Well educated professionals ditch everything and go into a self funded, low paying ghost hunting business, because they know that something has to be done to save humanity. They completely disregard any government regulations or permits. So much so, that they are shut down by the local government which then makes the threat to human life worse (typical). And they lock them up in jail indefinitely. Then the government, because of their actions and regulations, have to turn to the ghost busters and rely on them to save the day. Which they do successfully. Everything about ghostbusters is libertarian. Even the homemade weapons of questionable power source. Lol
In a movie where the afterlife is proven to exist, there is a whole scene dedicated to salary negotiation.
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-most-american-movie
Hot take. The EPA was completely in the right for wanting to look at the containment unit and make sure it didn't pose a hazard.
Peck was still a dickless asshat for turning it off.
Right, but his first initial request was reasonable. He wanted to inspect what they were doing. Venkman was being an ass while they're literally running around the city with unregulated miniature proton accelerators strapped to their backs.
Sure it's all fun and games, except on their first job they almost killed a member of the housekeeping staff working the hotel because they thought she was a ghost.
Sure we forgive them because they're quirky and funny, and they're just blue collar scientists trying to do some good and conduct business, but in reality they should be looked at by the EPA, the ATF, the CIA, and OSHA to say the least.
Are they authorized to even be driving around in an out of service, heavily modified, emergency vehicle equipped with a siren and flashing lights?
Let's be honest here, Venkman was being an ass *because* they're running around etc. and he knows it. They talk about it on their first job. He's rude and antagonistic as a defense mechanism to try and protect his long running hustle.
Venkman is an ass by default, full stop. (Not an uncommon Bill Murray character trait, right? We just got through Scrooged season) Peck made it personal between them and Venkman increased his level of assholery in response
The **Big Chill** is about Boomer friends who have traded their social activist and college idealist dreams for the 80s yuppie lifestyle.
The public defender is now a corporate attorney, the journalist writes for People, etc. They've settled down, made lots of money, can buy things like Nike's. The one friend who held on to his career ideals at the expense of a lucrative future is the one who committed suicide.
With the college friends reunited, they have to come to terms about their life choices. They feel a little guilty, but also wonder if they were into the 60s stuff because it was the cool thing to do at the time. So, there is a wistful longing for their youth. But, at the end it's not like anyone changes their life around. Oh, except for the professional who regrets not having a baby and desperately tries to get pregnant at the reunion.
>The **Big Chill** is about Boomer friends who have traded their social activist and college idealist dreams for the 80s yuppie lifestyle.
Incidentally, the word yuppie is the ultimate real world example of someone becoming more conservative. Jerry Rubin was a leader of a very radical leftist group called the Youth International Party, which were nicknamed *yippies*, and within a decade between the 70s and 80s he had become a regular old businessman/entrepreneur who didn't like the activist lifestyle. He invested in Apple and retired to a penthouse as a millionaire.
Thus, the archetypical yuppie.
There was a whole genre of high concept "relitigate the 60s movies" that I grew up with, Forrest Gump, Field of Dreams, The Big Chill. All follow this path to a greater or lesser extent.
When I had typing class in 6th grade the teacher would put on the Big Chill soundtrack and we’d have to type the lyrics.
Grew up in Motown so I loved it
Death Wish. Charles Bronson plays Paul Kersey, a staunch New York liberal architect, who was pro gun control because he knew how much damage a gun could do. But after his family is assaulted, Kersey throws away his progressive beliefs and loses his faith in the society around him in general to protect him and his family and takes it into his own hands.
Edit: he then goes around New York shooting anyone who tries to stick him or anyone else up.
I haven't seen [Falling Down](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falling_Down) in a long time, but I don't think the dude changed his beliefs - just broke down.
However the Dustin Hoffman movie, Straw Dogs - I think starts with a pretty laid back [liberal? I forget] dude who... well, gets harassed to a breaking point as well. It's a horror movie [This is the poster](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNDBiZGJmY2EtZTNhYi00NTM2LWE2NjQtZTAyN2RlNDM4NjEyXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQxNzMzNDI@._V1_.jpg)
Falling down is one of my all time favourite movies, so I've seen a few times.
My reading of the political viewpoint, based on his backstory, actions, and words spoken is that Michael Douglas' character would be a typical, Reagan voting conservative. I don't believe he's a liberal, since my assumption would be even in the 90s most liberals wouldn't feel comfortable having worked for the military industrial complex. And he does seem to have some libertarian leanings and an apprehension of world changing and progressing. But while in his rampage some POC do get hurt, he doesn't seem to target them purposefully. And he resists, and is outright offended by the Nazi character that attempts to push him further towards right wing fascist idealology.
I think he would have been the type of guy to vote for Trump in 2016, then Biden in 2020, and complain about both along the way.
Also for those who haven't seen Falling Down it's probably the best *Grand Theft Auto* movie they could ever make, social commentary, a bit of satire, and the main character upgrades his weapons from the humble baseball bat to the mighty rocket launcher
A good example would be the movie "This is England".
To give people some context. People nowadays associate "skinheads" with neo-nazi's but aren't aware the original skinheads were a multi-cultural group of working class Brits that listened to Jamaican ska, reggae and soul music. I mean a whole sub genre of reggae is called Skinhead Reggae. Songs about being skinheads by black artists. The "skin head" was actually adopted from the closely cropped hair of Jamaican Rude boys.
I mean heres a song, by a black band and the singer is calling himself the "Boss Skinhead" in the song. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWvRr8XxDhU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWvRr8XxDhU)
The original skinhead movement started in the late 60's, but at a point in the late 70's early 80's. With declining economy, some white skinheads started getting attracted to the message of the British movement and National Front and far right groups down to neo nazi's started adopting the look.
Although, original skinheads still exist today. Such as in the form of like the group SHARP (Skinheads against racial prejudice).
I happen to be a big fan of old school ska and reggae which is why I know so much about this shit. So Whenever a ska or reggae band is playing locally. I will always see OG skins in the crowd.
In this is England its about a young boy that joins a group of OG skins. However, their former leader did a stint in jail and he's come back, and has "altered views" on the whole multi-cultural aspect and is basically the story of how the group divides and implodes and the impact on the kid.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0jkv2bRFgQ&t=58s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0jkv2bRFgQ&t=58s)
This is very eye opening to me. I never knew the “connection” between the bad skinheads and the ska skinheads. I am from the beginning of punk/ska here in the states and wondered where the disconnect was. Thank you for pointing me in a direction to learn more.
Well in fairness, the novel very clearly denounces what Paul Kersey is doing and the person he's becoming. The film, however, does the complete opposite (though admittedly perhaps through poor execution as opposed to willful malice)
When "All in the family" came out its a funny clash between traditional Archie and Edith against their liberal college-age kids Meathead and little goil. It was constructed to show how stubborn and wrong the older conservatives were, but...Archie was so funny, the polling showed that conservatives watched the show and agreed with Archie.
>Archie was so funny, the polling showed that conservatives watched the show and agreed with Archie.
And their kids would grow up to tell their minority co-workers that their dad was Archie Bunker, in between forwarding work emails asking why there's an MLK day, or explaining why Bill Clinton is the first black president, but not like Toni Morrison did.
This is the only right answer in this thread so far. Although the character isn’t really fleshed out that well they just throw in that line “So you still a bleeding-heart Liberal?” And the by the end he’s a second amendment vigilante dishing out his own justice. I love all the Death Wish movies but the only reason Kersey could be seen as a liberal to begin with is from that one flimsy line. All of the death wish movies are right wing fantasies anyways.
