If You Give White Resentment a Gun…
As noted in previous entries in this series, the end of the Cold War created a huge cultural shift in the US. The past 80 years of world history had included at least one major world event or conflict to plant your flag on, and the disintegration of the Soviet Union seemed to conclude the decades long pendulum swings of cultural tumult that started all the way back with WWI. And when the 90s rolled around this feeling seeped into the culture that life didn’t make sense. That people were turning both further inward, with the proliferation of personal tech, and outward into a quickly globalizing world. That the identity of the country was rapidly shifting and to the individual who had lived even a decent portion of their life in the previous era could feel displaced.
The angst of this historical interregnum manifested in a multitude of ways: the grunge movement with it’s stripped down aesthetics and more radical politics, the wave of cyberpunk that basked in the seemingly infinite possibility and dangers of an online future, and down deeper a sense of resentment and anger at how the world had changed. This third option frequently exposed itself as a sort of Whitelash, or the deep seated (usually racist and misogynistic) resentments of the white populace manifesting themselves into violence and political action. Episodes like the Oklahoma City bombing, Waco, and the Unabomber show that the shifts in culture of the time could easily result in white violence. Furthermore, much of the politics of the actors in these incidents was softened and sold as acceptable with events like the 1994 midterm election and Clinton impeachment. And all of them are incarnated as William “D-Fens” Foster in 1993’s Falling Down.
“D-Fens” (Michael Douglas) is a down on his luck former defense contractor and husband who’s stuck in traffic on his way to work at his non-existent job. After being irritated to the limit by surrounding stimulus (which include women, children, and minorities) he gets out of his car and goes on a rampage across LA killing and maiming a parade of stereotypes that march through his path (Korean shop owners, Latino gangbangers, fast food employees, skinheads, and ex-wives) in a sort If You Give Mouse a Cookie scenario for reactionaries. He wants to get home for his daughter’s birthday, an action made difficult by a divorce and accompanying restraining order. The only way to stop him is for one-day-from-retirement detective Prendergast (Robert Duvall) to step in and end Foster’s procession of terror.
Falling Down is purely reactionary filmmaking. A tromp through overzealous aesthetic exploitation to make the viewer for a fleeting moment think that maybe, just maybe, the actions of Foster make some sort of logical sense, instead of being pure racial and misogynistic animus. Director Joel Schumacher (a mere two years before his dive into superhero flicks) at least creates a scenario where Foster’s action, while not sympathetic, make some sort of twisted sense. You see early 90’s LA is a world that has left Foster behind. Without the conflict of the Cold War he’s out of the job. Without a job he’s given no purpose. Without purpose it’s easy for his resentment to be unleashed. I mean wouldn’t you with all these minorities and their 85 cent a piece sodas.
The biggest problem with the movie is that can’t commit to Foster being a full blown villain. About halfway through Schumacher and company don’t seem to realize their making a horrid man somewhat palatable. Foster’s stick up of a faux McDonalds (for not serving breakfast after 11:30 a concept that is laughably dated now) is played mostly for yucks. The overdone set design of the restaurant, the overly hysteric reactions of the customers, and some slapstick of ceiling debris accidentally clunking Foster in the head after his gun goes off, it all softens his threatening aura with a nod and a wink. Tacitly saying to the audience, “wouldn’t you do the same thing in the same situation.”
This attitude reaches its absolute ruinous depths when Foster stomps into and Army surplus store run by a neo-Nazi. The manager is enthused by Foster’s actions, and offers him larger weaponry to induce further carnage against the populace of LA. But Foster half revolts, he balks at the skinhead’s attitudes, and eventually kills him, but he still takes his help (which includes a rocket launcher) and continues his quest unabated. This moment feels like the filmmakers are conceding that Foster is bad, but at least he’s not Nazi bad.
Except he is. With the full sweep of the past 25 years behind us it seems clearer and clearer that Foster would be a marcher at Charlottesville, or a full on MAGA man. Somebody who feels he’s owed a position in the world because of some notion of being a true “American.” But his racism and misogyny are blinding, and even the slightest attempt by Schumacher to beg some sort of empathetic response from the viewer fizzles from the weight of recent history.
This dampening can also be attributed to the actions of our more heroic lead. Detective Pendergast is a walking reservoir of cop show cliches that never fully blooms into anything other than icon of what the true American man should act like. He’s retiring, he’s henpecked by his wife (an absolutely awful character performed by Tuesday Weld), and he’s teamed up with younger and spunkier partners who instinctually don’t trust his hunches. In the world of Falling Down only white men can reassert control of other white men. Women are shot in the field, or left to be cowering wives, every minority is played with hysteric cliche, and the only sense of sympathy is given to the actions of our leads.
In some ways Falling Down almost works. Schumacher’s garish filmmaking talents are well suited to creating scenarios that would turn the viewer apoplectic with frustration (an opening shot that recalls a more anxiety inducing version of 81/2 is the best example), but I keep coming back to why. Why make us at all care about Foster’s actions, why embed any sense of possible redemption? I think it once again has to do with the angst of the era. The world was settled, and these are the issue we have to sort through, there’s no greater threat but the internal one that must be coddled and understood. In the 90’s we had time to think like that, but now Falling Down feels like a screeching ode to all facets of white resentment.
Odds and Ends
- This movie looks fantastic. The perfect blown out hyper color of early 90’s LA. It also serves as a fantastic tour of locations and street art.
- One of the major instigators of violence for Foster is infrastructure repair.
- This film surprisingly lays the thematic groundwork for many entries to come: think your In the Company of Men’s and Fight Clubs.
- Schumacher is one of those directors I’m torn on. His overblown aesthetics can provide zest and interest to your standard genre flicks (think The Lost Boys and Batman Forever) but he’s never made a fully and coherently good movie.
- The positive response of the time really shows how deep that malaise has sunk in.
As always, twitter, letterboxd, and I Chews You (the podcast about cooking and eating Pokemon).
I’ve got a fun lineup for the next couple of weeks that’ll I announce in a separate article.