WOLVERINES! August 1, 2007
Posted by franklittle in Cuba, Culture, US Media, US Politics, United States, media.trackback
“Soviet Union suffers worst wheat harvest in 55 years… Labor and food riots in Poland. Soviet troops invade… Cuba and Nicaragua reach troop strength goals of 500,000. El Salvador and Honduras fall… Greens Party gains control of West German Parliament. Demands withdrawal of nuclear weapons from European soil… Mexico plunged into revolution… NATO dissolves. United States stands alone.”
One of the landmark films of American Cold War paranoia has just been released as a Collectors Edition DVD box set. Red Dawn was one of those 1980s teen films but anyone expecting a John Hughes like Breakfast Club or Sixteen Candles would be sorely disappointed.
Described at the time as one of the most violent films ever made Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, C Thomas Howell, Jennifer Grey and Lea Thompson are a group of High School kids who band together to take on the Soviet-Cuban invasion force that has seized control of their Colorado town at the beginning of World War III. Grey and Swayze would be re-united for Dirty Dancing, a film worshipped by women of all ages, but very, very different.
The film opens, after the terrifying warning of the consequences of letting the Green party into power are laid out in the voiceover above, when Soviet paratroopers take over the high school displaying a fiendish ability to land tanks and armoured vehicles by parachute. Calling themselves ‘Wolverines’ after their High School sports team, a group of students hide out in the mountains emerging to wreak bloodthirsty havoc on the cruel occupation forces.
The film is actually quite brutal. The guerilla heroes are shown executing unarmed Soviet prisoners on a number of occasions and in one scene executing one of their own who was forced to turn informer. All but two of the kids are killed by the end of the film in ever more violent ways.
The film also serves as heavy-handed propaganda for the US Second amendment, with the point repeatedly, and none too subtly, made that without their guns the plucky young kids wouldn’t have been able to take on the Soviets. In one scene, US federal legislation requiring gun-owners to be registered is used by the dastardly Soviet-Cuban occupiers to track down patriots. The warning is clear. If you back gun control, you want Fidel and the Russkies in your town.
The film is to a large degree beyond parody, which has not prevented many from trying. But it iconic in the US right to such a degree that the codes for the operation that led to Saddam’s capture in Iraq were taken from the film. Amazon reviewers of the film, without a trace of irony, regularly refer to how balanced and realistic it is.
If you ever get a chance to see it on TV and it does occasionally crop up every now and again, take the opportunity. You can learn more about the American right by watching Red Dawn and understanding that millions of people take it seriously than you can from all the theoretical papers the left’s ever written. Wikipedia has a good piece on it here that also explains the political and theoretical background for how the Soviets and Cubans could pull off the invasion. Part of the plan was for Cuban Special Forces to infiltrate the US through the Mexican border as illegal immigrants. Oh, you don’t support tougher border controls? You just want to let the Cubans walk all over us again do you?
Outstanding stuff.
GO WOLVERINES!!!!!!
I remember an American friend telling me that the small socialist group he was involved in would show Red Dawn as an ironic fund raiser and usually get a crowd. And they say Americans don’t do irony. Then again…
Remember the bit where the man with the bumper sticker saying ‘you can have my gun when you take from my cold dead hand’ has his gun taken from his cold dead hand by a Russian para?
Film making at its best. Eat your heart out Scorsese.