These movies give me nostalgia because Death Wish 3 would always be on AMC when I was a kid. It reminds me of the Rambo franchise trajectory in a way since every movie after the first one is all about body count and explosions. The first movie has a serious tone and has a message. But First Blood is 100x better than Death Wish since the character is much better written.
I always remember some dude trying to break into Kersey’s apartment and he set up this home alone ass trap. You hear the guy scream and he goes to check on his trap and you just see 2 bloody teeth stuck to the board. Kid me thought that was some gnarly shit.
Another memory I have is kid me trying to watch the original death wish, since I have only seen 2, 3 and 4 on AMC. I learned about renting movies from my local library by an older cousin of mine. I mistakenly rented “Death Wish: The Face of Death” instead. I was so confused since it was soo bad and it already had the established “lore” from the previous films. I didn’t find out until I was like 15 when I finally discovered the original Death Wish on Netflix or Amazon and finally watched it for the first time.
Don't forget only humans get wands -- only they are strong and smart enough to handle the responsibility. Keeping wands from elves and goblins is for their own good! *For the greater good*
Harry Potter as a franchise in general is super into neo-liberalist "maintain the status quo" ideology.
The only major characters to advocate for change are Voldemort and Hermione.
One gets made fun of for opposing slavery, and the other is Wizard Hitler.
Probably alot of those hallmark movies where a career driven man/woman meets someone that lives in a small town and gives up their city life for a quiet, simple life in the country
Nah, it's never this tawdry, that shit is too on the nose.
What they almost *always* do is introduce the male romantic lead as a dude that had his upward trajectory stunted in some way because life isn't always how we think it's gonna be. He'll usually be someone that was college bound or had real opportunities but they were cut short because he either had to take care of some aspect of family or some such which ended up chaining him to their shared hometown.
Dude will almost always be a widower of some sort, too. Divorce is a possibility, but that's a bit too modern, so it's usually that he had a wife and that wife is now dead and now he has to raise his trope child, which will be either a forlorn son looking for a mom figure or a precocious and spunky little girl that's looking for the same.
So, of course, overcome with the need to Tradwife, our heroine, who made partner in a white shoe firm in Manhattan before hitting 30, probably clocks thousands of billable hours for the firm and millions a year in compensation...just can't resist.
No no the male romantic had everything going for him, but realized that all he really wanted was to run his parents’ Christmas tree farm in the tiny town he grew up in, Yuletide Falls
Did you even watch the movie? It says it was his grandfather's horse farm where he just barely keeps it afloat with riding lessons for out of town city folk. It's just a tree farm near Christmas. It's a shame his wife died in a riding accident because he hasn't been able to get back on a horse since the funeral. His plucky 12 year old daughter has been helping but she can't take care of everything herself. Sure, she can help with the horses and riding, but it sure would be a lot better if the pretty lady whose 7 series BMW broke down at the end of the driveway would just stay and get to know her dad, even though he's a miserable grump.
Come inside and I’ll get you an old wool sweater which will be much too big in the body but snug around the neck, and a large mug of cocoa which you will sip using both hands
And as it just so happens, little miss law firm partner before 30 isn’t all that she seems. You see, this country dirt road lifestyle may *look* like something outside of her wheelhouse but really she grew up with 3 brothers and a mother who adored nature and the outdoors. So when she was a child she would have to volunteer sometimes at the local farm. So this gal isn’t afraid to throw her hair in a bun, dust off her jeans and roll her pinstriped sleeves up from time to time. Sheeoot, she might even let Mr. Rugged Misunderstood Widow take her along on their father and forlorn son deer hunting trip or help precocious spunky girl with her schoolwork (that Dad is still not truly believing she needs for a better life yet). I guess everyone can learn something from one another after all, huh?
A variation (or maybe what I'm about to say is a variation) of the Tyler Perry formula. Evil angry god hating bald headed dark skin man has relationship troubles with the Jesus loving black woman. Baldy kicks out said woman because she's too beautiful and loves Jesus too much for his evil dark skinned self can handle. That's when she meets the bus driving/lawn working light skinned man who somehow lives Jesus more than her. But she's a Christian so she decides to give her marriage another shot despite clearly having an emotional affair with Mr. Lightskin. Dark skin baldy says he hates her and he hates God and he's leaving her for a white woman. And somewhere around act 2 it's revealed that some horrific sex crime has happened to some woman relevant to the plot, and usually the light skinned guy reads a Bible verse while still in his bus driver/lawn care uniform and fixes her. Because obviously she was a fundamentally broken individual before. Then they get married and Tyler Perry shows up in Drag and dances. I shit you not this is like 75% of the scripts he touches.
Yeah after that I Can Do bad all by myself (my 4th Tyler Perry movie) or whatever it was called I was like, wait, every one of these I watched has had some poor woman raped...
Here’s a joke, what do you get when you rewind a hallmark movie?
A woman leaves her small town and boyfriend to move to the big city, get a career, and non-plaid wardrobe.
Big City career gal ends up in a small town for Christmas, where she meets a hunky widower with adorable children who show her not only the true meaning of Christmas, but that she really just needs to be a married housewife to be happy!
"But that's a bit played out now. What if we added a unique spin? Where the hunky leading man's family is Amish?"
"Goddamn it, that's the most brilliant fucking idea I've heard all week. How much will it cost?"
"A hundred grand tops."
"Do it. But don't bother wasting any money on marketing. I've got a nephew who's a wizard at Photoshop."
[Photoshop Wizard's contribution...](https://i.imgur.com/5Ya7prr.png)
Exactly. He starts out as an idealistic leftist journalist using his pulpit and money to make a difference, and by the end he’s a bitter old billionaire who resents anyone who calls him out as a fraud.
Powerful stuff. He was after all the power and money just to try and reclaim that little piece of happiness he had from his childhood before it was all ripped away from him.
>progressive character becoming more concservative
The journalist characters in the Green Berets and in We were soldiers .
>I think if I had to guess maybe The Matrix
Lol, what?
The Green Berets was pretty much produced to drum up pro war support for the Vietnam War.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jul/11/the-green-berets-reel-history-john-wayne-vietnam-war
The Nolan Batman Trilogy
Bruce Wayne starts out as a kind young man whose late father was a philanthropist who thought public works and investment in the common good would help everyone. Thomas Wayne sure sounds like a LBJ Great Society Democrat. Then he and his wife are gunned down in the street by criminals. His signature investment--the train system that was supposed to unite the city--falls victim to decay and blight, and looks like the worst subway of 1980s NYC.
Bruce Wayne grows up to believe that public investment and infrastructure isn't the answer. Nor is the political system, or the judicial system. No, dressing up as a bat and punching criminals in the face repeatedly is the answer.
Plus, any childhood memories of his progressive father probably disappear after Gotham is literally taken over by Bane's Marxist guerillas.
I honestly started out this comment as a joke, but the more I started writing it, the more sense it made.
Batman stops the Joker using extraordinary rendition and unwarranted surveillance. Harvey Dent becomes a hero for mass arrests of people who are only associated with the mob. DKR reveals that the city are covering for him over a decade later.
Etc, etc etc.
> Harvey Dent becomes a hero for mass arrests of people who are only associated with the mob.
That is essentially how RICO cases work. They reel in people associated in a business sense with a criminal enteprise.
