the ultimate statement about that mentality, where these two assholes don't like their looks, So that's the ending. And when Dennis Hopper read it he said 'Are you kidding? Are you going to kill of both of them? Yeah, that's what he said, 'kill off', (laughs). So I said, 'Well, that's the only way it can be, because otherwise we're not saying anything, it's just a little odyssey by a couple of irresponsible hippies. So they got to serve some purpose, make some point'. Anyway, that show where he was at.
http://www.terrysouthern.com/quotes.htm

Some nice parallels in that statement to our own time.

[mitchum]

22. Great analysis of that pandering piece of shit

When Paul Schrader was a film critic for a LA weekly he was fired because he refused to give that atrocity a good review. It is truly an awful movie.

[classics]

7. Planet of the Apes

The Omega Man.. basically anything with old shoutgun in it.

[markus]

8. I thought WoO was about Williams Jenning Bryant

and the politics of long ago? (The book, not the movie).

[Bunny]

12. I thought that too.

Something about the gold standard (hence Oz - ounce)William Jennings Bryan, etc. Had this explained to me in a college history class about 23 years ago. I was fascinated by the story, but haven't heard anything else about it since. Perhaps that's why my memory is so spotty. But each character represented something having to do with either keeping or eliminating the gold standard as the basis for US currency security. Or something like that...:)

[mitchum]

23. some interpret it as Baum's sly parody of turn of the century populim

tin woodman- industrial, but no heart
scarecrow-midwestern farmer, no brains
cowardly lion- William Jennings Bryan
wizard- Eastern banker pulling the strings

[JackDragna]

9. On the Watefront

The movie was Wilder's way of explaining why he turned in some of his fellow Hollywood people to McCarthy's Unamerican Activities Committee. The mob was supposed to represent the commies in Hollywood. A good movie with great acting but an incredibly distrubing premise if you know about it.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

10. I thought it was Elia Kazan, not Wilder

who was the famous turncoat during McCarthyism. A lot of actors wouldn't work with him...

[RandomKoolzip]

11. It was Kazan.

"Falling Down?" Anyone else remember that reactionary piece of filth? It wasn't very "secret" about its republicanism, I guess.

Remember a movie called "Amos and Andrew," from 1991, starring Samuel L> Jackson and Nicholas Cage? Very anti-"rich liberals." Libs are seen as the real racists, as well as secret sex freaks, hypocrites; black activists are portrayed as self-aggrandizing, violence-loving rabble-rousers, etc. Despicable. I saw it one boring saturday afternoon with nothing to do on network TV and it ruined my week.

[anti_shrub]

13. But in Falling Down

The main character was obviously deranged, not to mention he got his payback in the end.

YMMV I suppose but I always saw the guy as a sterotypical right wing nutjob.

[RandomKoolzip]

15. Sure, he dies in the end, but not before spewing his racist nonsense

to the viewing public. How conveinent! I know conservatives who don't see this movie as a liberal bromide using satire.

[JackDragna]

19. It was Kazan. My bad.

Not good to write about two different movies at the same time on two different boards.

[mitchum]

24. please don't confuse Wilder with that rat-bastard Kazan

I've always thought that it was Kazan's attempt to justify his lifetime opportunism. Kazan was just a hack who was only as good as his material.

[stanwyck]

27. I've never forgiven Kazan

for ruining the careers of many fine people during the McCarthy era. I don't blame the celebs who didn't stand up and cheer for his Academy Award lifetime achievement. Ed Harris looked positively murderous during the Kazan tribute. Another reason to like Ed.

[leftwingnut]

14. 'True Lies'

with A'nuld...

the movie makes me want to :puke:

[Capn Sunshine]

17. My favorite line from that movie

"you ACTUALLY KILLED PEOPLE!"



"Yes but they were all bad"

actually since Ahhhnold says it is comes out

"yes bud dey wah aahl badt"

[stanwyck]

25. Hated that movie

Very wingnut movie. Demeaning to women; demeaning to non-whites. Tom Arnold spews really ugly sentiments: women: can't live with'em; can't shoot'em.

[davidinalameda]

26. I liked True Lies

it has Jamie Lee Curtis in it. If I was straight, I'd have a thing for her.

I was in Key West right after they filmed down there. One of the store people I talked to said that Ahnold was great but Maria was a real beeyach.

[stanwyck]

28. Like Jamie.

She's cool. She won rave reviews from people here in Atlanta during the Olympics. Very friendly and considerate.

[supernova]

40. Disagree about True Lies

Yes, it's full of macho military toys. However,

how many GOP women want to have spy adventures in their own right? Remember, she doesn't know it's him in the beginning.

