Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker. John McClane and the redemption of masculinity.

Back when JudgyBitch was a lowly undergrad student in film theory, she irritated the shit out of her classmates and professors alike by insisting that Die Hard was the best movie ever made.  There is an unspoken assumption in film theory that Hollywood cinema is plebeian – something for the unwashed masses to enjoy in all their mind-numbing cluelessness.  Film theory majors are deeper than this, people!  We enjoy the moving complexity and artistry of the black and white post-World War II Albanian avant-garde.  The French New Wave!  The cinema of the Weimar Republic!

Die Hard? DIE HARD?!?!?!?!

Are you fucking kidding me?

No way, motherfucker.  Not kidding you at all.  Die Hard is the best movie ever made.  Sit back, relax and I will tell you why.

There are only seven stories in the world:  the entire world of literature and film can be boiled down to these seven basic plots.

Overcoming the Monster

The hero must destroy the monster and restore balance to the world

Rags to Riches

The hero is an everyman whose natural talents finally triumph

The Quest

The hero must overcome terrific odds to capture a prize

Voyage and Return

The hero is thrust into a strange and alien world and must find his way back to reality

Comedy

In this sense, comedy doesn’t mean “haha funny”, but rather that the hero must overcome obstacles to getting the girl

Tragedy

The hero doesn’t get the girl

😦

Rebirth

The hero is transformed in some profound way and becomes a better person

Die Hard is the greatest film ever made because it combines all SEVEN plots into one heroic story of redemption and triumph.

Let’s start with a little context.  Die Hard premiered on July 15^th, 1988 into a culture undergoing some dramatic transformations.  Globalization was beginning to look pretty threatening to the manufacturing based US economy, women were entering the workforce en masse and the divorce cult was just taking hold.  Americans in particular felt the ground quivering under their feet, for good reason.

Jobs were evaporating, families were disintegrating and men were getting sidelined by perky chicks in shoulder pads and high heels, who seemed to have the upper hand in the new world order where strength and stamina and sheer brute force was no longer required.

Enter John McClane.

He’s a cop, on his way to LA to spend Christmas with his wife and kids.  McClane’s wife Holly has gone back to using her father’s name (which she pretends is really her “own” name) in her professional life.  She works in the vaguely threatening Nakatomi Plaza and the film starts with her office Christmas party.

And quickly goes straight to glorious hell.

Let’s look at the seven stories again:

In Die Hard, the monster takes the form of German terrorists hell bent on avenging some compatriots being held hostage by the state.  The terrorists want them released!  Except not really. They’re actually just plain old thieves, but their foreignness is both unsettling and doubly threatening.

The terrorists are sophisticated and well-armed and have exotic accents and names, and John is just a cop from the rough street of NYC.  He’s every man.  Just a guy trying to get along as best he can.

The odds are stacked dramatically against John. The corporate crowd is laughably useless.  They sit around wondering when they’re going to be allowed to pee, while John takes on the whole group of bad guys by himself.  One coked up guy in a suit decides he might be able to outwit the terrorists and ends up with a bullet in his head for his effort.

Nope.  It’s just John.  And one by one, he takes the bad guys down.  In his bare feet.

Nakatomi Plaza, like the global economy, is a work in progress.  John’s world spans lush lobbies and oak-panelled boardrooms, glassed in computer workstations and concrete rooftops littered with chains and pulleys and strange boxes and metal containers.  He moves through elevator shafts and bathrooms, under conference tables and across marble foyers, each floor representing a different stage of development, for both the story and the culture.  John needs to adapt instantly to every circumstance, and he does.

John still loves Holly, despite her misgivings about him.  When he is at his most vulnerable, digging chunks of glass out of his feet, his thoughts are with her.  He wants her to know that he loves her.  The obstacles to love are not just dangerous criminals with loaded guns and no qualms about using them, but a wider culture that whispers to Holly:  He isn’t good enough.  He’s just a cop.  You deserve more.  You need more.

http://dalrock.wordpress.com/2010/11/02/the-whispers/

Then again, there’s nothing like being dragged by the hair to make a girl appreciate her well-muscled husband with a gun in his hand and a fierce instinct to protect, backed up with courage and the willingness to risk everything.

Funny that, eh?

Watching the movie, we can see how honest John’s heart is, how much he really does love Holly and how confused he is by her seemingly greater attachment to her professional life, and at the end, she falls into his arms, grateful and welcomed, but we all know in our hearts that she is responding to the circumstances.

Is anyone the slightest bit shocked when the sequel comes along and Holly and John are divorced?  Nope. The writing is on the wall in the first film. John gets the girl, but only because she happens to need him at that very moment.  The minute life returns to the normalcy of laundry and breakfast dishes and late night meetings, we know that Holly will discard John.  He doesn’t fit in her world anymore.

John’s profound sadness comes from his realization of that fact, but he can’t stop himself:  he has to try.  He has to save her, come what may.

This is the foundation for John’s transformation.  He realizes that the world, his world, is out of control.  His life is careening down a path he doesn’t want to be on but is powerless to stop.  All he can do is react.  He cannot change the circumstances he has found himself in, but he can react to them, and he sure as hell can fuck up what other people are doing.

Hans:     Do you really think you have a chance against us, Mr. Cowboy?

John:     Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker.

Does he have a chance?  Does any man have a chance against a force that is both overwhelming and diabolical?

It comes down to a simple question:  can evil be defeated?

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

― Edmund Burke

John McClane is an ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances, and he travels every heroes path on his way to redemption.  He takes every masculine virtue and amplifies it: courage, intelligence, a willingness to take great risks, an instinct to protect, physical power, perseverance, defiance and a tolerance for pain, and he sets those against the feminized men and women who live in glass towers and pursue money and material gains over all others.

And he kicks their asses.

John doesn’t just exist, he exists as a man.  He insists on the value of masculinity and demonstrates his power in defiance of every force against him, right to the bitter end. Even after he has defeated the terrorists and rescued the hostages, the authority of the state in the form of the FBI still excoriates and criticizes him.  He is mocked and scorned and the gratitude he ought to have earned is nowhere to be seen.

He finds his solace in the arms of his wife, but that solace is tinged with betrayal.  She will not stay.  Her gratitude is fleeting. She will discard him when he is no longer useful.

Ultimately, Die Hard is a tragedy.  John cannot win. His redemption is overshadowed by rejection.  The world does not want him, no matter how clearly he demonstrates his value.

Men have a number of choices when they confront a culture that refuses to acknowledge them:  give up, give in, drop out altogether or stand up and refuse to be cowed.  Do you really think you stand a chance against a tide of opposition and a chorus of disapproval?

Yippe-ki-yay, motherfucker.

Live free or die hard.

Lots of love,

JB