🐱 The Disturbing Message of Die Hard

The Disturbing Message of Die Hard

Every year, fans around the world celebrate the Best Christmas Movie Ever, Die Hard, which of course involves a gang of ‘terrorists’ attacking a Christmas party in an office building. We cheer as Bruce Willis, as John McClain, takes out the bad guys...

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Every year, fans around the world celebrate the Best Christmas Movie Ever, Die Hard, which of course involves a gang of ‘terrorists’ attacking a Christmas party in an office building. We cheer as Bruce Willis, as John McClain, takes out the bad guys one by one in ever more unrealistic scenarios ending up with our hero walking out of the burning building, feet bloodied, supported by his now adoring wife.

I watched it for the first time in years as it came on TV the other night and noticed something I hadn’t remembered. Just when you think the excitement is over, the true climax of the film comes when the last surviving terrorist, inexplicably still alive after we see him strangled on a chain, staggers out of the building looking to kill McClain and avenge his brother’s death. As he lowers his machine gun at our helpless hero, we hear 5 quick shots, the terrorist falls, and the camera cuts to the barrel of a gun.


The gun is held by our other hero, the humble street cop Sergeant Powell, played by Reginald VelJohnson. Earlier in the film, we hear Powell tell McClain how he was haunted by killing a child waving a toy gun in a Tamir-Rice type incident, and now could no longer bring himself to fire his weapon. That’s right, the real victim wasn’t the child or his grieving parents, it was the poor cop who found himself relegated to a desk job because of one little mistake.

Now, the camera lingers heroically on the smoking gun barrel, then pulls back to reveal the amazed face of the policeman- it’s a Christmas miracle- he can kill again! The message of the film couldn’t be more clear: the true hero of the movie isn’t really McClain or Powell, it’s the gun, the gun that solves all of our problems.

One wonders how many policemen, solders, and ‘militia’ members grew up watching that film, and saw themselves in the hero’s role. Did Kyle Rittenhouse watch this film every Christmas, dreaming of the day when he could defend the world from looters, rioters and socialists? How many more people have to die in the name of our national mythology?

 

[Red Hood]

I've always been partial to Roy Rogers, myself.

 

[Least Concern]

I have no obligation to take serious anyone who can't spell the word 'soldiers' in a fucking article.

Well, they also couldn't be bothered to look up how to spell McClane.

 

[Dracula's Spirit Animal]

What kind of lunatic tries to shoehorn their political agenda into Die Hard? It's ClownWorld, you maniac. You don't have to pretend the article is about anything else any more. Can I, perchance, purchase you a rope?

Raw, unabashed propaganda. But try not to besmirch eighties-Sanata Claus (with a gun). I bet anything that someone has written a similar article about "Murder She Wrote" being "Problematic." Angela Lansbury keeping the poor negro down or whatever.

 

[The Dude]

"How many more people have to die..." As many as it takes for subhuman scum to learn not to attack people, maybe? Or for them to learn not to try to take someone's gun away? It's really funny how civilized, respectful, law abiding, peaceful people tend to not be the ones who get shot.

Also: "Shall not be infringed", motherfucker!

 

[whogoesthere]

I think the mistake they are making in this article, is this movie was made back when peadowood wasn't so aggressive in its woke pandering. So this movie, and it is a great movie, is just a simple action movie. These people who moan about shit all the time (like us really) would have such a better time if they could just switch off and enjoy a simple action movie. No pandering, no politics, anyone from any side of the aisle can enjoy them together.

 

[The Dude]

I think the mistake they are making in this article, is this movie was made back when peadowood wasn't so aggressive in its woke pandering. So this movie, and it is a great movie, is just a simple action movie. These people who moan about shit all the time (like us really) would have such a better time if they could just switch off and enjoy a simple action movie. No pandering, no politics, anyone from any side of the aisle can enjoy them together.

Lefty woketards can't just enjoy escapist media for entertainment sake. EVRYTHING has to be political and have a message, even if none exists, even if they have to make up a political message for it to have. In this case the political message is "guns and cops good", and that's apparently a bad thing to them.

