The Right Stuff: What Makes a Movie "Conservative?"
Gotta thank Bob Cesca for leading me to this little gem: the National Review Online's compilation of the supposed "25 Best Conservative Movies of the Last 25 Years."
What exactly makes a movie "conservative" is apparently known only to the brain trust at NRO, which includes the decidedly un-brainy Rich Lowry -- editor of the National Review and the guy who essentially publicly admitted to masturbating during Sarah Palin's vice presidential debate performance last year. While the most interesting thing about the list in general is what it subtly says about the effort undertaken by the Review's conservative readers to avoid appearing stereotypically uncultured (obvious choices are avoided: Superman Returns, Top Gun, Die Hard, Norris's The Octagon, the Rambo series, etc.), equally fascinating is what a few of the individual choices say about how conservatives view their role in relation to the U.S. power structure. Put simply, they still, even after the last eight years of oppressive abuses and astonishingly expansive spending by a Republican administration, see themselves as the rag-tag band of rebels fighting the evil empire of big government. How else to justify the appropriation of films like The Lives of Others, 300, or -- in the "also-rans" list and possibly most shocking -- my beloved Serenity.
While scanning the list, look for a couple of truly great "What the Fuck?" moments, like the fact that all three movies by hyper-WASP Whit Stillman are included, as well as The Dark Knight (still pitched as a paean to George W. Bush), United 93 (if you didn't see that one coming...) and, well, Team America (its inclusion proof that brilliant satire ultimately fools those it's targeting).
The National Review Online: The Best Conservative Movies/2.23.09 Issue
Now that I've perused NRO's choices a few times, I can't help but feel like there are quite a few movies that the magazine neglected to mention. Movies that I think should've made the list before, say, Ghostbusters, or whose lasting impact deserves recognition among the greatest conservative culture touchstones of all time.
How about:
Last Tango In Paris
Features a selfish white guy who delights in bending over complete strangers and screwing them in the ass.
Wall Street
A perfect movie right up until the last ten minutes.
Casablanca
A clever American outwits the Nazis and dumps his foreigner girlfriend.
The Transporter
A white guy in an expensive car lives by a strict code that includes doing what he's told while never asking questions and never bothering to look at what his job entails and whether it's hurting anyone.
Titanic
The uplifting story of an unstoppable white object that sinks a boat full of poor people while most of the rich manage to save themselves -- a fine allegory for either the U.S. government or Wall Street, depending on your perspective.
The Big Chill
Its main character is a dead hippie.
Signs
Mel Gibson defeats illegal aliens.
American Psycho
A Wall Street investment banker murders hookers, homeless people, and other undesirables.
Thelma and Louise
Ends with Susan Sarandon driving off a cliff.
Now it's your turn.
Any more suggestions?
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Whats amusing is how in a completely un-self-aware way so many movies involve fascist states, yet get listed under the delusion they are conservative because someone is fighting the fascist state.
I know this isn't going to be a popular opinion . . . but I agree on "The Dark Knight" being included, I'm no supporter of Bush but I did see the allegory there - intended or not that was how it played out through the film
And though Tolkien probably didn't intend to make the Lord of the Rings trilogy conservative, as there are several idealogies that can be claimed in the film/book's plot, he WAS a conservative anglophile - from reading the NRO list that is the main basis of their claim to that film
I thought the list was interesting, they stretched on several films for sure - I thought it was more peculiar what wasn't included. I thought "The Right Stuff" should be included, on a serious note, as the astronaut is an iconic parallel to the cowboy (established in the film and book) which has always been a favorite conservative icon and the astronauts are trail-blazing heros who accomplish their goal through talent, determination and their special abilities that speparates them from the rest - that is, the "right stuff" (a la "Incredibles"). But by the logic they use for "Ghostbusters," "The Right Stuff" can't qualify since it revolves around a big, bloated government program that sucks up taxpayer dollars.
The NRO list for 25 conservative songs is even more bizarre.
Problem is Batman was a criminal. A hero, but a criminal.
How about PIxar's WALL-E: A monopolistic mega-corporation has trashed the Earth, and then sponsored the evacuation of a number of pilgrims away from the planet, until such time as the barest forms of life have begun to sprout and these degenerated fatbody lazy hyper-consumer illiterates (who as we watch, begin literally to stand on their own two feet for the first time!) may return to...trash the Earth once more!
Network...
And let's face it..the ORIGINAL "Manchurian Candidate"
I always wondered who liked those Whit Stillman movies.
Star Wars:
They will think they're the Rebel Alliance, but the rest of us will know they're the Empire.
"Spartacus": Thousands of uppity slaves crucified by incredibly rich, closeted-gay white guy. They don't make 'em like that anymore.
THE MOVIE THAT WILL NEVER BE ON THEIR LIST! (Although it should be on ours!)
Salo Or The 120 Days Of Sodom, by Pier Paolo Pasolini
Everything you've ever heard about this movie is true. It is vile, it is disgusting, it is all but unwatchable and It is unflinching in its portrayal of these people for what they are and what they do. Luckily, it falls outside of NRO's 25 year limit. Otherwise they would have embarrassed themselves in their lust to be the Duke, the Bishop, the Magistrate, or the President.
Great pick.
Salo seems more relevant than ever nowadays.
Cannonball Run or Gumball Rally or anything with Jim Nabors in it.
High Noon. Although they don't get what was being said about selfish Americans.
I have a couple objections to the NRO's reading of Lord of the Rings & The Dark Knight.
First of all, Tolkien despised the use of allegory (he was quoted as saying he could smell an allegory before he would read it in a book) and he objected vehemently any time someone tried to claim that LOTR was about WWII and that the Ring was an allegory for the atomic bomb. He would roll over in his grave to hear conservatives apply the story to the war on terror. It was meant to be a work of mythology, nothing more.
As for the Dark Knight... Batman rails against the establishment. In the comic, Ronald Reagan and Superman are teammates on the law and order side while Batman battles against their particular brand of conformity. He's a vigilante. Batman would be on a terrorist watch list in G.W.'s world.
I agree with "300." A very right-wing movie.
But, dammit, I like it. And I'm not even gay.
I would say "Miracle" is a very Republican movie, too.
I don't see why 300 would be considered a "right wing" movie. The Right doesn't have a monopoly on the idea of defending your country. Fighting off foreign invasion has universal appeal. Just because some on the Left would classify themselves as pacifists doesn't mean the Right Wingers are the only people who would fight for their families and homes.
How is MIRACLE a gop movie, since it happened under Jimmy Carter and involved a lot of Massachusetts guys?
The Fountainhead didn't make the list? Amazing, I thought anything of Ayn Rand's was sacrosanct to the conservatives.
Irwin Allen's "The Towering Inferno." Building purportedly a shining example of American can-do portrayed by William Holden, whose spoiled, over-privileged son, played by Richard Chamberlain, pays for shoddy electrical wiring, pockets the money, sparking an inferno. The son then disrupts the rescue effort to save himself, and ends up killing everyone who might stop him
What makes a movie "conservative?"
...any cowboy western with Charlton Heston or Clint Eastwood
...and "Deliverance" with Jon Voight
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