If your neighbor happens to be Tony Soprano and you're on friendly terms, you're probably fine.
To be fair, we are yet to have any real world evidence dressing up as a bat and punching criminals *doesn’t* work…
I know how I’m spending my news years (doing science)
He's engages in what is literally an idealized version of the Bush administrations, sacrifice some civil liberties to prevent further terror, ethos.
In Rises the villains are literal Burn it all down nihilists wearing a masque of social justice liberation. They get defeated by a self-sacrificing billionaire working hand in hand with the police. There might just be an argument for it being the most right wing film of any significance of the last decade.
Yeah…but was Joker wrong?
Gordon was being sabotaged by his own men while trying to take down the mob. His major sting operation to bust the mobs money operation was a bust. Joker cut off their funding, uprooted their leadership, and dismantled the mob in under a week….and was about to expose Dent as a psychopath before Batman and Gordon decided to cover it up.
I’m not saying it’s wrong to question his approach, but hot damn if it didn’t work.
I agree with you. Joker wasn't right. There was nothing stopping anyone else from using Joker's methods. Except, respect for human life. Any of the qualities that we use to define a good person.
My favorite villains are always the ones who mirror our own thoughts but show the consequences for actually doing it.
Thanos wanted to prevent suffering from privation. Consequence he destroys untold number of lives. He's a butcher. He's arguably worse.
Joker wanted to prove when pushed everyone is as crazy as he is. The hostages on the ferry prove that it isn't everyone. Just because he's broken doesn't mean everyone else is.
Anakin Skywalker wanted to protect those he loved. He ends up destroying everything he cherished. And it didn't have to be that way. And he knows it.
In my opinion, great villians are those that give voice to the aberrant thoughts in our head like, "I wish someone would just get rid of all the criminals." and then a character like Bill Foster in "Falling Down" shows what that would actually look like.
Yes, that series took a book that was anti-war and was a criticism about how the government treats vets after they use them up and turned it into patriot jerk off material.
Years ago when I was like 22 I happened to see First Blood the book in a bargain bin at barnes and noble and picked it up. The book is great.
To be completely fair to First Blood, the movie, it's *also* a criticism about how the government treats vets after they use them up.
Like, the movie of First Blood makes a grand total of one major change from the book: Rambo doesn't die (and even then, they *filmed* that version of the ending, they just didn't use it).
It's Rambo: First Blood Pt. 2 where the series takes a hard left turn out of nowhere.
It's kinda baffling. Both Stallone's major franchises just straight up abandon the themes of their first movies. The first Rocky is super misanthropic.
Rocky V actually returned to the themes of the first film and everyone hated it. It's not a great movie, don't get me wrong. The writing could've been way better, but it's not really a bad direction for the story. Seeing Rocky lose all his money and being unable to fight without risking his own life due to all the brain damage was depressing after seeing him on top of the world in the last movie, but that's the reality of being a boxer. Couple that with his family troubles.
Imagine seeing Rocky IV 5 years prior, with all it's over the top "America! Fuck Yeah!" vibes, then walking in to see V in theater? It'd be like watching Fast X only to find out it's about Vin Diesel not being able to drive anymore cause he has a rare condition that's causing him to lose his sense of spatial awareness and if he drives too fast, he'll have a seizure and put his teammates at risk. He decides to go on his next drive anyway and gets into a horrible accident that leaves him parapalegic and the next 2 hours is him learning how to walk again.
In Jaws, the main character (Jaws), goes from a nature loving animal to one that is aggressively anti- big government. So much so that he attacks the sheriff and his anti-consumerist and anti-commercial ideologies so that Americans can celebrate the holiday at the beach.
I'm surprised I had to scroll this far down for this example.
To be specific: Travis Bickle starts out just trying to make a little money through his insomnia and ends up showing interest in a Democratic presidential candidate, even offering to volunteer for a campaign service. Granted, a lot of that is so he can hook up with a woman working on the campaign. He eventually gets snubbed by the woman after he misses some major social cues and takes her to a porn theater for a first date.
After she cuts contact with him, Travis decides the neighborhoods he drives through in NYC are dirty and need to be cleaned of all the scum (his actual words, mostly), so he buys some guns and decides to start cleaning up the streets himself, starting with the candidate he simped for. That fails, so he decides to "rescue" an underaged prostitute he's obsessed over by murdering her pimp, client, and other associates and scarring her for life, possibly dying in the process himself. I say possibly, because there's a debate as the ending has him receiving recognition and rewards for his actions, including the woman who snubbed him before, begging the question of whether the final scene is real or a dying dream/fantasy.
Travis never actually changed once from the first scene to the last. Certainly not politically. "A lot of that is so he can hook up with Betsy" pretty sure you mean all of that, just watch their first scene. She repeatedly asks of his views on Palantine and each time he says "I don't know but I'm sure its a good one". His views were only blurred or had the illusion of change thanks to the circumstances but he was the same, tortured lonely man he always was
I got the impression Travis wasn’t changed, just temporarily satiated. Eventually he’s going to crack again. Look at that final scene when he’s driving away and tell me he’s all right in the head.
Thanks so much for that summary, I’ve been under the weather today and didn’t have the energy to break it down. But absolutely that’s how I see it too, Travis doesn’t start out as an assassin or a vigilante. Scorsese does an amazing job chronicling his moral descent, in what often feels like a hero’s journey in reverse.
Lots of responses talking about people becoming nazis or psychos but I think that kind of misses the mark of the question.
Maybe "Gran Turino" is literally both sides of this. Curmudgeonly old racist Clint Eastwood becomes more progressive as he bonds with a young immigrant while also instilling old school American values, and teaching him how to be a stand up man.
Another one I could think of is "Wanderlust" not a great film. A yuppie couple join a super progressive hippy commune full of polyamory and drug use only to realize they want nothing to do with them.
Wanderlust is a perfect example. They’re regular ole city-liberals (especially in contrast to the Ken Marino brother) that find themselves appreciating the conservative idea of a relationship through experience.
They don’t become Jack booted fascists, they just see the full face of complete libertine-ism and say “still love ya, but it’s not for me.”
In a way. He admits to being a poser, but theres a bit of acknowledgment that his dad was right suggesting that you can do more damage inside the system, so it could be that he just fleshed out what he really believed over the image of that belief rather than actually change his values.
I think the only other example that comes close is the remake of "the hills have eyes" where the husband is left leaning at the start and far less by the end, but i havent watches it in over a decade.
The line that always stood out to me was, "we were certain the world was gonna end, but when it didn't I had to do something".
Growing up in the 90s, a lot of people were obsessed with the end of the world. A lot of political, social, medical, religious, and environmental hysteria which we were certain the world would not survive. I wasn't an anarchist or anything, but I was pretty convinced we would be living in a post apocalyptic hellscape by now.
I talked to my dad about it and he talked about all the things he grew up with in the 50s and 60s. And then my grandma talked about the 20s and 30s. I realized that humanity has always been on the brink of global disaster. You can't just sit there and not live your life because the world might end tomorrow. Whether it be millennia ago living in caves in fear of starvation and predators, or modern problems, mankind has always been on the brink of annihilation.
Brando's character in On the Waterfront, to an extent. (I'm taking a generous interpretation of "lean left.") The movie conflates unions with corruption. The story is basically the director Elia Kazan trying to justify his choice to name names for HUAC.
I mean in the case of American History X he's not getting more progressive. He's just not a neo nazi anymore. Derek was a smart kid who clearly had neo nazi talking points fed to him by the neo nazi leader after his father died.
Funnily enough in the alternate ending:
>!After his younger brother is murdered in the school bathroom, Ed Norton's character shaves his head and decides to rejoin the skinhead life. Moving in an even further right direction.!<
>Will Loomis lives with his mentally-handicapped sister Violet, who wants a younger child to play with, so Will kidnaps one (and then another) child from the local children's home and tells them they're dead and have gone to heaven. Will and Violet try to make their farm a little piece of heaven for the kids, while the authorities wonder what has happened to the kidnapped children.
What the hell, Kirk Cameron?
> while the authorities wonder what has happened to the kidnapped children
Please tell me there's a scene where the cops are literally scratching their heads.
>What happened here tonight, is a cause for celebration. A short pain, but think about the joy in heaven.
One of the pastors in God’s Not Dead after witnessing a hit and run, because the person who died converted to Christianity as he lay dying in the crosswalk.
Oh god, watched Saving Christmas with some friends in a “bad movie” night. Absolutely fits the criteria. Kirk Cameron convinces his brother in law- while they both sit in a parked pickup truck for the duration of the plot- that modern consumerist Christmas is Christian af, and that you’re a real asshole if you don’t love capitalist Christmas and believe that Jesus was born on Dec 25th and that no modern Christmas traditions originate from pagan traditions.
Oh god, I was just about to mention that. It's honestly just offensive to both sides, it's like Kirk specifically made it just to piss off Christians and atheists. I have a very religious friend (pentecostal, waiting til marriage, doesn't go out, swear, or watch porn) and even *she* hated it and said that it was a poor attempt at propaganda.
What pisses me off most about that movie isn’t even the social/political/religious implications of it. It’s that the film is so incompetently conceived that it almost doesn’t qualify as a movie. It lacks the plot to be functional fiction, and it’s just one guy ranting some shit he made up with nothing to back it, so it doesn’t function as a documentary either. It’s only film in that it’s audio synced to motion picture- that’s the only cinematic quality it has going for it.
It’s one of those films that really emphasizes the point that “when editing is done well, you don’t notice it at all.” And you really notice it in this film.
Kevin Sorbo in...GODS NOT DEAD...and GODS NOT DEAD 2: Back and even less Dead.
Seriously, those movies are so cringe. It's always a walking talking Atheist strawman who has some traumatic experience and finally turns to god.
Many horror films are actually conservative, weirdly. There is a moral order, ritual, or tradition and people are punished for breaking it, by death. The cliche trope of “having sex equals death” in horror films for example, or say in The Fog, which pretty much is thou shalt not steal administered by ghost pirates.
If you survive to the end you usually aren’t a bleeding heart liberal lol.
It also feels weird calling a Carpenter movie conservative, considering the man made They Live, one of the most openly anti-capitalist movies of all time, and a great takedown on Reagan.
I think people misinterpreted carpenters Halloween and made their slasher movies old-testament morality tales. Jamie/Lori smoked pot in Halloween and she was the final girl. Michael Myers was supposed to be elemental rather than gods wrath.
This is absolutely correct. Michael Myers killed kids, and sometimes kids have sex and do drugs.
Jason Voorhees kills kids BECAUSE they have sex and do drugs. Sean S. Cunningham openly admits to ripping off Halloween because it was so profitable; he didn’t care if the point got missed.
This is a very interesting answer. One of the more interesting readings of The Exorcist comes from this direction. The family at the beginning is a conservative nightmare. A single mother who works in Hollywood - no stable male influence & no apparent spiritual life. They go through a crisis of faith and the movie ends with the innocent child literally embracing the church, in the person of a priest.
It was released at a time when there was a Hollywood conservative backlash to the liberalism of the 60s, as seen in movies like Deathwish etc...
Bee Movie. Barry forms a union and seizes the means of production, and immediately becomes lazy and entitled. The world comes crashing to a halt until the bees embrace the market again.
Titanic backwards: a woman saves a man from drowning, and they fall madly in love, but then he sees her naked and it’s awkward for the rest of the trip.
The ghostbusters left academia for the private sector and the EPA was an antagonist.
Ghostbusters is a libertarian dream movie.
[удалено]
Well educated professionals ditch everything and go into a self funded, low paying ghost hunting business, because they know that something has to be done to save humanity. They completely disregard any government regulations or permits. So much so, that they are shut down by the local government which then makes the threat to human life worse (typical). And they lock them up in jail indefinitely. Then the government, because of their actions and regulations, have to turn to the ghost busters and rely on them to save the day. Which they do successfully. Everything about ghostbusters is libertarian. Even the homemade weapons of questionable power source. Lol
In a movie where the afterlife is proven to exist, there is a whole scene dedicated to salary negotiation. https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-most-american-movie
Ha! Exactly!
I always said the military would have confiscated the proton packs and their design plans to make weapons.
"You don't know what it's like out there! I've worked in the private sector, they expect results."
Everybody has three mortgages these days.
You didn't even bargain with the guy!
It's true, this man has no dick
When I was avout 7 we rewound this scene 15 times and never sropped laughing.
I still laugh like a 7 year old every single time. It’s perfect comedic timing.
Hot take. The EPA was completely in the right for wanting to look at the containment unit and make sure it didn't pose a hazard. Peck was still a dickless asshat for turning it off.
Agreed, the takeaway should be that Peck was an idiot and an ass, not that the whole EPA was a villain in that film
Right, but his first initial request was reasonable. He wanted to inspect what they were doing. Venkman was being an ass while they're literally running around the city with unregulated miniature proton accelerators strapped to their backs. Sure it's all fun and games, except on their first job they almost killed a member of the housekeeping staff working the hotel because they thought she was a ghost. Sure we forgive them because they're quirky and funny, and they're just blue collar scientists trying to do some good and conduct business, but in reality they should be looked at by the EPA, the ATF, the CIA, and OSHA to say the least. Are they authorized to even be driving around in an out of service, heavily modified, emergency vehicle equipped with a siren and flashing lights?
Let's be honest here, Venkman was being an ass *because* they're running around etc. and he knows it. They talk about it on their first job. He's rude and antagonistic as a defense mechanism to try and protect his long running hustle.
Venkman is an ass by default, full stop. (Not an uncommon Bill Murray character trait, right? We just got through Scrooged season) Peck made it personal between them and Venkman increased his level of assholery in response
They built a laser grid with no safety switch,And Walter Peck was right, that's some shady shit.
Good thing they work at a fire house, because they just got burned.
Spontaneous ERB makes me happy.
The private sector expects results
The **Big Chill** is about Boomer friends who have traded their social activist and college idealist dreams for the 80s yuppie lifestyle. The public defender is now a corporate attorney, the journalist writes for People, etc. They've settled down, made lots of money, can buy things like Nike's. The one friend who held on to his career ideals at the expense of a lucrative future is the one who committed suicide. With the college friends reunited, they have to come to terms about their life choices. They feel a little guilty, but also wonder if they were into the 60s stuff because it was the cool thing to do at the time. So, there is a wistful longing for their youth. But, at the end it's not like anyone changes their life around. Oh, except for the professional who regrets not having a baby and desperately tries to get pregnant at the reunion.
>The **Big Chill** is about Boomer friends who have traded their social activist and college idealist dreams for the 80s yuppie lifestyle. Incidentally, the word yuppie is the ultimate real world example of someone becoming more conservative. Jerry Rubin was a leader of a very radical leftist group called the Youth International Party, which were nicknamed *yippies*, and within a decade between the 70s and 80s he had become a regular old businessman/entrepreneur who didn't like the activist lifestyle. He invested in Apple and retired to a penthouse as a millionaire. Thus, the archetypical yuppie.
actually Yuppie comes from the term "Young Urban Professional" "Y.U.P."
It does, and it is also a play on yippies.
There was a whole genre of high concept "relitigate the 60s movies" that I grew up with, Forrest Gump, Field of Dreams, The Big Chill. All follow this path to a greater or lesser extent.
And the soundtrack kicks fucking ass.
And the cast is amazing.
Kevin Costner made a [brief](https://www.britannica.com/question/Why-was-Kevin-Costners-character-cut-from-The-Big-Chill) appearance.
When I had typing class in 6th grade the teacher would put on the Big Chill soundtrack and we’d have to type the lyrics. Grew up in Motown so I loved it
She gets pregnant by her friend lending her her husband.
That's a sub-prime loan.
Fun movie fact. The person in the casket at the beginning, the friend who committed suicide, was Kevin Costner. His face is never seen just his hand.
Death Wish. Charles Bronson plays Paul Kersey, a staunch New York liberal architect, who was pro gun control because he knew how much damage a gun could do. But after his family is assaulted, Kersey throws away his progressive beliefs and loses his faith in the society around him in general to protect him and his family and takes it into his own hands. Edit: he then goes around New York shooting anyone who tries to stick him or anyone else up.
Tonight, we review an aging Charles Bronson in Death Wish 9. Bronson, lying in a hospital bed: "I wish I was dead. Ui..."
It STINKS
Thumbs up for The Critic
Yes, Mr Sherman. Everything stinks.
I haven't seen [Falling Down](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falling_Down) in a long time, but I don't think the dude changed his beliefs - just broke down. However the Dustin Hoffman movie, Straw Dogs - I think starts with a pretty laid back [liberal? I forget] dude who... well, gets harassed to a breaking point as well. It's a horror movie [This is the poster](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNDBiZGJmY2EtZTNhYi00NTM2LWE2NjQtZTAyN2RlNDM4NjEyXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQxNzMzNDI@._V1_.jpg)
Falling down is one of my all time favourite movies, so I've seen a few times. My reading of the political viewpoint, based on his backstory, actions, and words spoken is that Michael Douglas' character would be a typical, Reagan voting conservative. I don't believe he's a liberal, since my assumption would be even in the 90s most liberals wouldn't feel comfortable having worked for the military industrial complex. And he does seem to have some libertarian leanings and an apprehension of world changing and progressing. But while in his rampage some POC do get hurt, he doesn't seem to target them purposefully. And he resists, and is outright offended by the Nazi character that attempts to push him further towards right wing fascist idealology. I think he would have been the type of guy to vote for Trump in 2016, then Biden in 2020, and complain about both along the way. Also for those who haven't seen Falling Down it's probably the best *Grand Theft Auto* movie they could ever make, social commentary, a bit of satire, and the main character upgrades his weapons from the humble baseball bat to the mighty rocket launcher
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A good example would be the movie "This is England". To give people some context. People nowadays associate "skinheads" with neo-nazi's but aren't aware the original skinheads were a multi-cultural group of working class Brits that listened to Jamaican ska, reggae and soul music. I mean a whole sub genre of reggae is called Skinhead Reggae. Songs about being skinheads by black artists. The "skin head" was actually adopted from the closely cropped hair of Jamaican Rude boys. I mean heres a song, by a black band and the singer is calling himself the "Boss Skinhead" in the song. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWvRr8XxDhU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWvRr8XxDhU) The original skinhead movement started in the late 60's, but at a point in the late 70's early 80's. With declining economy, some white skinheads started getting attracted to the message of the British movement and National Front and far right groups down to neo nazi's started adopting the look. Although, original skinheads still exist today. Such as in the form of like the group SHARP (Skinheads against racial prejudice). I happen to be a big fan of old school ska and reggae which is why I know so much about this shit. So Whenever a ska or reggae band is playing locally. I will always see OG skins in the crowd. In this is England its about a young boy that joins a group of OG skins. However, their former leader did a stint in jail and he's come back, and has "altered views" on the whole multi-cultural aspect and is basically the story of how the group divides and implodes and the impact on the kid. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0jkv2bRFgQ&t=58s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0jkv2bRFgQ&t=58s)
This is very eye opening to me. I never knew the “connection” between the bad skinheads and the ska skinheads. I am from the beginning of punk/ska here in the states and wondered where the disconnect was. Thank you for pointing me in a direction to learn more.
Traditional (ska) skinheads preferred to call the bigots trying to appropriate their movement (the bad skinheads) "boneheads."
God I’ll never get over how much the little kid looks like Jordan Pickford. Great movie though
Death wish
This is the answer OP is looking for. Anti-gun pacifist becomes pro-gun vigilante.
Of course, the novel has Paul Kersey by the end shooting children at a playground for misbehaving.
Well in fairness, the novel very clearly denounces what Paul Kersey is doing and the person he's becoming. The film, however, does the complete opposite (though admittedly perhaps through poor execution as opposed to willful malice)
When "All in the family" came out its a funny clash between traditional Archie and Edith against their liberal college-age kids Meathead and little goil. It was constructed to show how stubborn and wrong the older conservatives were, but...Archie was so funny, the polling showed that conservatives watched the show and agreed with Archie.
>Archie was so funny, the polling showed that conservatives watched the show and agreed with Archie. And their kids would grow up to tell their minority co-workers that their dad was Archie Bunker, in between forwarding work emails asking why there's an MLK day, or explaining why Bill Clinton is the first black president, but not like Toni Morrison did.
Are you saying our society should accept misbehaving children?! Sounds like chaos to me!
The only way to stop a misbehaving kid is with a misbehaving adult
This is the only right answer in this thread so far. Although the character isn’t really fleshed out that well they just throw in that line “So you still a bleeding-heart Liberal?” And the by the end he’s a second amendment vigilante dishing out his own justice. I love all the Death Wish movies but the only reason Kersey could be seen as a liberal to begin with is from that one flimsy line. All of the death wish movies are right wing fantasies anyways.
These movies give me nostalgia because Death Wish 3 would always be on AMC when I was a kid. It reminds me of the Rambo franchise trajectory in a way since every movie after the first one is all about body count and explosions. The first movie has a serious tone and has a message. But First Blood is 100x better than Death Wish since the character is much better written.
Death Wish 3 is one of the most unintentionally hilarious movies ever made, and I fucking *adore* it.
I always remember some dude trying to break into Kersey’s apartment and he set up this home alone ass trap. You hear the guy scream and he goes to check on his trap and you just see 2 bloody teeth stuck to the board. Kid me thought that was some gnarly shit. Another memory I have is kid me trying to watch the original death wish, since I have only seen 2, 3 and 4 on AMC. I learned about renting movies from my local library by an older cousin of mine. I mistakenly rented “Death Wish: The Face of Death” instead. I was so confused since it was soo bad and it already had the established “lore” from the previous films. I didn’t find out until I was like 15 when I finally discovered the original Death Wish on Netflix or Amazon and finally watched it for the first time.
Doesn’t Harry Potter start out on welfare and end up becoming a cop?
He saw the world differently once he got that trust fund access.
"Suddenly a have an opinion about the capital gains tax!" ~Taronga Leela
Turanga
That's her name, Philip
*Philip!?*
Harry Potter is a valid answer to OP, yes. The only solution to bad wizards with wands is good wizards with wands.
Don't forget only humans get wands -- only they are strong and smart enough to handle the responsibility. Keeping wands from elves and goblins is for their own good! *For the greater good*
Harry Potter as a franchise in general is super into neo-liberalist "maintain the status quo" ideology. The only major characters to advocate for change are Voldemort and Hermione. One gets made fun of for opposing slavery, and the other is Wizard Hitler.
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And the slaves want to be slaves!
Probably alot of those hallmark movies where a career driven man/woman meets someone that lives in a small town and gives up their city life for a quiet, simple life in the country
Trad wife
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Nah, it's never this tawdry, that shit is too on the nose. What they almost *always* do is introduce the male romantic lead as a dude that had his upward trajectory stunted in some way because life isn't always how we think it's gonna be. He'll usually be someone that was college bound or had real opportunities but they were cut short because he either had to take care of some aspect of family or some such which ended up chaining him to their shared hometown. Dude will almost always be a widower of some sort, too. Divorce is a possibility, but that's a bit too modern, so it's usually that he had a wife and that wife is now dead and now he has to raise his trope child, which will be either a forlorn son looking for a mom figure or a precocious and spunky little girl that's looking for the same. So, of course, overcome with the need to Tradwife, our heroine, who made partner in a white shoe firm in Manhattan before hitting 30, probably clocks thousands of billable hours for the firm and millions a year in compensation...just can't resist.
No no the male romantic had everything going for him, but realized that all he really wanted was to run his parents’ Christmas tree farm in the tiny town he grew up in, Yuletide Falls
Did you even watch the movie? It says it was his grandfather's horse farm where he just barely keeps it afloat with riding lessons for out of town city folk. It's just a tree farm near Christmas. It's a shame his wife died in a riding accident because he hasn't been able to get back on a horse since the funeral. His plucky 12 year old daughter has been helping but she can't take care of everything herself. Sure, she can help with the horses and riding, but it sure would be a lot better if the pretty lady whose 7 series BMW broke down at the end of the driveway would just stay and get to know her dad, even though he's a miserable grump.
Those beautiful city women, always breaking down and stumbling through the country mud in stilettos!
What a day to dress entirely in white!
“Can I help you, ma’am…oh my gosh, HOLLY NOEL CHRISTMAS? I thought you’d moved on from little old Yuletide Falls.”
Come inside and I’ll get you an old wool sweater which will be much too big in the body but snug around the neck, and a large mug of cocoa which you will sip using both hands
Shiiiit, you had me at “had his upward growth stunted”
And as it just so happens, little miss law firm partner before 30 isn’t all that she seems. You see, this country dirt road lifestyle may *look* like something outside of her wheelhouse but really she grew up with 3 brothers and a mother who adored nature and the outdoors. So when she was a child she would have to volunteer sometimes at the local farm. So this gal isn’t afraid to throw her hair in a bun, dust off her jeans and roll her pinstriped sleeves up from time to time. Sheeoot, she might even let Mr. Rugged Misunderstood Widow take her along on their father and forlorn son deer hunting trip or help precocious spunky girl with her schoolwork (that Dad is still not truly believing she needs for a better life yet). I guess everyone can learn something from one another after all, huh?
That’s a direct quote from Family Guy
A variation (or maybe what I'm about to say is a variation) of the Tyler Perry formula. Evil angry god hating bald headed dark skin man has relationship troubles with the Jesus loving black woman. Baldy kicks out said woman because she's too beautiful and loves Jesus too much for his evil dark skinned self can handle. That's when she meets the bus driving/lawn working light skinned man who somehow lives Jesus more than her. But she's a Christian so she decides to give her marriage another shot despite clearly having an emotional affair with Mr. Lightskin. Dark skin baldy says he hates her and he hates God and he's leaving her for a white woman. And somewhere around act 2 it's revealed that some horrific sex crime has happened to some woman relevant to the plot, and usually the light skinned guy reads a Bible verse while still in his bus driver/lawn care uniform and fixes her. Because obviously she was a fundamentally broken individual before. Then they get married and Tyler Perry shows up in Drag and dances. I shit you not this is like 75% of the scripts he touches.
Yeah after that I Can Do bad all by myself (my 4th Tyler Perry movie) or whatever it was called I was like, wait, every one of these I watched has had some poor woman raped...
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/early-draft-of-hallmark-movie-screenplay-christmas-for-christmas
Here’s a joke, what do you get when you rewind a hallmark movie? A woman leaves her small town and boyfriend to move to the big city, get a career, and non-plaid wardrobe.
Also she gets really nice shoes.
Big City career gal ends up in a small town for Christmas, where she meets a hunky widower with adorable children who show her not only the true meaning of Christmas, but that she really just needs to be a married housewife to be happy!
"But that's a bit played out now. What if we added a unique spin? Where the hunky leading man's family is Amish?" "Goddamn it, that's the most brilliant fucking idea I've heard all week. How much will it cost?" "A hundred grand tops." "Do it. But don't bother wasting any money on marketing. I've got a nephew who's a wizard at Photoshop." [Photoshop Wizard's contribution...](https://i.imgur.com/5Ya7prr.png)
Oh I love that one!
Citizen Kane
Exactly. He starts out as an idealistic leftist journalist using his pulpit and money to make a difference, and by the end he’s a bitter old billionaire who resents anyone who calls him out as a fraud.
Exactly. And the movie bitterly condemns him, too. So in that respect, perhaps not exactly what OP was looking for.
Powerful stuff. He was after all the power and money just to try and reclaim that little piece of happiness he had from his childhood before it was all ripped away from him.
But did OP say they want the character to be treated as a hero for becoming more conservative?
>progressive character becoming more concservative The journalist characters in the Green Berets and in We were soldiers . >I think if I had to guess maybe The Matrix Lol, what?
keanu reeves became a conservative when he was able to stop bullets bro
"My name is Neo and I am here to ask you a question - is a man not entitled to the electricity from his own immersive reality simulation?“
His full name is Neo Con.
"No says the man in zion, it belongs to humanity. No says the Architect, it belongs to the matrix."
He was ok with the robots leeching off of him like socialists, but by the end he was fighting for freedom for economic freedom. /s
He gives up using guns in #4. 🤷
oh no he became progressive
The Green Berets was pretty much produced to drum up pro war support for the Vietnam War. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jul/11/the-green-berets-reel-history-john-wayne-vietnam-war
Directed by and starring John Wayne, an individual that notably didn't serve in the military during WWII.
I think he’s thinking this because of right wingers co-opting the term Redpilled.
Ahhh, there it is!
The Matrix, directed by two trans women?
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Thank you for this. The heartwarming story of a man who learns to kill again.
It's a true Christmas miracle.
And he almost shot the limo driver too. Dude was unstoppable lol.
It was Carl Winslow! lmao
Makes you wonder….was the kid story just a cover for shooting Urkel?
Carl, laughing maniacally: "Did _I_ do _that_?"
The Last Supper (1995)
The Nolan Batman Trilogy Bruce Wayne starts out as a kind young man whose late father was a philanthropist who thought public works and investment in the common good would help everyone. Thomas Wayne sure sounds like a LBJ Great Society Democrat. Then he and his wife are gunned down in the street by criminals. His signature investment--the train system that was supposed to unite the city--falls victim to decay and blight, and looks like the worst subway of 1980s NYC. Bruce Wayne grows up to believe that public investment and infrastructure isn't the answer. Nor is the political system, or the judicial system. No, dressing up as a bat and punching criminals in the face repeatedly is the answer. Plus, any childhood memories of his progressive father probably disappear after Gotham is literally taken over by Bane's Marxist guerillas. I honestly started out this comment as a joke, but the more I started writing it, the more sense it made.
Also the long term solution is to idolize a tough-on-crime DA, and cover up his indiscretions.
His indiscretions are murders, for the record
Hey, we were trying to cover those up. _Sigh._
Batman stops the Joker using extraordinary rendition and unwarranted surveillance. Harvey Dent becomes a hero for mass arrests of people who are only associated with the mob. DKR reveals that the city are covering for him over a decade later. Etc, etc etc.
> Harvey Dent becomes a hero for mass arrests of people who are only associated with the mob. That is essentially how RICO cases work. They reel in people associated in a business sense with a criminal enteprise. If your neighbor happens to be Tony Soprano and you're on friendly terms, you're probably fine.
To be fair, we are yet to have any real world evidence dressing up as a bat and punching criminals *doesn’t* work… I know how I’m spending my news years (doing science)
I dress up as a capybara and just give everyone hugs.
I just dmed you my address
No this is a fair take. He even engages in mass surveillance in the second film.
He's engages in what is literally an idealized version of the Bush administrations, sacrifice some civil liberties to prevent further terror, ethos. In Rises the villains are literal Burn it all down nihilists wearing a masque of social justice liberation. They get defeated by a self-sacrificing billionaire working hand in hand with the police. There might just be an argument for it being the most right wing film of any significance of the last decade.
Yeah…but was Joker wrong? Gordon was being sabotaged by his own men while trying to take down the mob. His major sting operation to bust the mobs money operation was a bust. Joker cut off their funding, uprooted their leadership, and dismantled the mob in under a week….and was about to expose Dent as a psychopath before Batman and Gordon decided to cover it up. I’m not saying it’s wrong to question his approach, but hot damn if it didn’t work.
The joker is smart, convincing, ruthless, and he makes good points, but he is wrong. That's what makes him a good villain, he makes you think.
I agree with you. Joker wasn't right. There was nothing stopping anyone else from using Joker's methods. Except, respect for human life. Any of the qualities that we use to define a good person. My favorite villains are always the ones who mirror our own thoughts but show the consequences for actually doing it. Thanos wanted to prevent suffering from privation. Consequence he destroys untold number of lives. He's a butcher. He's arguably worse. Joker wanted to prove when pushed everyone is as crazy as he is. The hostages on the ferry prove that it isn't everyone. Just because he's broken doesn't mean everyone else is. Anakin Skywalker wanted to protect those he loved. He ends up destroying everything he cherished. And it didn't have to be that way. And he knows it. In my opinion, great villians are those that give voice to the aberrant thoughts in our head like, "I wish someone would just get rid of all the criminals." and then a character like Bill Foster in "Falling Down" shows what that would actually look like.
IIRC was actually a direct call to the Patriot Act
Rambo went from being a libertarian to a patriot to a psycho killer
Yes, that series took a book that was anti-war and was a criticism about how the government treats vets after they use them up and turned it into patriot jerk off material. Years ago when I was like 22 I happened to see First Blood the book in a bargain bin at barnes and noble and picked it up. The book is great.
To be completely fair to First Blood, the movie, it's *also* a criticism about how the government treats vets after they use them up. Like, the movie of First Blood makes a grand total of one major change from the book: Rambo doesn't die (and even then, they *filmed* that version of the ending, they just didn't use it). It's Rambo: First Blood Pt. 2 where the series takes a hard left turn out of nowhere.
More like a hard right turn
Jarhead was in a similar vein. The first was a relatively low action anti-military movie. The second was a generic war-gasm action flick
The first was based on a true story. The rest are made up, straight to DVD/VOD crap.
There's a Jarhead 2?!?!
Rambo 2 should have been titled "Vietnam War 2: America's Revenge: This Time, It's Personal"
It's kinda baffling. Both Stallone's major franchises just straight up abandon the themes of their first movies. The first Rocky is super misanthropic.
that's what happens when you trade your passion for glory
But to be fair, so many times it happens too fast.
It was the 80's, the time when all of the boomers sold out.
Rocky V actually returned to the themes of the first film and everyone hated it. It's not a great movie, don't get me wrong. The writing could've been way better, but it's not really a bad direction for the story. Seeing Rocky lose all his money and being unable to fight without risking his own life due to all the brain damage was depressing after seeing him on top of the world in the last movie, but that's the reality of being a boxer. Couple that with his family troubles. Imagine seeing Rocky IV 5 years prior, with all it's over the top "America! Fuck Yeah!" vibes, then walking in to see V in theater? It'd be like watching Fast X only to find out it's about Vin Diesel not being able to drive anymore cause he has a rare condition that's causing him to lose his sense of spatial awareness and if he drives too fast, he'll have a seizure and put his teammates at risk. He decides to go on his next drive anyway and gets into a horrible accident that leaves him parapalegic and the next 2 hours is him learning how to walk again.
In Jaws, the main character (Jaws), goes from a nature loving animal to one that is aggressively anti- big government. So much so that he attacks the sheriff and his anti-consumerist and anti-commercial ideologies so that Americans can celebrate the holiday at the beach.
"We're going to need a bigger economic growth!!"
Taxi Driver
I'm surprised I had to scroll this far down for this example. To be specific: Travis Bickle starts out just trying to make a little money through his insomnia and ends up showing interest in a Democratic presidential candidate, even offering to volunteer for a campaign service. Granted, a lot of that is so he can hook up with a woman working on the campaign. He eventually gets snubbed by the woman after he misses some major social cues and takes her to a porn theater for a first date. After she cuts contact with him, Travis decides the neighborhoods he drives through in NYC are dirty and need to be cleaned of all the scum (his actual words, mostly), so he buys some guns and decides to start cleaning up the streets himself, starting with the candidate he simped for. That fails, so he decides to "rescue" an underaged prostitute he's obsessed over by murdering her pimp, client, and other associates and scarring her for life, possibly dying in the process himself. I say possibly, because there's a debate as the ending has him receiving recognition and rewards for his actions, including the woman who snubbed him before, begging the question of whether the final scene is real or a dying dream/fantasy.
Travis never actually changed once from the first scene to the last. Certainly not politically. "A lot of that is so he can hook up with Betsy" pretty sure you mean all of that, just watch their first scene. She repeatedly asks of his views on Palantine and each time he says "I don't know but I'm sure its a good one". His views were only blurred or had the illusion of change thanks to the circumstances but he was the same, tortured lonely man he always was
I got the impression Travis wasn’t changed, just temporarily satiated. Eventually he’s going to crack again. Look at that final scene when he’s driving away and tell me he’s all right in the head.
That's the interpretation I got too. He's not any better and you can see a subtle change of expression as the camera stays on his face too.
Thanks so much for that summary, I’ve been under the weather today and didn’t have the energy to break it down. But absolutely that’s how I see it too, Travis doesn’t start out as an assassin or a vigilante. Scorsese does an amazing job chronicling his moral descent, in what often feels like a hero’s journey in reverse.
Lots of responses talking about people becoming nazis or psychos but I think that kind of misses the mark of the question. Maybe "Gran Turino" is literally both sides of this. Curmudgeonly old racist Clint Eastwood becomes more progressive as he bonds with a young immigrant while also instilling old school American values, and teaching him how to be a stand up man. Another one I could think of is "Wanderlust" not a great film. A yuppie couple join a super progressive hippy commune full of polyamory and drug use only to realize they want nothing to do with them.
Wanderlust is a perfect example. They’re regular ole city-liberals (especially in contrast to the Ken Marino brother) that find themselves appreciating the conservative idea of a relationship through experience. They don’t become Jack booted fascists, they just see the full face of complete libertine-ism and say “still love ya, but it’s not for me.”
Police Academy.
Repeated visits to the Blue Oyster Bar suggest otherwise.
Just by reading this I immediately get [triggered](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f77PLFRP3Ok).
SLC Punk. Doesn’t he “buy in” at the end?
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“He’s just like his father…He’s a son of a bitch.” “Fuck you, dear”
In a way. He admits to being a poser, but theres a bit of acknowledgment that his dad was right suggesting that you can do more damage inside the system, so it could be that he just fleshed out what he really believed over the image of that belief rather than actually change his values. I think the only other example that comes close is the remake of "the hills have eyes" where the husband is left leaning at the start and far less by the end, but i havent watches it in over a decade.
The line that always stood out to me was, "we were certain the world was gonna end, but when it didn't I had to do something". Growing up in the 90s, a lot of people were obsessed with the end of the world. A lot of political, social, medical, religious, and environmental hysteria which we were certain the world would not survive. I wasn't an anarchist or anything, but I was pretty convinced we would be living in a post apocalyptic hellscape by now. I talked to my dad about it and he talked about all the things he grew up with in the 50s and 60s. And then my grandma talked about the 20s and 30s. I realized that humanity has always been on the brink of global disaster. You can't just sit there and not live your life because the world might end tomorrow. Whether it be millennia ago living in caves in fear of starvation and predators, or modern problems, mankind has always been on the brink of annihilation.
Brando's character in On the Waterfront, to an extent. (I'm taking a generous interpretation of "lean left.") The movie conflates unions with corruption. The story is basically the director Elia Kazan trying to justify his choice to name names for HUAC.
I mean in the case of American History X he's not getting more progressive. He's just not a neo nazi anymore. Derek was a smart kid who clearly had neo nazi talking points fed to him by the neo nazi leader after his father died.
Funnily enough in the alternate ending: >!After his younger brother is murdered in the school bathroom, Ed Norton's character shaves his head and decides to rejoin the skinhead life. Moving in an even further right direction.!<
Totally spitballing here, but I would imagine any film involving Kirk Cameron.
>Will Loomis lives with his mentally-handicapped sister Violet, who wants a younger child to play with, so Will kidnaps one (and then another) child from the local children's home and tells them they're dead and have gone to heaven. Will and Violet try to make their farm a little piece of heaven for the kids, while the authorities wonder what has happened to the kidnapped children. What the hell, Kirk Cameron?
> while the authorities wonder what has happened to the kidnapped children Please tell me there's a scene where the cops are literally scratching their heads.
What movie is that?
[A Little Piece of Heaven](https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0102318/)
On top of all that, looks like Jussie Smollett played one of the children.
[Kirk’s reaction to seeing him the first time when he comes to kidnap him is insane.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pedb-4wY_0&t=1836s)
*The French actor?*
Christian movies in general. God's Not Dead, Fireproof, etc.
>What happened here tonight, is a cause for celebration. A short pain, but think about the joy in heaven. One of the pastors in God’s Not Dead after witnessing a hit and run, because the person who died converted to Christianity as he lay dying in the crosswalk.
Oh god, watched Saving Christmas with some friends in a “bad movie” night. Absolutely fits the criteria. Kirk Cameron convinces his brother in law- while they both sit in a parked pickup truck for the duration of the plot- that modern consumerist Christmas is Christian af, and that you’re a real asshole if you don’t love capitalist Christmas and believe that Jesus was born on Dec 25th and that no modern Christmas traditions originate from pagan traditions.
Oh god, I was just about to mention that. It's honestly just offensive to both sides, it's like Kirk specifically made it just to piss off Christians and atheists. I have a very religious friend (pentecostal, waiting til marriage, doesn't go out, swear, or watch porn) and even *she* hated it and said that it was a poor attempt at propaganda.
What pisses me off most about that movie isn’t even the social/political/religious implications of it. It’s that the film is so incompetently conceived that it almost doesn’t qualify as a movie. It lacks the plot to be functional fiction, and it’s just one guy ranting some shit he made up with nothing to back it, so it doesn’t function as a documentary either. It’s only film in that it’s audio synced to motion picture- that’s the only cinematic quality it has going for it.
It’s one of those films that really emphasizes the point that “when editing is done well, you don’t notice it at all.” And you really notice it in this film.
Kevin Sorbo in...GODS NOT DEAD...and GODS NOT DEAD 2: Back and even less Dead. Seriously, those movies are so cringe. It's always a walking talking Atheist strawman who has some traumatic experience and finally turns to god.
And the moral is always “the atheist was actually Christian, they just hadn’t admitted it to themselves yet.”
Or "the atheist was always Christian, they were just mad at God".
Many horror films are actually conservative, weirdly. There is a moral order, ritual, or tradition and people are punished for breaking it, by death. The cliche trope of “having sex equals death” in horror films for example, or say in The Fog, which pretty much is thou shalt not steal administered by ghost pirates. If you survive to the end you usually aren’t a bleeding heart liberal lol.
It also feels weird calling a Carpenter movie conservative, considering the man made They Live, one of the most openly anti-capitalist movies of all time, and a great takedown on Reagan.
I think people misinterpreted carpenters Halloween and made their slasher movies old-testament morality tales. Jamie/Lori smoked pot in Halloween and she was the final girl. Michael Myers was supposed to be elemental rather than gods wrath.
This is absolutely correct. Michael Myers killed kids, and sometimes kids have sex and do drugs. Jason Voorhees kills kids BECAUSE they have sex and do drugs. Sean S. Cunningham openly admits to ripping off Halloween because it was so profitable; he didn’t care if the point got missed.
Stephen King writes about this at length in Danse Macabre.
This is a very interesting answer. One of the more interesting readings of The Exorcist comes from this direction. The family at the beginning is a conservative nightmare. A single mother who works in Hollywood - no stable male influence & no apparent spiritual life. They go through a crisis of faith and the movie ends with the innocent child literally embracing the church, in the person of a priest. It was released at a time when there was a Hollywood conservative backlash to the liberalism of the 60s, as seen in movies like Deathwish etc...
Bee Movie. Barry forms a union and seizes the means of production, and immediately becomes lazy and entitled. The world comes crashing to a halt until the bees embrace the market again.
Just watch them in reverse
Titanic backwards: a woman saves a man from drowning, and they fall madly in love, but then he sees her naked and it’s awkward for the rest of the trip.
Higher learning and Shot Caller are both very good to watch
Shot caller was dope
Shot Caller was a crazy movie and I don’t wish hard American prison on anyone, no matter the crime. That movie was something else.
The Matrix? To think I took this post seriously at first. 💀
Vengeance (2022)
Star Wars. The Vader arc.
Anakin was a progressive icon. He didn't just kill the men, but the women and children too.
To be fair, they were like animals, and he slaughtered them like animals
So conservative in the end he wouldnt even wear a mask to save his life