 

[Xarpho]

I think the mistake they are making in this article, is this movie was made back when peadowood wasn't so aggressive in its woke pandering. So this movie, and it is a great movie, is just a simple action movie. These people who moan about shit all the time (like us really) would have such a better time if they could just switch off and enjoy a simple action movie. No pandering, no politics, anyone from any side of the aisle can enjoy them together.

If you were a hardcore lefty, like, the one that refuses to enjoy things and cuts people out of their life for the simple crime of even voting third party, then yes, there's things to get offended over in Die Hard.

The cops are generally good, the communists are actually just robbers and murderers, the idea that the Black™ man can overcome his inner demons and be a hero on his own accord, and journalists are douchebags. Since they're only looking at the bad things they don't like, they also might conveniently ignore that the vast majority of deaths on both sides were white men.

Hell, the villains were all white, except for their hacker nerd guy, and the heroes are all black (the cop and the chauffeur) except for McClane. Why don't they focus on THAT?

 

[Milwaukee Macho Man]

Imagine having so little going on in your life that you need to extrapolate a message out of every piece of entertainment you consume.

 

[CWCissey]

I'll bet this twat's favourite Christmas movie is Home Alone.

If you consider Home Alone a Christmas movie, then you're not allowed to say Die Hard isn't.

Both are set at Christmas
Both are centred around unlikely heroes battling robbers against the odds
Both heroes use their wits and ultra-violence to win.

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

At the end when Riggs gives Murtaugh the hollow-point bullet he was gonna kill himself with. Murtaugh pressures him to come inside and eat his wife's awful Christmas dinner with him and the family.

That was the best part. Very heartwarming, Sometimes you can find a new family in the oddest places.

 

[Crazedking]

McClane should have let the them steal the money instead of killing them. Nakatomi have insurances dont they?

 

[Least Concern]

McClane should have let the them steal the money instead of killing them. Nakatomi have insurances dont they?

And Carl Winslow should have just let Hans Gruber open fire on the crowd. By shooting a child who was wielding a realistic-looking toy gun, he lost his right to save the lives of innocent people from a murderous terrorist.

 

[Some JERK]

Lefty woketards can't just enjoy escapist media for entertainment sake. EVRYTHING has to be political and have a message, even if none exists, even if they have to make up a political message for it to have. In this case the political message is "guns and cops good", and that's apparently a bad thing to them.

"We see things not as they are, but as we are."

 

[Xarpho]

And Carl Winslow should have just let Hans Gruber open fire on the crowd. By shooting a child who was wielding a realistic-looking toy gun, he lost his right to save the lives of innocent people from a murderous terrorist.

That was not Gruber (Alan Rickman's character died from falling 35 stories) that was Karl, who managed to not die and escape despite being strangled by a chain earlier.

 

[drfuzzyballs]

The message is that even a police officer can have a sense of morality. In the movie the cop overcomes his fear of violence he got after wrongfully killing a child.

 

[Snekposter]

Diehard had a message?

Machine guns make great Christmas presents, ho ho ho.

(And @Jaimas beat me to it. Just take his post under advisement.)

 

[ObeseScreamingBlackMan]

Die Hard deserves credit for normalizing black nerds in a pre-Urkel America.

 

[MadStan]

Trying to find a deeper message in Die Hard is like instead of reading Tea leaf in a cup, masturbating in a tissue and trying to read it.

Seriously fuck off with your low-brow observations and cry me a river.

Kill the fucking bad guys. Have some fun. Get the chick. End of story. Rides off into the sunset - by a Limo driven by a black dude nonetheless.

Bruce willis shot, chocked, blew up and threw guys out of windows. But you wanna call the fat donut cop with a photo op the hero. Booooooo!!!!

In real life he would have missed, or been hosed down by the other 100 white cops as a dangerous armed black man.

 

[Screw Danlon]

Diehard had a message?

Shoot the glass. And make fists with your feet.

 

[JosephStalin]

What utter bullshit. We watch action movies to see the bad guys get wasted, the more, and in more different ways, the better. The cretin that wrote this article probably does handjobs for crack.