Ah, geez, c’mon lads. Don’t my people have enough to live down: our failure to appreciate our own history (as shown in the excellent piece on Frank Little), Donald Rumsfield, creationists (and those hard-line creationists who believe moderate creationists are the spawn of the devil), repeats of repeats of Friends, Jerry Falwell, the Republican Party, yoga for pets (everyone’s chow-chow gets stressed once in a while), microwave deep-fried-hot dogs-stuffed with cheese-on-a-stick, shopping malls,survivalists, Donald Rumsfield, sit-coms, drive-through Elvis wedding chapels, Texas, alien abduction therapy, hippy stockbrokers, army recruiters in churches (don’t think too long on this), alternative 9/11 theories, ‘Jesus is opposed to the minimum wage’ lobby, George Cheney and Dick Bush, the guy in Central Park who thinks radios work because there’s tiny little people inside them (he’s now the White House Chief Science Advisor) and, of course, Donald Rumsfield; it’s bad enough we have to live with all this baggage. Now you throw Red Dawn in our face. What is not generally known except by some chapters of the John Birch Society is that the ‘film’ was privately viewed by the combined Russian and Cuban war planners just on the eve of their planned invasion of Fort Deposit, Alabama. When they saw the raw guts and determination of the American people – admittedly, only in a ‘film’ and only a handful of b-actors – they stood down their arms. They wanted nothing to do with our fighting mojo. That’s why today, from sea to shining sea, you will see no occupying Russian or Cuban soldiers hanging out at our fried chicken stands. Go Wolverines indeed.
This film is not rightest propaganda of any kind. It simply shows the whole world that Coloradoens are the toughest people anywhere (which is indeed true).
Michael, I come here to praise Red Dawn, not to bury it. As Ed (And I do indeed remember that scene) pointed out on an ironic level it is one of the great movies of our time or ‘documentaries’ as yourcousin would have us believe
One has to wonder if there weren’t subversives involved in making the film, pushing it ever further to the right to make it all the more ridiculous.
“Sure, we could get the Russians to massacre a couple of dozen innocent American civilians with whom the audience has emotionally connected, or we could get them to do it to the soundtrack of the Soviet anthem.”
“Too much?”
“Oh no. Subtle.”
That said, I am outraged at the suggestion that Jennifer Grey is a ‘B’ List actress. We do have ‘C’ lists comrade.
Now here’s a thing. You’ve reminded me of a Kevin Myers column from around the time this film was released in Ireland, one in which the Sage of D’Olier street (as he then was) expressed grave disapproval at the politics of Red Dawn, even going so far as to condemn its vulgar commercialism.
His long road to the wilder shores of right-wing lunacy had yet to be commenced, at that point. When exactly did KM spiral off into the wastes of whiskey-for-breakfast dysphasia?
That’s a pleasing phrase.
KM’s – relatively – late in life lurch to ‘the wastes of whiskey for breakfast dysphasia’ (wonderful phrase – take a bow) worries me, i must admit; i always reckoned if you could get to your 40s with your youthful politics intact you were safe, but maybe not…..
Is there really a “Jesus is opposed to the minimum wage” lobby? I can’t tell if that’s hyperbole or not!
I actually met KM once, when I was on Challenging Times all those years ago. He seemed OK then. What distinguishes him from e.g. Ruth Dudley-Edwards is that in his columns he comes across as a genuinely hateful individual – i.e., literally full of hate. Look at his comments on ‘bastards’, for example. It’ll take more than a simple march to the right to explain that one, or the fact that he has the face of the typical problem drinker.
I should admit at this point that I adapted the ‘whiskey for breakfast’ phrase from an old letter in the New Statesman. To quote Flann O’Brien ‘boldly I took it for mine own’.
It’s curious how prominent lurches to the redbaiting right are often connected with the bottle.
The modern versions of “Red Dawn” are probably the “Left Behind” books by Tim Lahaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. These bestselling airport novels revolve around a group of soldiers fighting the forces of the Biblical Antichrist. They mix Milus-style paranoia with Christian fundamentalism (anti-feminism,anti-UN, anti-pacifism). There’s an interesting article which discusses the books and their effects on the American political scene here:
http://www.nthposition.com/fundamentalistmindsiege.php
‘Is there really a “Jesus is opposed to the minimum wage” lobby? I can’t tell if that’s hyperbole or not!’
Yes. In fact, so steeped is American political culture religion that Jesus is used as vindication for just about any position on the political spectrum (and literature as Grendel points out – the ‘Left Behind’ books of which I’ve read a couple frequently get on the to NY Times bestseller lists). Regarding minimum wage, the line of argumentation goes like this: Government intervention is bad – minimum wages, for instance, overprices jobs which means the unskilled find it hard to get work; this intervention is promoted by liberals; liberalism is only the trojan horse for socialism which is communism by another name. Now, overlay a heavy sheen of religion (we all know God is opposed to atheistic communis) and the equation is complete: God (Jesus) is opposed to the minimum wage. Granted, this type of extreme thinking doesn’t play an overt role on the public agenda but look at how the minimum wage was effectively cut in real terms each yer during the Republicans’ control of Congress.
Funnily enough Grendel, on occasion I’ve looked at the Left Behind books and thought, hmmm… I should read one. I like dystopian fiction. But never quite summoned up the energy. Thanks for the link to that article.
The Encyclopedia of SF by John Clute & Peter Nicholls has an entry on
“Red Dawn” which claims it is “symptomatic of the interest in “survivalist” fictions during the 1980s .” “Survivalist” fictions,it explains were a right-wing kind of SF thriller, “set in post-holocaust venues where there is effectively no restraint upon the behaviour of the hero, who therefore kills before he is killed, demonstrating his fitness to survive through acts of unbridled violence .” The entry notes that “survivalist” novels were influenced by elements of the Libertarian Right movement and the Xtian fundamentalist idea that survivalists were an “Elect of true believers”. Although the Encyclopedia was written before both the “Left Behind” books and the “Turner Diaries” were published, you could argue that all three (RD,LB,TD) contain strong elements of survivalist fiction.
Also, the characters in RD behave like the militia movement that Timothy McVeigh belonged to-they retreat to the wilderness and fight off an oppressive left-wing government.
I’ll stick to the impeccably liberal “Star Trek” and “Doctor Who”, thank you very much.
The Encyclopedia of SF by John Clute & Peter Nicholls
I don’t suppose you know ….. I’m sure I used to have a copy of that and remember reading about a British TV series of the seventies (note: not “An Englishman’s Castle”) in which Britian had either been invaded by the Russians or had become a Soviet state of its own accord.
I remembered this recently because there’s an episode built around a world chess championship match and I wanted to mention it on the Streatham and Brixton Chess Club blog (that’s the award-winning Streatham and Brixton Chess Club blog, I’ll have you know). But I can’t recall the title and it’s killing me.
There’s also Babylon 5, Grendel, which is even more impeccably liberal…
An Englishmans Castle, that rings a bell somehow…
I believe Kenneth More was in it (An Englishman’s Castle, not the show I’m trying to remember).
ejh – are you sure you’re not thinking of Comrade Dad, the BBC’s 1980 sitcom set in a future post-Soviet Britain.
‘Conserve bathwater – even Chairman Hoskins only has three inches’.
‘So I’ve heard’.
Yes, I am very much not thinking of that!
The series is thinking of might be called “1990”, which ran in on the BBC in 1977-8. The hero was
Jim Kyle (Edward Woodward). In a future apparently inspired by the fears of Daily Mail and Reader’s Digest subscribers, Kyle fights against a tyrannical welfare state.
The society is run by the tyrannical PCD, which control people thru surveillance and ID Cards (shades of Blunkett!). PCD is run by the trade unions, which enforce a cashless enconomy. Kyle helps dissidents escape to the US, still a bastion of freedom. I think the show was a kind of right-wing ancestor of “A Very British Coup”.
The Internet Movie Database has a list of episodes. Don’t know if there’s anything about a chess game, though….
No, the episode synopses run out midway through the first series! That’s got to be the one, though. Thanks ever so much.
Series Two Episode Six
Ah yes. 1990. That I vaguely recall. Am I right in thinking the cars were slightly modern in styling? Wonder is it available on DVD. Which raises another question, did anyone ever read a novel called – I think – Lands End about a Britain in the 1980s or 1990s under the grip of a Nazi like regime. Scotland is independent, supported by the US, the Royal Family either fled or under house arrest and camps established for minorities. Very very gloomy as I recall.
Reminds me of Derek Raymond’s A State of Denmark, but I’m not sure if that’s the one you’re thinking of.
Why doesn’t Irish literature have a genre of dystopian future novels?
Nah, it’s not that one. But cheers, sounds like a good read…
Things were gloomy enough, the past weighed down more heavily, and I think there was complete indifference to the future. It’s amazing how little science fiction has been written in Ireland. Indeed I’m trying to think of one indigenous author who has made it…
Bob Shaw is the only one I can think of, and he’s from NI, and possibly from the Protestant tradition as well. So it depends on what you mean by ‘indigenous’.
Somewhere on the web there’s a list of Irish-set or Irish-themed sci-fi . . .
Bob Shaw and James White were (Northern) Irish sf
writers. Also, the Anglo-Irish Lord Dunsany wrote many fantasy and
sf novels. I think George Bernard Shaw, Francis Stuart and
Brian Moore wrote some fiction with sf elements.
I suspect though, with a population of only 3 million, Irish publishers and film-makers don’t really have a market for sf/fantasy.
Oddly, for a while in the ’80s, a lot of SF writers lived here, attracted by the tax break – Anne McCaffrey and Robert Anton Wilson are the two I can think of straight away, but I know there were more.
I think a case could be made for arguing that Irish gothic fiction is one of the roots of SF and fantasy (for good or ill) Maturin, Stoker, LeFanu, Fitzjames O’Brien ….my pet theory is that Dublin, after the union was the prototype of the (post- apocalytic?) ghost town, a decayed shell, inhabited by the undead, revenant shades of the recent past – Mangan’s poetry also reeks of this decay…
I meant indigenous in the sense of being from the island, rather than coming here, like McCaffrey or Anton Wilson (who also worked with ‘natch’ the Golden Horde). Harry Harrison was/is another.
Bob Shaw is a good example, as is James White. I liked both their stuff, but didn’t they leave?
sonfostan, that’s a great theory, but then why didn’t we see the same in the 1980s, instead we got Roddy Doyle.
I’m worried about this Lands End book. Perhaps I’m going mad, but I know it was published in the late 1970s. I’ve looked it up on the internet, etc and not a trace. I vividly remember that at the end the UK started an invasion of Scotland and the RAF was bombing Edinburgh. The ‘Hitler’ analogue who cropped up close to the end, I think during a plot by a resistance to bomb Westminster Abbey at some ceremony he was officiating at gloried in his ability “unlike Hitler” to actually participate in the violent execution of his political opponents. Gloomy gloomy stuff which I want to read again 25 years later…
Actually on SF, anyone remember the SF movie during the 1990s which was part filmed in Ireland and used the Civic Offices – not the Sam Stephenson blocs, but the nicer ones in front of them – as the ‘head of the Interstellar Alliance or somesuch?
Here’s that list of Irish-related SF:
http://www.nicholaswhyte.info/sf/irsf.htm
It is obsessively detailed to an almost disturbing degree.
I remember All Our Tomorrows by Ted Allebury. The Soviets are invited to take over Britain by a collaborating Prime Minister as the country disintegrates under pressure from extremists on the right and left and is abandoned by Europe.
The book follows the exploits of a resistance movement of ex-SAS mingled with the odd trade unionist for class credibility and a Sikh for ethnic cred fighting the Soviets. Very stiff upper lip.
It ends with direct negotiations between the US and the USSR held in Ireland. Still have it about the place.
Yeah, I’ve got that one too. I love the painfully politically correct ethnic balance of the resistance. It’s okay…
Popular culture triv:
Red Dawn director and self-described “libertarian Zen anarchist” John Milius inspired the pistol-waving, dog-loving Walter “World of Pain” Sobchak played by John Goodman in the Coen brothers’ The Big Lebowski. NRA board member Milius often invited his pals the Coens over for rifle practice.
This I didn’t know… what a brilliant character.