Mota Boy
05-23-2005, 01:09 PM
This past weekend I watched "Red Dawn" and decided to take a drink whenever anything 80's is onscreen, be it bad hair, 80's slang, Jennifer Grey, Russians, bad lighting... It was good times.
Red Dawn, for those that don't know, is the now-laughable-but-very-real-at-the-time scenario where a combined Russian-Cuban-Nicaraguan army conquers the middle of the United States. Yes, Cuban and Nicaraguan forces, driving up through Mexico, take control of the U.S. from the Rockies to the Mississippi in about a month. The opening scene is priceless, with Cubans parashooting into some anonymous midwest town and immediately going to work shooting RPG's at the local high school and various convenience stores downtown, preciently aware that small-town America's high schoolers will be the biggest threat to their dominance.
The story revolves around eight high school kids that, over the course of that same month, manage to turn themselves into an elite rebel force with excellent bomb making skills and flawless aim. It's a ridiculous movie, but at the time was seen as a redneck call to arms. And yet, watching it, I couldn't help but feel that it had a subtle pro-Commie message.
As the insurgency heats up, one of the red leaders, a Cuban general, becomes increasingly conflicted as he contrasts the previous conflicts in which he's been - Nicaragua, Angola, Vietnam, etc., where he was fighting imperialist forces, and suddenly he had become one. In one scene, Jennifer Grey (sip) walks out of a bar frequented by Russian soldiers minutes before a bomb blast sends bloody commies stumbling into the streets, a scene that, consciously or not, paralleled scenes from movies about Vietnam. Was this intended merely as payback? We had to take it in 'Nam, but now we can dish it out just as well. Or was it something else?
We, of course, sympathize with the teens. They're fighting because their families have been relocated or murdered (some while regaling their firing squads with embarassingly atonal renditions of "America the Beautiful"), their homeland has been invaded by foreign troops. That last part becomes increasingly important as the line between the two sides becomes blurred during the latter half of the movie. At one point, when the kids have a Russkie tied up for execution, one teen/supersoldier screams at another "What makes us different from them?!!" Only to be met with "They're on our soil". So, communist and capitalist are not the mortal enemies here, it's not a question of country of origin or political ideology, but invader versus rebel. The Russians (and Cubans, and Nicaraguans) are getting punished for their occupation of the Midwest in the same way that Americans had been punished for their occupation of the Mideast (Lebanon). The same way that we were punished for invading Vietnam and for supporting corrupt governments abroad. And since the invasion of America never happened, the story exists to engender sympathy for communist rebels attacking U.S. troops and allies. It's fucking commie propaganda masquerading as patriotic schlock.
And yes, it has been a slow day.
Red Dawn, for those that don't know, is the now-laughable-but-very-real-at-the-time scenario where a combined Russian-Cuban-Nicaraguan army conquers the middle of the United States. Yes, Cuban and Nicaraguan forces, driving up through Mexico, take control of the U.S. from the Rockies to the Mississippi in about a month. The opening scene is priceless, with Cubans parashooting into some anonymous midwest town and immediately going to work shooting RPG's at the local high school and various convenience stores downtown, preciently aware that small-town America's high schoolers will be the biggest threat to their dominance.
The story revolves around eight high school kids that, over the course of that same month, manage to turn themselves into an elite rebel force with excellent bomb making skills and flawless aim. It's a ridiculous movie, but at the time was seen as a redneck call to arms. And yet, watching it, I couldn't help but feel that it had a subtle pro-Commie message.
As the insurgency heats up, one of the red leaders, a Cuban general, becomes increasingly conflicted as he contrasts the previous conflicts in which he's been - Nicaragua, Angola, Vietnam, etc., where he was fighting imperialist forces, and suddenly he had become one. In one scene, Jennifer Grey (sip) walks out of a bar frequented by Russian soldiers minutes before a bomb blast sends bloody commies stumbling into the streets, a scene that, consciously or not, paralleled scenes from movies about Vietnam. Was this intended merely as payback? We had to take it in 'Nam, but now we can dish it out just as well. Or was it something else?
We, of course, sympathize with the teens. They're fighting because their families have been relocated or murdered (some while regaling their firing squads with embarassingly atonal renditions of "America the Beautiful"), their homeland has been invaded by foreign troops. That last part becomes increasingly important as the line between the two sides becomes blurred during the latter half of the movie. At one point, when the kids have a Russkie tied up for execution, one teen/supersoldier screams at another "What makes us different from them?!!" Only to be met with "They're on our soil". So, communist and capitalist are not the mortal enemies here, it's not a question of country of origin or political ideology, but invader versus rebel. The Russians (and Cubans, and Nicaraguans) are getting punished for their occupation of the Midwest in the same way that Americans had been punished for their occupation of the Mideast (Lebanon). The same way that we were punished for invading Vietnam and for supporting corrupt governments abroad. And since the invasion of America never happened, the story exists to engender sympathy for communist rebels attacking U.S. troops and allies. It's fucking commie propaganda masquerading as patriotic schlock.
And yes, it has been a slow day.