They both discover the person they thought they married doesn't exist. Jamie isn't just a boring secretary. Arnold doesn't really go to computer conventions.

Plus, the daughter has to fend for herself for quite a while against the terrorists. And need I mention that the villian with brains is a woman?

They adjust and wind up at an EQUAL partnership at the end of the movie. That's very LIBERAL in my book.

[stanwyck]

41. Good points

about the dynamics of the marriage and how they re-discovered each other. I was turned off by Tom Arnold's character and all the explosions. Arnold's treatment of Jamie also seemed masochistic; he was out to humiliate her in several scenes.

[Interrobang]

16. The Natural

Robert Redford (a Reagan fan) takes a gritty novel by Bernard Malamud (a famous Jewish writer), cleans it up, takes every shred of ethnicity out of it -- there are NO black faces in the movie (despite the fact that watching baseball at the time was a favourite pastime for black people -- I won't go into the importance of "breaking the colour line" here, but...) and no visibly Hispanic people, despite their presence in the book -- and messes with the plot to make it a product of Reaganism. Bleah.

I like the novel better!

[RandomKoolzip]

18. Redford's no Bush or Nixon fan, tho.

Was on Nixon's enemies list, speaks publicly about his hatred of the Bush Administration.... hmmm, likes RRReagan though? Weird.

[BurtWorm]

21. I doubt he liked Reagan

His environmentalism would have made him a natural enemy of the Reaganites.

[stanwyck]

29. Redford has been very critical

of Bush's environmental policies. Wrote a very hard-hitting letter critical of Gale Norton when she attempted to link him with a condor project.

[Sean Reynolds]

32. Redford is a solid Dem

Always has been. He lives here in Utah and trust me everyone jokes around about how someone so liberal could live in a state so conservative.

[DoctorBombay]

31. How about Forrest Gump?

Take a look at the paths of the main characters:

Forrest and Jenny grow up the same in Alabama....

Gump- Loves mama, follows orders, joins military, goes into business, becomes filthy stinking rich.

Jenny- rebels, works in strip club, takes drugs, hangs out with Black Panthers, eventually dies of AIDS.

Lt. Dan- After war, is a boozing, angry, womanizer, joins up with Forrest on the boat, has big showdown with "God", then he finds love, gets legs, and becomes rich like Forrest.

The Black Panthers were unfairly protrayed as violent thugs, which was repelling.

Such an overrated film.

While I'm at it, Robert Zemeckis also did "Contact", which was a great film about science until the very freaking end, when it ceases being science and becomes faith. Rubbish.

[JohnKleeb]

33. Well Hanks himself is a democrat

all I can say is Thank god hes one of my faves and Bobby De Niro too.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

34. I have always felt that movie was...

very RW but have had others inssist I was on crack.

I was thoroughly disgusted with it when it came out and recently rewatched it to se if I had been projecting, but it was even more nauseating the second time.

The thing that struck me most was that Forrest was someone who went through the most volatile time in our country's history yet he never asked questions, kept his head down, and was rewarded for it.

Jenny did the exact oppposite and she ends up with AIDS. Not so subtle message there.

[zekeson]

37. Again a bastardization of the book

Still can't beleive that piece of crap beat out Pulp Fiction for best movie. Anyway, the original book was not the kind gentle story - very cynical and much more coarse. Gump & Co. the followup was even more so.

[jos]

38. The movie just pissed me off

It reduced the 60s to a ridiculous stereotype.

[amazona]

43. I very much dislike Forest Gump

I'm not into the whole "southerners are stupid" thing. We get enough of that crap on TV, don't need to get it in the movies too.

Having Jenny die of AIDS basically for the crime of having a brain was just too much. We are supposed to believe that everything works out just fine for stupid people like Gump. Well, I actually live in the south, and everything does NOT work out fine for stupid people. They are totally mowed down for the most part and are screwed every which way they turn. In real life, Gump would be in prison for a crime he didn't commit, as retarded people are easier for DA's to prosecute successfully.

[jos]

39. Ghostbusters

It made the EPA look like an evil agency. Plus, like unrestrained capitalism, it sought to created a desire for something that no one needed: getting rid of ghosts.

[Piperay]

42. It's a Wonderful Life

I always thought it was liberal because it shows how one person can make a difference. I read though that it has a deliberate message how you shouldn't try to escape from the path that is set down for you. Now I can't think of his name but the famous guy who made the movie was a BIG ole reporker and he deliberately slanted it to put the little guy down. Haha what's funny is that I think most people get the message that no matter how small and unimportant you are YOU can make a differnce, just the message they didn't want you to get from it. :evilgrin: