This week we are joined by Jason Christian of Cold War Cinema to talk about 1984's propaganda vehicle, "Red Dawn." Directed by John Milius, the film stars Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, Lea Thompson, Jennifer Grey and C. Thomas Howell as teenagers engaging in a guerilla war against the completely improbable and nonsensical invasion of the United States by the combined forces of the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Nicaragua. We discuss the paradox of the Soviet Union in cinema as the most dangerous evil in the world while simultaneously being incredibly stupid, how that is a more accurate representation of the US in reality, Milius's reputation as a right wing crank, the deep ties between US cinema and anti communist propaganda, and ask Jason why he made us watch this absolute dog's dinner of a movie.

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Evan: Hello, and welcome to Left of the Projector. I'm your host, Evan,

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Evan: All right, this week on Left of the Projector, we are talking about the 1984

Evan: film Red Dawn, directed by John Milius, and it stars a whole slew of people you probably know.

Evan: Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Leah Thompson, Ron O'Neill,

Evan: William Smith, Powers Booth, Jennifer Gray, among others.

Evan: This week to discuss Red Dawn, I have Jason Christian, host of Cold War Cinema.

Evan: Thank you for joining us today.

Jason: Thanks so much for the invite. I'm excited to be here.

Evan: Before we jump into the episode and maybe why you chose this,

Evan: would you like to tell everyone about your podcast, where they can listen to

Evan: it, what it's about, that sort of thing?

Jason: Our podcast has been out for coming

Jason: up on two years and we look

Jason: at movies that were made during the early

Jason: years of the cold war so from around 1947 so far just up to the 1960s not beyond

Jason: that and we're looking at movies that are kind of in conversation with the cold

Jason: war in some way or another either thematically or um well at the moment we're,

Jason: This season, we're on season two, we're kind of doing this dialectical thing

Jason: where we look at an anti-communist Hollywood production from the 40s and 50s.

Jason: And then the next episode, we look at a Soviet film that's engaging somehow in Cold War themes.

Jason: And then we go back to Hollywood, then back to Soviet. We're about halfway through that season right now.

Jason: So, yeah, this is right in my wheelhouse. much later, much later.

Jason: We haven't, we haven't gotten even into the seventies yet, but eventually we'll get there.

Jason: But, um, the themes of this movie are very much in my wheelhouse.

Evan: So, so I guess that leads to the second question as to, you know,

Evan: I send everyone a film list of, you know, wide range of movies and you chose

Evan: this one mostly without hesitation. So I guess you kind of said why you chose it. What is that, Bill?

bill: It's more like, why did you inflict this on us.

ward: Yeah.

Jason: Oh, that's a good question. No, it's a bad movie, but it's actually a fascinating movie to study.

Jason: And I mean, we covered a movie not too long ago called I Married a Communist,

Jason: which is just a straight up,

Jason: anti-communist propaganda film just like

Jason: soaked in blood just a terrible movie

Jason: but it's actually incredibly fascinating to see the kinds of projects they were

Jason: green lighting and putting money into and and putting out there and then obviously

Jason: these things had a huge impact on the on the culture on you know on many things

Jason: on on the political landscape on manufacturing consent for the Cold War and so on and so forth.

Jason: So I'm extremely excited about these movies, sociologically speaking or politically

Jason: speaking. But yeah, it's a bad movie.

bill: Oh yeah, we all agreed. Like after having finished it, we're all like,

bill: oh, there's lots to talk about.

bill: But this movie is a bad movie from a technical standpoint and a story standpoint.

bill: But there's a lot to talk about.

Jason: Yeah, they usually, most of the anti-communist movies are pretty bad technically too.

Jason: Pick up on South Street, The Samuel Fuller one is actually a pretty good movie,

Jason: but that's our latest episode. So that's a rare, good movie.

Evan: Sort of rare win a rare well.

Jason: It's still offensive in the way it portrays the soviets but it's a good movie um actually otherwise.

Evan: And and i guess for context on people who maybe haven't seen this there is actually

Evan: a remake of this movie that came out a number of years later that instead of

Evan: focusing on the soviets it's uh on the dprk north korea but sort of the general

Evan: plot of this again It came out in 1984.

Evan: So it was 1980s, United States.

Evan: And there's like a few title cards at the beginning, which are interesting,

Evan: where it basically states that the United States, the NATO has been dissolved.

Evan: The U.S. is isolated.

Evan: There's, you know, Western Germany has changed. And, you know,

Evan: all these different things are happening around the world, which are all actually

Evan: great things. It'd be cool if those things happen. But the U.S. is sort of left alone.

Evan: And then you're somehow led to believe that the Soviet Union,

Evan: along with the Cubans and the Mexicans, are then staging a invasion of the United

Evan: States for no real reason it's ever really described.

Evan: The actual plot of how they do it is ridiculous.

Evan: So i don't know i'm like uh like i guess coming from your uh from the view of

Evan: what of watching a lot of these kinds of media like how do you think they were

Evan: trying to push their sort of pro america anti-soviet from sort of that backdrop yeah.

Jason: That's a good question so so the other country that's kind of involved in this

Jason: is is nicaragua and and so this this movie comes out in 1984 But exactly at this time...

Jason: The U.S. is secretly arming Iran with weapons to use against Iraq,

Jason: which U.S. had previously armed.

Jason: So both sides are being armed by the U.S. And then from the proceeds of that sale,

Jason: they're funding this basically far right wing death squad called the Contras

Jason: in Nicaragua to fight against the Sandinistas, which are a Marxist-Leninist

Jason: revolution that was underway. So the U.S.

Jason: Is by creating this movie in which Nicaraguan, which is a very small country,

Jason: right, wouldn't even dream of coming up to the United States.

Jason: They're really busy trying to deal with this death squads that are funded illegally

Jason: and secretly by the United States. We're led to believe that they are in cahoots

Jason: with the Cubans and the Soviets.

Jason: But yeah, so that was going on at exactly this time. You know,

Jason: and people went to prison in the Reagan administration, all over North and other

Jason: people kind of took the fall, fell on the sword for Reagan. Not enough people.

Evan: Sorry?

bill: Not enough people went to prison.

Jason: Oh, yeah, right. So that's happening. I was thinking, so one of the things we

Jason: do on our podcast, we talk about

Jason: the film, but we talk a lot about the historical context of the film.

Jason: And we try to think about how it was responding to that. And so another thing

Jason: that happened, and it just struck me, like just the language that they use and

Jason: the way that they're portraying the other side, the Soviet sort of coalition.

Jason: So the previous year in 1983, Reagan gave this famous speech in which he uses

Jason: the phrase evil empire to describe the Soviet Union.

Jason: And that phrase stuck. And that's called the evil empire speech.

Jason: And he gives this speech at the National Association of Evangelicals.

Jason: So it's this far right wing evangelical Christian, basically, whatever.

Jason: Political group. Um, and he, he addresses the cold war, but he,

Jason: he, he puts it in terms of good and evil.

Jason: Of course, the U S is the good, the good side and the Russians or the Soviets were the evil empire.

Jason: And that phrase took on a life of his own.

Jason: So, so I was thinking about all of these, these ideas are in the culture.

Jason: They're in the discourse.

Jason: They're swirling around on people's lips and at people's dinner tables and this

Jason: movie comes out right and the other the other thing to think about is that star

Jason: wars was a huge phenomenon and there's a kid who's wearing,

Jason: the star wars he's wearing a baseball cap

Jason: with star wars on the on there and and they essentially the film is kind of

Jason: a mix between a western a war movie and a sort of a star wars-esque kind of

Jason: thing where the evil empire is against, you know,

Jason: is there invading the U.S.

Jason: And then these teenagers are essentially the,

Jason: rebel alliance they are the ragtag gorillas and so like i feel like it's definitely

Jason: riffing off of a lot of familiar tropes and a lot of familiar like political

Jason: and cultural discourse as it's moving through this movie i don't know um that's

Jason: some of the initial thoughts i had.

bill: Well i mean that that uh you know thinking about it in the context of it being

bill: in star wars that is because,

bill: it really stands out you know because i i didn't think

bill: about it being in time you know of star worse but you

bill: know with the one of the main uh influences for

bill: the kids being that you know the kind of

bill: like hermity old man in the cabin out in the woods you

bill: know giving them you know guidance and stuff it's very

bill: much and then later on you have that soldier that

bill: shows up and that he's very much a Han Solo character

bill: I would say um in terms of like his kind

bill: of like you know devil may care attitude and his

bill: like his behavior with them it it really is

bill: you know i i think that's an excellent um excellent you

bill: know drawing the links between those two because star wars obviously is

bill: like super popular and super powerful and

bill: lucas made it a point to say like no this was about the vietnam war and the

bill: america's the bad guy and this they take this they take that cultural milieu

bill: and then they they flip it and they're like actually yeah you know actually

bill: of america they're the good guys the evil empires the soviets.

Jason: Yeah, let's just think, you know, after the Vietnam War, the U.S.

Jason: Was kind of beat up a little bit in kind of left-leaning public spaces.

Jason: Like, there were a lot of people that were angry about the U.S.

Jason: Here in the U.S. Even like that movie Rambo is kind of responding to that,

Jason: like how the troops weren't taken care of when they came back.

Jason: So I feel like you're right.

Jason: I think it's trying to redeem the United States against all of this liberal

Jason: hogwash that that we've done something wrong out there in the world.

Evan: Um this is some context for the making

Evan: of this movie so i mentioned that the director was john

Evan: millius but he like he's known as a kind

Evan: of like a script doctor he's you know uh gone in

Evan: and like you know rewritten help writing jaws and a lot of

Evan: films including this one and he set out to adapt a

Evan: book that was going to make this into an anti-war movie and

Evan: apparently what happened was he was the the mgm board

Evan: who who uh made this movie with the

Evan: distributed by they came in with general alexander

Evan: haig who was in the nixon administration pushed

Evan: him to make this movie far more right-wing than he wanted he like he introduced

Evan: him to people at the hudson institute to try and get him to view all these sort

Evan: of like right-wing libertarian concepts so he was taking him and basically saying

Evan: you know we'll make this movie and we'll give you more money but now the DOD

Evan: is going to get involved.

Evan: And in some of like the special, like the interviews with him,

Evan: he was saying how he set out to make an anti-war movie, but he never really

Evan: sort of, you know, admits the fact that it didn't.

Evan: It's not an anti-war movie at all in any shape or form.

Evan: And it played into this whole time, too, is that the entire MGM leaders and

Evan: president were all right-wing.

Evan: And they wanted to revitalize the right-wing action movie.

Evan: They wanted to reclaim movies for the white right-wing, claiming that everything

Evan: in Hollywood was liberal, which it can be true in some senses.

Evan: But they purposely were making a movie that was meant to be an action movie

Evan: where the right wing is their idea.

Evan: And it makes perfect sense that they're trying to flip around the Star Wars narrative.

Evan: And also, there are scenes like, especially later in the film,

Evan: when it's during the winter, where they're kind of hiding in the snow.

Evan: That felt very similar to scenes in like the Star Wars, I think it's in the

Evan: second film, I guess, episode five, where they're like on the-

Jason: Empire Strikes Back.

Evan: Empire Strikes Back where they're like, you know, hiding in the snow and they're

Evan: felt that big fight against the AT-ATs.

Evan: And it feels very much an intentional move to kind of flip that.

Evan: Script i think is what you both said yeah.

Jason: So the empire strikes back came out in 1980 star war the first one um.

Evan: 77 so.

Jason: Yeah so these were not that long ago you know it takes a little while to make

Jason: a movie so people are still talking about these movies.

Evan: Yeah it's like i think that's you know that's helpful as far as that's what

Evan: they were thinking of when they made this you know that's what they were trying

Evan: to do but so that's the the one of the questions i was going to say or sort

Evan: of like a thing to mention was John Milius claimed he was trying to make an anti-war movie.

Evan: And he has this ridiculous quote that I have to share.

Evan: He said this on the interview of the original, I guess the original DVD, whenever it came out.

Evan: He says, when you get me talking about corporate greed, I turn into a Maoist,

Evan: but I'm a militarist, an extreme patriot, and a rugged individualist.

Evan: So he's trying to paint himself.

Jason: So he's very confused.

ward: He doesn't know what words mean.

Evan: He clearly has never read any of the texts that would lead him towards like

Evan: Maoists or any of these things.

Evan: He just, in his mind, it's almost like today when anything that's like vaguely

Evan: left is considered like communist, like, oh, they're communists.

Evan: Like it's, it's very much this, uh, I don't know, like boogeyman kind of crap.

Evan: And so his ideology is so confused that maybe he did in the end think he was

Evan: like making some kind of anti-war movie where, you know, the band of rebels

Evan: takes down the mighty Soviets or whatever. I don't know.

Jason: I saw someone...

Jason: Today went viral comparing trump to mal and i

Jason: was like really i think i i

Jason: think that just the the touch i i

Jason: don't i i think it's less an anti-war movie

Jason: in a pro america movie is the way i

Jason: would say it and so like you know the war movie is a great

Jason: vehicle to promote any kind of cultural values

Jason: or political values of any i mean the soviets made a

Jason: ton of war movies and i've seen a bunch of them and so

Jason: you know it's it's pretty easy kind

Jason: of genre to to you know to

Jason: reaffirm the values of a culture to show what people

Jason: are made of when push comes to shove in in a

Jason: narrative and so like i think he he used this sort of genre to reaffirm and

Jason: to validate the united states and there's so many different uh sort of signals

Jason: and and and moments where that's done i mean even the first couple of minutes of the movie, uh,

Jason: you, you see, you know, there's, there's reference to football.

Jason: There's a, there's a bumper sticker that says, um, it's a, it's an NRA bumper

Jason: sticker where it says they can have my gun when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.

ward: And of course, that was beautiful. Cause the Soviet guy strips in 1911 from

ward: his dead hands, like the most American gun ever made.

Jason: Yeah. The camera just kind of turns a little bit about the time that you've

Jason: read the whole bumper sticker.

Jason: That's when it happened. But like, uh, you know, the, the teenagers are at least

Jason: all American quote unquote boys who,

Jason: wearing letter jackets, high school letter jackets. They're driving a truck.

Jason: This is set not in New York City, not in California, but like in like rural Colorado.

Jason: So not quite the heartland, but well, basically on the edge of what's called the heartland.

Jason: So it's supposed to remind Americans of what we are, who we are,

Jason: what, even if we made some mistakes overseas in vietnam it's still the best

Jason: country on earth by far you know i think that's the project of the film that's how i see it but.

bill: My only thought on that though is like the characters are

bill: not likable they're not likable character

bill: they don't if this is the portrayal

bill: of all american like that's a that's a condemnation like they're not likable

bill: characters patrick swasey's character is not a good person in a lot of ways

bill: and he is difficult to watch and his behavior towards the other kids is rough at times.

Jason: I think you know in this like uber masculine kind of like uh military mindset

Jason: space he's the kind of leader we need he we don't need a soft uh cuddly kind

Jason: of guy we need somebody who knows what needs to happen,

Jason: who will take charge, who'll kick your ass if you question that.

Jason: Like, I feel like we're supposed to admire him.

Jason: Even if I don't personally, I feel like the viewer is supposed to kind of admire

Jason: him in some way. But I could be wrong.

ward: No, absolutely. I mean, even with the relation to current day politics,

ward: you have the Department of War Secretary,

ward: Pete Heggseth, saying that the American military needs to return to tradition

ward: and be that not-so-soft, woke military needs to be hard-ass.

ward: So, I mean, that sentiment was around then. It's still around now.

ward: I think you're absolutely correct.

Evan: Yeah, and it's weird. I think that Patrick Swayze...

Evan: In in lots of movies is a good actor i don't

Evan: actually think that his performance in this is that

Evan: good but to like go back to people watching

Evan: it and like you know i went on to a couple youtube videos that

Evan: were you know interviews with cast and things like that and

Evan: then you go to the comments i know youtube comments like you

Evan: don't don't look but you go to the youtube comments and every

Evan: single one of them is like i love this movie patrick swayze was the best you

Evan: know it's all of these people they're getting exactly what they wanted from

Evan: it because that's what they were being fed and it shows actually how successful

Evan: it was as a piece of propaganda.

Jason: Yeah remember reagan won the 1984

Jason: uh election in a landslide it

Jason: was an unbelievable landslide so like you

Jason: know the 70s had ended and reagan comes in

Jason: and the reagan agenda just

Jason: ramps up to 11 you know and by

Jason: 84 there's nobody that had a chance like

Jason: even you know even liberals even members of the democratic party went to republican

Jason: party and started voting so it was the sea change among like mainstream you

Jason: know party politics in their early and of course meanwhile he's like,

Jason: doing everything he can to destroy labor movements doing

Jason: all this stuff right like all these bad things but for whatever reason that

Jason: that was uh you know a good portion of the country was primed and ready for

Jason: that uh and it drives me crazy i mean of course some of these movies helped

Jason: manufacture consent for that.

Jason: I mean, that's the function they served.

Jason: Top Gun, all these pro U.S., sort of pro,

Jason: reagan agenda cold war type movies were there's quite a few of them at that time and.

ward: At least like top gun did like propaganda well

ward: like it's actually like a decently enjoyable movie with a lot of propaganda

ward: this one was just a slog fest it was so terrible like the propaganda is obviously

ward: there especially for like the right-wing reactionary crowd but it's just i think

ward: you just got to be reactionary and lacking in taste to enjoy this you're.

Evan: Mentioning sort of like the the Reagan sort of mandate he has after the landslide in 84.

Evan: And I think the thing that the film that I noted that seems like it was pushing

Evan: heavily for was, and this is very common.

Evan: I think a lot of these, especially eighties, you know, pro anti-Soviet films

Evan: was that the Soviets would destroy the quote unquote, like American way of life,

Evan: you know, like the football jocks and all these things and being very clear

Evan: that they attack the school at the beginning to like, you know, take it.

Evan: No one is safe in this, in this, you know, like under the Soviet,

Evan: you know, uh, attack and they have, you know, the, this is like an any town USA kind of thing.

Evan: It's, you know, mill America and it's meant to show like these,

Evan: even you, you know, Joe in, you know, Joe Plummer is, you know,

Evan: susceptible to the, the Soviet, uh, you know, a war machine once it gets going.

Evan: And so you have to be ready and form your own militias. And I think that's what

Evan: people took from it i think it was successful in the people who needed to be successful for.

Jason: Yeah in the very beginning i mentioned that there was that nra bumper sticker

Jason: but before that there was this quick shot of a statue of teddy roosevelt oh

Jason: yes you know and you know and and like,

Jason: Later, that resurfaces, right? There's another scene where these three,

Jason: well, a couple of Soviets and the Cuban colonel or whatever,

Jason: or no, they're all Soviets, go up on the mountain to see the overlook and take pictures.

Jason: And they see this another sort of monument, this sort of a sign that says,

Jason: this is a national park established by Teddy Roosevelt or whatever.

Jason: And he doesn't know English and he fakes it and tells this kind of tall tale

Jason: about what it, he's translating for his buddies and it's about some kind of,

Jason: we're meant to see them as morons obsessed with glory and battles and so forth.

Jason: So he tells some story about how Roosevelt conquered.

Jason: Some people or natives or something like that. Uh, it's some ridiculous scene

Jason: and then they get ambushed basically or shot or whatever.

Jason: But, but like we're meant to that.

Jason: Those are those moments where we're

Jason: meant to realize this is the greatest country. These are forefathers.

Jason: These are people that help shape it along the way.

Jason: Uh, and these Soviets are so dumb.

Jason: They can't even understand that. It's like they might as well be from another planet, you know?

bill: What I found, what I find interesting about like that kind of like notion is

bill: the fact that like repeatedly what we have proven throughout the movie is that the,

bill: through the lens of propaganda, as the, as these people who are so steeped in this propaganda,

bill: they are incapable of seeing other people or seeing other nations and their

bill: behavior outside of the lens of the way actually Americans.

bill: An American national policy and imperial international policy and imperial policy has functioned.

bill: It is, it goes back to the, the old saw that, you know,

bill: the colonist is terrified of the concept of land back because the colonist is

bill: convinced that what they will have done to them, what they did to the people they colonized.

bill: And this movie just constantly comes back to like these stories,

bill: the Soviets soldiers tell are stories that Americans tell about themselves, not,

bill: stories other countries tell about themselves or their own national identity.

bill: It is our national identity stuck in their mouths and then posited as a negative,

bill: as barbarous, as monstrous.

bill: When in reality, even the movie itself has to admit that, as it says, that the U.S.

bill: Went to Vietnam and brutalized that country and failed.

bill: Our history is so blood-soaked that even a movie based in, like,

bill: totally revolving on propaganda is incapable of escaping that.

Evan: Well, and they tell that story at one point where they're talking about how

Evan: they can bring the local Americans on their side, and they actually referenced how the U.S.

Evan: Tried the hearts and minds approach in Vietnam, but it didn't work.

Evan: So it's like there's this weird thing where they're trying to say that,

Evan: oh, well, the the the U.S.

Evan: Is the Soviets will try the things that the U.S.

Evan: Did. But I think it's the way you're describing it, Bill, is that it's just

Evan: through the American lens.

Evan: And their their description of it is just is.

Evan: If they did it right, they would work somehow. I don't know.

Jason: I mean, so much of America, you know, it's like pulling teeth to get the U.S.

Jason: To even people in the U.S. to even look at anything the U.S.

Jason: Does. I mean, you couldn't ignore the Iraq war.

Jason: You couldn't ignore the invasion of Afghanistan. You couldn't ignore Vietnam,

Jason: but you could ignore the U.S.

Jason: Invasion of Grenada the year before or two years before. You know,

Jason: there's a Marxist-Leninist movement there, and the U.S.

Jason: Goes down there and puts it down and destroys it.

Jason: Like, that was a year before this movie came out. There's all these little flare-ups

Jason: during the Cold War that people don't even think about.

Jason: There is one in Oman and it's called the Dofar Rebellion or Revolution.

Jason: I mean, it's just like U.S. has its finger in each and every one of these things.

Jason: And the U.S., I mean, Americans don't know and don't want to know because they

Jason: have this story about who we are.

Jason: And everything that we encounter reinforces that and anything that doesn't reinforce

Jason: that, they just, you know, their confirmation bias won't even let them see it

Jason: or register it. It's like, it's like having facial blindness.

Jason: They literally can't see something that's going to contradict their ideology.

Jason: And movies like this just like uber strengthen those assumptions and those things.

Jason: And one of the funniest and one of the most outrageous things that the movie

Jason: does is that, you know, these people are kind of shaking,

Jason: these Americans are kind of shaking their head about how bad the Russian invasion

Jason: of Afghanistan was, which was right before this, right around that time.

Jason: But, of course, they never mentioned, like I said, they never mentioned the U.S.

Jason: Invasion of Grenada or anywhere else, like Nicaragua or, you know,

Jason: Chile, for that matter, all these other places that were right in pretty recent

Jason: history or like last year. It's just like those didn't exist.

ward: Yeah, or even like Operation Cyclone, the reason the Soviet Union had to go

ward: into Afghanistan, like...

Jason: Well, I mean, from the point of, there's a lot of Americans to this day that

Jason: think that we were in the right to go to Iraq and we were in the right to go to Vietnam.

Jason: We made some tactical errors, but the, but the mission itself was good.

Jason: There's a lot of people that think that.

ward: Yeah, the bumbling empire rhetoric.

Jason: It's so maddening. It's so, it's, it's hard to, when you know more history,

Jason: it's really frustrating.

Evan: This is one thing we were talking about before offline before this was a trope that you often see.

Evan: I think you mentioned earlier in the when we were discussing sort of the how

Evan: the Soviets are kind of portrayed as incompetent.

Evan: But there's this common trope amongst film and, you know,

Evan: even now, whether it's about the Soviets or anything, is that they're somehow

Evan: both the smartest tactical geniuses who can do all these things,

Evan: but also simultaneously the dumbest, most incompetent, unable to do anything.

Evan: So, like, they were so smart they were able to bring in commercial airliners to...

Evan: Attacked the united states but they're too stupid to

Evan: do anything once like once they get here they can't

Evan: even stop you know 10 kids who some of which

Evan: had never fired a gun you know in their lives before and somehow are

Evan: taking out their convoy so it's like this weird juxtaposition that you see a

Evan: lot of times in media and then just in you know the way they describe same i

Evan: think it's happened more so now with china's they're both like you know evil

Evan: and also you know uh incompetent and all these things and it just plays out

Evan: kind of funny in this movie yeah.

Jason: There's a good quote that kind of encapsulates that

Jason: irony that you're talking about by michael perenti

Jason: and i don't i don't have the book i want with me right here but there's a really

Jason: great quote where he captures that kind of like paradoxical irony that's that's

Jason: used all the time in in the rhetoric during the cold war um and it's in that

Jason: book black shirts and reds by michael perenti um but.

ward: I think it's the chapter left anti-communism preceding uh in wonderland yeah.

Jason: So you have the book memorized.

ward: I i've read it quite a few times i love parenti it's.

Jason: A good book.

ward: I got it in my backpack right now this.

Evan: Is a pro parenti podcast.

ward: I'll say real quick

ward: um i do like like when we're talking about

ward: like how the soviets are portrayed as

ward: like technologically advanced i like the

ward: portrayal like in this where they have to like that crazy finder that none of

ward: the kids understand but it's like you also see that in rocky four and and then

ward: america is portrayed as like oh we're just a little small bean country like

ward: you know we're just trying to do our own thing and we're up and comers and it's

ward: the same in both of these films yeah.

bill: We we see it today with israel as well israel it's the same rhetoric we're small

bill: and surrounded by enemies and we're always the victim even as they wage genocide i.

Jason: Yeah i i was thinking of israel palestine as well and there's this line where

Jason: so at one point in the movie um,

Jason: So we haven't really made it clear that there's a group of about 10 teenagers

Jason: that are literally taking on the Soviet military and winning,

Jason: which is one of the most far-fetched ideas imaginable,

Jason: right? But anyway, they've got the letter jet.

bill: And one of them is Charlie Sheen.

Jason: Charlie Sheen is a commando badass in this movie.

bill: One of them is Charlie Sheen.

Jason: How does Charlie Sheen know how to use a rocket launcher? I mean,

Jason: how do they know how to use explosives?

Jason: They're literally doing sophisticated like C4 explosives blowing up things.

Jason: But anyway, it's definitely taking tropes from, you know, insurrectionary movies

Jason: like Battle of Algiers and that sort of thing.

Jason: It's trying to capture that kind of energy. But but it's it falls flat because

Jason: obviously the U.S. is the evil empire here and the enemy is just preposterous.

Jason: There's no way they would ever dare do that.

Jason: Right. Not with nuclear weapons pointing in both directions.

Jason: But anyway, there's this scene where a couple of the kids, it's the Eckert brothers,

Jason: so it's Charlie Sheen and...

Jason: Patrick Swayze, their brothers, they are on a sort of a scouting mission and

Jason: they make it to this ranch where they know this older gentleman and his wife.

Jason: And they get there and they're like, they give them the lowdown, basically.

Jason: Like, you should know, this is the occupied territory. There is a free America,

Jason: you know, that way somewhere.

Jason: And that's where there's forces gathered and so forth.

Jason: You know, this is World War III, basically. This is actually World War III.

Jason: And then he says, I have something like, I have something that I want you to take back with you.

Jason: Well, he opens up the cellar door and it's two girls, two teenage girls,

Jason: who is his daughter and a friend or something like that. Or maybe they're both his daughters.

Jason: But he says this line, the sons of bitches tried having their way with them.

Jason: And all throughout the movie, every time these two girls, one of them is Jennifer Grey,

Jason: And I don't know who the other actress is.

bill: Leah Thompson.

Jason: Yeah. So these two girls, every time they get, because they go out once in a

Jason: while to the town and make supply runs or do some kind of sabotage.

Jason: And every time they do, they're, you know, sexually harassed to the extreme.

Jason: And so, again, we're meant to see these Soviet men is just lecherous, barbaric.

Jason: You know, any chance they see a woman, they're just going to pounce.

Jason: And that's bullshit. it that's just just like ridiculous right that was the u.s.

Evan: During vietnam not uh.

bill: Yeah exactly yeah the u.s military is notorious for trafficking women and children and.

Jason: Every base around the world from the philippines around the world yeah like.

bill: Again we come back to they are incapable of viewing other people through a lens

bill: that is not their own and it's like well our soldiers do this so therefore everybody does.

Jason: Well and and israel uses the same rhetorical tactics right so that's what i

Jason: was thinking about like like the accusations of of the rape and all that i mean,

Jason: it's sad because it's so it's sad that it works uh i mean some of it's a lot

Jason: of people are seeing through it now, but it's just sad that it works.

Jason: And of course, movies like this helped,

Jason: facilitate that those myths and you know it.

Evan: Like help confirm people's existing biases against the

Evan: soviet union which was very clear as you mentioned from the speech about the

Evan: evil empire like they're bad and now this movie comes out and shows you even

Evan: through a fake film why they're evil and you're like oh like they're like raping

Evan: our women and you know doing these horrible things and it's like that stuff

Evan: sticks with you it's effective propaganda.

Jason: Oh for sure like if you ever get a chance if you

Jason: can stomach it you should see

Jason: the movie i mentioned earlier i married a communist it's

Jason: i'm pretty sure it's on youtube and it's also called

Jason: the woman on pier 13 but i

Jason: mean the way that the way that um that

Jason: movie takes the gangster film tropes it's

Jason: it's essentially a gangster film but in place of

Jason: gangsters it's soviet spies and so the

Jason: way that soviets are portrayed as they don't

Jason: care about labor they don't there's no economic discussion whatsoever

Jason: there's no discussion of justice they are purely diabolically

Jason: evil they just want to spread chaos and kill

Jason: and destroy i mean literally and people ate that

Jason: up people were like yeah yeah yeah it sounds

Jason: good to me yeah that's what and people were absolutely terrified

Jason: because of the fear of nuclear war so you

Jason: know there's all these bomb drills and i

Jason: mean i can't even imagine the level

Jason: of indoctrination that that an

Jason: average american had to go through through the 50 my parents generation through

Jason: the 50s into the 60s um and this is interesting that this movie was even made

Jason: this late right but this is not the only one uh invasion usa the chuck norris

Jason: movie there's other movies of this sort at that time.

Jason: It's just incredible that the tropes were so well established that you could portray...

Jason: You know, in that movie I was telling you just now, the Soviets were portrayed

Jason: the same way, either alcoholic, they have no sense of morality,

Jason: no sense of justice, and no sense of feelings.

Jason: They're like automatons, basically. They're just following orders.

Jason: And those tropes are so well established that you can just write a script and

Jason: wedge them in and no one questions it.

Evan: Reminds me of like the original invasion of the body snatchers from the 50s

Evan: which is sort of like the similar kind of trope of these automatons just we're.

Jason: About to cover that on our podcast that's the next one we're covering.

Evan: That's a good one i love i even though it's you know it has that those flaws

Evan: to it it's a really good it's.

Jason: Pretty fun for a genre movie of that kind.

Evan: The thing that i mean we've talked about like a lot of things

Evan: that are super unrealistic about this first like the how

Evan: they accomplished their invasion and all

Evan: these different attacks but this is they're unable

Evan: to find these wolverine like

Evan: that's what they call the group calls it all the wolverines and later there's

Evan: actually there's actually like the speech by the soviet general or whatever

Evan: his title is where he's like has a picture of a wolverine like behind him to

Evan: show you know how they're dangerous and it's the soviets come from one of the

Evan: coldest places on earth you know like the part of their country is extremely

Evan: cold. You think that they would be well adapted.

ward: It's harsh. They come from a harsh place. A harsh place. And you think that

ward: they would have better equipped.

Evan: Yeah, you think they'd be able to take out 10 teenagers, you know, you know, that have fun.

Jason: That's how badass Americans are, just by birth.

bill: They defeated the Nazis. Okay.

bill: Like, not just like, oh, they come from a harsh place. They defeated the Nazis.

Jason: But they never had to.

ward: They took down NATO.

Jason: But they never had to face Charlie Sheen and Patrick Swayze on the battlefield. I'm just saying.

bill: Patrick Swayze came straight from Roadhouse to this. That's...

ward: And then Charlie Sheen going straight from this to Navy SEALs.

Jason: You know, there's movies that are satires like Airplane and whatever that are

Jason: obviously like meant to be so absurd that they're funny.

Jason: I've never seen a movie that was taking itself this seriously that's this absurd.

Jason: It's like maybe the most absurd movie I've ever seen that takes itself seriously.

bill: Which is really like when you said like it's it's

bill: surprising that like that it was this was made so late

bill: it's like the message is not this

bill: is not a late you know it's not surprising they made

bill: you know they made a movie with this exact same

bill: message two weeks ago you know like and i don't even have

bill: to know the title of that movie i know that if i like look at movies

bill: released in the past you know year or whatever

bill: i can point to three different movies that tell this exact same message

bill: at least but like it's the the lack

bill: of sophistication that really is

bill: glaring even for that time period at

bill: that point that is late the lack of sophistication of the propaganda they had

bill: it pretty well polished by that point and this is a glaring glaring example

bill: of kind of throwback in terms of like i said the lack of sophistication of the

bill: the thing because it is it's an absurd story

bill: Anybody with two brain cells to rub together could look at this and be like, wait a minute.

bill: So wait, these are the great evils that conquered the world?

bill: They're morons. These are dumb people.

bill: Like, they're dum-dums who landed and they attacked a high school first.

bill: Obviously, the heart of tactical necessity, the local high school.

bill: That history teacher, he was going to be the one leading the rebellion,

bill: so they had to take him out.

bill: It's like, you know, if that's your enemy, you're a piss-poor,

bill: like, hero because they're dumb.

Jason: And they spent some money on this, though. They blew up a lot of things.

bill: Yes, they did.

Jason: They didn't get the story. They didn't spend enough money on the screenwriter.

bill: No. They spent all on bombs.

Evan: My impression from hearing about the production is that Milius had a script,

Evan: or there was a script, and the MGM and the studio and the executives who wanted

Evan: this to be a right-wing propaganda film got their way,

Evan: I think, in changing so much about it that I don't think that John Milius,

Evan: if he had just made this movie on his own, it might have actually been an okay movie.

Evan: It might have still been kind of red-baiting, but at least he might have gotten

Evan: a quote-unquote anti-war film in some way.

Evan: Because I believe it was based on a book called...

Evan: 10 soldiers and so he didn't

Evan: write the original script he that they brought they you know they bought it at mgm

Evan: because they wanted to make this i think it was like it's supposed to be like

Evan: a it said the in wikipedia supposed to be like a lord of the flies kind of remake

Evan: in a way and they're like nah we can't make that movie we got to make a propaganda

Evan: film and it just seems muddled like everything about it was just supposed to

Evan: be america strong so be it's not strong that it It didn't matter what came between.

Jason: Well, it is a mess. Like I mentioned that it's a, well, it's got like five genres in one.

Jason: I mean, it suddenly becomes a Western at one point.

Jason: You know, you're like suddenly like a John Ford movie and even has like the

Jason: rock formations in the background.

Jason: It reminds you of a Western, you know, their own horseback.

Jason: So it's a war movie.

Jason: It's a Western. It's a post-apocalyptic movie that almost feels like a zombie movie at some point.

Evan: They mentioned that some of the Americans are eating other people.

Evan: They said, like, there's cannibalism.

Jason: It has this really dark kind of post-apocalyptic vibe when they're there before

Jason: they get established and they're like sort of living off of canned goods.

Jason: And it feels like, you know, Walking Dead kind of thing a little bit.

Jason: And and then the Star Wars. So it's like it's really like just grabbing from

Jason: every kind of place it can grab and just sandwiching it all together.

Jason: And it is a mess because it doesn't it it doesn't quite work.

Jason: Well, it doesn't work at all.

Evan: One thing that they brought into this, this is kind of unrelated to this,

Evan: but I noticed is they kind of like a lot of like the little comments that the

Evan: Soviets, you know, soldiers make are kind of like giving you glimpses of what

Evan: this future would look like.

Evan: And they mentioned that China previously had a billion people and now there are 600 million.

Evan: So they're insinuating, I guess, that the Soviets nuked China and that China

Evan: is on the side of America, which I guess is plausible given like the Sino-Soviet

Evan: split, you know, in that time.

Evan: I don't know what it would have looked like if the Soviets invaded America in

Evan: 1984, but probably not like this.

Evan: But they're very clearly trying to create these new alliances.

Evan: At the beginning of the title card, they also mentioned that Germany pushed

Evan: to remove nukes from Europe, which is very good. That's a good thing.

Evan: There shouldn't be nukes and all these things. So it's like these weird ways

Evan: of trying to like rewrite history and like the, in the vision of a right wing think tank.

bill: China was in fact nuked by Russia in the movie. Beijing was nuked.

Evan: Did they say that specifically?

bill: I'm looking at the map. Yes, China is one of the U.S.'s allies,

bill: along with Great Britain and Canada, and Beijing was nuked, along with Washington, D.C., Omaha,

bill: Nebraska, and Kansas City, Missouri.

Jason: Yeah, I remember him. I remember those mentioned in Kansas City and Nebraska and Omaha.

Jason: And that's why I guess in the story, that's why they're on the ground.

Jason: They're trying to secure new territory because they've bombed all these cities

Jason: and they're trying to, you know, secure various parts of the land.

Jason: So, I mean, that makes sense.

Jason: I mean, it doesn't, there's no way on earth that they would ever invade the

Jason: U.S., but if they did, then that bit would make sense.

Jason: But the premise is so flawed from the beginning that you can't buy anything

Jason: else in the movie, right?

Jason: The premise is so outrageous that you can't.

Jason: And I did end up watching the remake, by the way, and it's even more,

Jason: probably even more ludicrous because it comes out during the Obama administration.

Jason: And I was trying to think, like, why would they do that?

Jason: Why did they green light this, you know?

Jason: And and then I thought, well, maybe they wanted to remind Americans that,

Jason: yes, there was a big financial crisis and a big housing crisis.

Jason: And, you know, many, many people lost everything they own. But you should be

Jason: grateful for living here, God damn it, because you could be invaded by,

Jason: in this case, the North Koreans, which is about as ludicrous as it gets.

Jason: It's a tiny little country.

Evan: That's never attacked anyone ever.

bill: Yeah.

Jason: And what I read on that is at first it was going to be China.

Jason: And at sort of the last minute, they realized, oh, that would be cutting us

Jason: off from a potential market.

Jason: So we can't do it about China because then they won't allow the movie there.

Jason: So we'll change it to North Korea.

bill: Which if you read the rhetoric about the movie from people, it's fascinating

bill: because they're like, if you go on and read about the movie, it's like, oh, yeah.

bill: China's so evil, they wouldn't let this movie show in their country if China was used as the villain.

bill: It's like, what mental gymnastics do you have to go through to be like,

bill: this country is evil and committing censorship because they don't want another

bill: movie aired in their film,

bill: made by another country aired in their country about how they're the fucking

bill: worst people alive who just randomly invaded another country.

bill: This is the rhetoric that people like are actually like,

bill: Talk about this movie. It's like, how bad is it? They can't censor.

bill: They're so totalitarian that they censorship.

bill: They won't air a movie where they're the fucking worst people.

ward: Yeah. And when China has its own cinema, like it's very, very good cinema.

ward: Like, why the fuck would they import that slop?

bill: Yeah.

ward: Why would they subject their citizens to that?

Evan: It's weird though, too, because it's almost like people live in this bubble, too,

Evan: where that somehow that america and the west doesn't

Evan: censor its movies and media i mean like i

Evan: there are people who don't even know about like

Evan: the the blacklisting of communists and you know

Evan: the the the west germany during you

Evan: probably know this better than we do is like west germany there

Evan: are people in west germany who went to east germany to make films during

Evan: the 50s because they had more freedom than they did in the way in the west so

Evan: it's a it's like such a and this is kind of like a little bit of a tangent but

Evan: it's like kind of a people don't realize they don't view american cinema as

Evan: being both censored and also being propaganda when it it's both things.

Jason: Well it's it's it's censored first of all they had different layers of censorship

Jason: in hollywood they had the haze code and then they had um an actual censor whose

Jason: job it was to look at scripts and doctor them and make sure they passed.

Jason: And then they had the market censoring things and people self censoring because

Jason: they knew that this wouldn't fly and that wouldn't fly.

Jason: And so, so there's so many layers of that. And yeah, there's so many cases where

Jason: movies like the spook who sat by the door somehow on earth, he got that past.

Jason: Some executives got that movie made. As soon as it hit theaters,

Jason: it got pulled and shelved for decades.

ward: Um, and so it didn't make it to like internet archives until like 2017 I want

ward: to say it was like the first time it made it to like the internet I just recently watched it for.

Jason: A long time I screened a copy of it 15 years

Jason: or so years ago, uh, publicly, just like a DIY thing, but yeah, it was hard to get.

ward: Yeah, no, I just recently had to struggle to get a copy and I just recently

ward: watched it within the last couple of weeks. Really great movie.

Jason: It's yeah, it's an awesome movie, but like, yeah, I mean, you could talk all

Jason: day long about part of it is just Americans have, there's, I mean,

Jason: there's no culture more indoctrinated than the, than Americans and people from the United States.

Jason: And you couple that with thinking that this is the greatest place on earth and

Jason: so much mythology and then a lack of understanding, a lack of education and

Jason: history and knowledge about what's going on.

Jason: And so it's just a perfect recipe for them to be really off base about what's

Jason: happening elsewhere, our role in the world, and on and on and on.

Jason: It really drives me crazy.

Evan: Well the one other message that they try to drive home repeatedly in the film is the soviets,

Evan: executing you know civilians or people who are

Evan: deemed you know uh but uh what's

Evan: the word like you know troublemakers or like

Evan: people who own guns you know they were executing they

Evan: had a re-education camp re-education camps right and

Evan: they have the the scene later where they have the two people digging

Evan: their own graves literally like they dig some graves for the

Evan: soviets and then they get shot and it's these are

Evan: things like yes we're not we're not saying that the that

Evan: the societies of the soviet union and all these things are like a perfect perfect

Evan: encapsulation of everything but these are again like a lot of the things like

Evan: projection of what america does and what we do which i think we've said a number

Evan: of times is projected on the soviets and what they would do because you know.

Evan: They're they're evil and then they're they're cruel and they'll

Evan: like you know uh go after women and all these

Evan: different things and i think at 1.2 is when they discover the

Evan: mole in their group they go to execute the two of them and the guy says like

Evan: you can't shoot me like this violates the geneva code and patrick's face he's

Evan: like i don't know i haven't heard of that and then he shoots him and it's it's

Evan: such a um it's crazy and then like the guy the i don't remember which the character's

Evan: name ends up shooting the American,

Evan: you know, after Patrick Tracy can't do it.

Evan: And it's, it's like, it's all of that is just crazy. It's just, it's bad filmmaking.

Jason: It made me think that might've been, if, if, um,

Jason: Milius is trying to comment on the brutality of war for everyone,

Jason: that might've been one of the scenes that stayed in the script because what

Jason: we're seeing is that anybody who engages in war is debased and commits atrocities and You know,

Jason: and that's something that Americans reluctantly had to reckon with to some extent,

Jason: to some extent with Vietnam, because some things were just impossible to ignore,

Jason: like the My Lai Massacre.

Jason: And, of course, that was one of hundreds of similar massacres,

Jason: but it gets all the immediate attention.

Jason: But nevertheless, people were having those kinds of conversations, I guess.

Jason: So maybe that's the one token scene where we're having to see just how low they

Jason: sink. because he's like you he says something like you don't want to be like

Jason: them you know like you don't want to sink to their level.

Evan: The music that comes on right after they shoot that he shoots the i guess the

Evan: the mole i don't remember exactly what it was but it was like super dark and

Evan: not at all like the rest of the film which is another mark against it just being

Evan: a bad movie is like the music and the score don't make any sense like throughout

Evan: the film at all like it doesn't,

Evan: the the you know i guess as you're saying it's like a confused film because

Evan: there's so many different styles that it's just.

bill: I think it's i think it's very clear that milius

bill: was attempting to do certain like and i don't i'm

bill: not trying to give him all that much credit don't get me wrong here

bill: but like it's clear that there was

bill: some struggles like power struggles in

bill: terms of the making of the film which again goes

bill: back to you know something we've talked about you know numerous

bill: times about how capital you know

bill: and its involvement in creative endeavors inevitably

bill: ruined them you know when you bow to

bill: and you know bend the knee to capital and the

bill: ruling class it inevitably it creates sloppy art because you are compromising

bill: things and this movie is a great example of even bad values being compromised

bill: and creating bad bad you know art if.

Jason: If this is i i mentioned earlier um that i think the project of this movie is

Jason: just to like show what a great country we have full stop um and and that that

Jason: manifests in various ways but before those,

Jason: Those people who had been in the re-education camp, which one of them is the

Jason: father of one of those kids who's the insurgent, one of those insurgent kids.

Jason: His dad is in that camp and they dig this mass grave and then they're about

Jason: to get slaughtered by the Soviets and the Cubans and the Nicaraguans.

Jason: But in that scene, before they get killed, they break out in song that the American

Jason: hostages are breaking out in song and they start singing America the Beautiful.

Jason: And they're really out of key. And it's supposed to be this touching,

Jason: tear jerking moment where you're like, you know, you can imagine, I don't know,

Jason: Marjorie Taylor Greene watching this and like tearing up or just somebody that's

Jason: like really invested in American patriotism.

Jason: It's meant to be that kind of tearjerker scene that it's like pulling the heartstrings

Jason: of an American patriot, but it's so badly done that it just falls flat.

Jason: And then they get mowed down. And that's sort of like the last straw for these kids.

Evan: There's also these moments, too, where Patrick Swayze, like when they find out

Evan: that, you know, their parents die, like telling them not to cry and these weird things.

Evan: That's again goes back to the macho-ness of, you know, you can't show weakness.

Evan: You can't have feelings. You can't have emotion.

Evan: You can't all of these things. And I found that so weird.

ward: I mean, you can have a lot of homoerotic physical contact with each other in the woods, though.

ward: You are allowed to do that throughout the entire movie and not stop doing it.

Jason: Not as much as Top Gun.

ward: Yeah, that is true.

Jason: There's no locker room scenes.

bill: Apparently, Swayze was drunk during a lot of the filming.

bill: There was actually a sex scene with one of the girls that was played that failed because he was drunk.

bill: And there was also a rampant you know uh marijuana use which i you know i'm

bill: not judging but they were definitely not at their professional best um but they all said they.

Evan: Love making this movie they all.

bill: Have like of course they did like it's a movie where a bunch of little white

bill: boys were given permission to run around outside and blow shit up and it's america like usa usa.

Jason: Say yeah you know it is like a it's like a adolescent boy fantasy.

bill: Film yeah absolutely yeah,

bill: It is the most adolescent, repressed, like, repressed adolescence and,

bill: like, stunted, emotionally stunted, like,

bill: group of people in a movie which posits that this is a good thing, that this is the ideal.

bill: What does Patrick Swayze keep saying to the kid after he finds out that the

bill: father died or when the girl died?

bill: What is it, like, converted into something else? What is he saying?

Jason: Oh, yeah, convert your sadness into something else.

Jason: Mean converted into something rage well whenever

Jason: the dad the dad who's who's played by

Jason: um oh what does that harry dean stanton he he always turns up in weird movies

Jason: but harry dean stanton's character is their dad and before he's like they find

Jason: him on the other side of the chain link fence and this looks like well it's

Jason: a concentration camp it looks like an ice facility but it's uh,

Jason: you know, it's their re-education camp. And he says, avenge me.

Jason: So you, and, and it's showed, and he also gets onto his kids for not,

Jason: you already mentioned this for not, for crying or whatever.

Jason: So it's, it's clear that the tree didn't fall very far from the,

Jason: or the, the apple didn't far from the tree, whatever, it didn't fall from the tree.

ward: Yeah. I mean, even the father in that scene is talking about,

ward: it was like, I was hard on you boys, like, but it paid off.

ward: Like just reinforcing that, like mask, like toxic masculine mentality.

Jason: I think millie mill use is like that i mean did you see the quote it's on wikipedia

Jason: it's pretty widely quoted just the way he describes himself you already mentioned

Jason: the malice part but did you see the whole quote.

Evan: Is there another part to it i don't maybe.

Jason: Well he says it gets worse,

Jason: Well, listen to this. He says, I'm not a reactionary. I'm just a right-wing

Jason: extremist so far beyond the Christian identity people, which Timothy McVeigh

Jason: and people like that are the Christian identity people.

Jason: They can't even imagine. He says, I'm so far beyond that. I'm a Maoist. I'm an anarchist.

Jason: I've always been an anarchist. Any true right winger, if he goes far enough,

Jason: hates all forms of form of government

Jason: because government should be done to cattle and not human beings.

Jason: So he's one of these Christian identity, kind of like the Timothy McVeigh,

Jason: these these extreme sovereign citizen type people.

bill: He's a libertarian.

Jason: Yeah, he's a libertarian.

Evan: Timothy McVeigh. This is this is Timothy McVeigh's favorite movie.

Jason: I'm not surprised.

ward: That checks.

Jason: Yeah. But but the Christian identity was this white supremacist,

Jason: anti-Semitic. Like they were like a really, really extreme group.

Evan: This is like maybe goes into his character. They describe him,

Evan: Milius, during on the set as having a gun both on his hip and also like in front

Evan: of him wherever when he was in his office or on set.

Evan: Everything is what Leah Thompson said. Apparently, when she went in for her,

Evan: you know, screen test or to be interviewed to be in the movie,

Evan: he asked her, like, you know, have you ever gone hunting and do you know how to ride a horse?

Evan: And she's like, yes, to both of them. And he's like, oh, like,

Evan: you know, you've, you've gone hunting. And she describes having gone hunting for squirrel.

Evan: And then he goes, did you eat it? And she says, yes. And he's like, you have the part.

ward: Apparently Milius was a like a avid, like pigeon or dove hunter.

ward: And like part of his contract was like a gun of his choice for this film.

ward: And the best I could find was like he got a like $60,000 plus bespoke double

ward: barrel shotgun for pigeon hunting.

bill: He was director of the National Rifle Association.

Jason: He was?

bill: Yes.

Evan: I didn't know that.

ward: Didn't know that.

Jason: Oh, that's why they have the sticker. Yeah, he was director of the NRA.

Jason: Before Charlton Heston, I guess.

ward: That also makes sense why 4473s got brought up in the movie.

ward: Which you should definitely.

ward: Yeah, like that part of the movie. That's like super like, that's like a old

ward: right wing gun talking point was like,

ward: oh, we shouldn't have to use 44 73s because the

ward: government can use them to track us down and like

ward: you don't really hear it so much now except for like in hardcore gun circles

ward: but like it's present here and it's like right in your face that like the the

ward: soviet guys like oh go to the local gun store and get the 44 73s and figure

ward: out all the local gun owners and it's like it's not portrayed even as like a

ward: like a sound tactical thing which like i mean yeah if you're gonna invade the united States.

ward: Like that's a pretty solid move, but like, it's very much more comes off as

ward: no, see, this is why we should never have done this. This is the slippery slope we all talked about.

Evan: Like I just, there's another ridiculous quote on Milius's Wikipedia where he

Evan: kind of talks about his influences as, you know, when he was growing up and

Evan: he talks about, I guess this is in like the 70s.

Evan: Maybe he said the quote, he says that, um, I studied judo, kendo and painting.

Evan: I felt more comfortable with things, Japanese and Japanese people than I did with Europeans,

Evan: feudalism in any country at any period fascinates

Evan: me i understand the reasoning of people in asia it

Evan: makes sense to me zen is sensible the whole way of feeling things is logical

Evan: whereas many of the western motivated things greed business sense i'm not comfortable

Evan: with i don't understand the rationale it's like he has a very bizarre and confused

Evan: ideology and it bleeds through into this movie of,

Evan: Just his rejection of certain concepts and the acceptance of others.

Evan: So, I don't know. We've been saying, like, so much of this movie is not him. I think it is very him.

bill: It's very libertarian. Like, libertarian ideology is so confused.

Jason: Especially kind of early libertarian, like, in the 80s libertarian.

bill: Western. Western libertarian.

Jason: Right, right. Yeah. Capital L, like, 1980s libertarian party people.

Jason: They're like kind of border, well, the sovereign citizen movement and that kind of thing.

ward: They talk about Mises a lot.

Jason: The economist guy?

ward: Yeah.

Jason: Yeah.

Evan: He was rejected from the military. So I feel like this movie is almost him being

Evan: like, this is what I would have done if I was in the military.

Evan: I would have just shot a bunch of Russians.

bill: 100%. And he, and this might come as a shock to all of you, did sign a petition

bill: to support Roman Polanski.

bill: I'm sure that's gonna come as a shock.

Jason: Yeah you know he reminds me of steve bannon actually he's kind of that kind

Jason: of weird character and i bet this was bannon's favorite movie oh i bet yeah.

Evan: I was gonna say i bet it.

Jason: I bet bannon loved it because it has a lot of the like bannon-esque kind of

Jason: um ideological markers and really.

bill: I mean like million millions like reading more about him really,

bill: like, beyond this movie alone. This movie is...

bill: A great introduction into the incestuous nature of Hollywood and the U.S. military.

bill: The fact that they go back and forth between each other.

bill: The fact that we're like, he actually has been multiple times a consultant to

bill: a military think tank. The U.S.

bill: Military and Hollywood are so deeply entrenched with each other.

bill: And this movie, even more so, I think, than something like Top Gun,

bill: because of Milleuse, like, really drives that home so clearly.

Jason: Well, you know, just to just add another point that you're making about the

Jason: Hollywood Military Alliance.

Jason: Last year, Tom Cruise was given this big award by the Navy, the civilian award

Jason: for like distinguished public service for presenting Navy in a great light or whatever.

Jason: Um, and you know, that's the, that's the kind of thing that you're talking about.

Jason: Like they literally will have military, like people consulting.

Jason: Um, I mean, the CIA has consulted a lot too. Oh, and the FBI.

Evan: That reminds me.

bill: So I was including them with, when I said military, I'm including it all.

Jason: Yeah. The whole, the whole industrial complex.

Evan: The guy, the, the actor in the movie who plays like the big Soviet general,

Evan: who's like talking in Russian, that's an American who worked for the CIA as a language liaison.

Evan: So his name was built it.

bill: Just keeps getting deeper and deeper and deeper.

Evan: And they interviewed in one of the behind like

Evan: the the you know the not behind the scene whatever you

Evan: would call it like the special features they interview the cia liaison

Evan: chase brandon in like i think this is in the 90s

Evan: and he was saying that he this is one of his favorite films to

Evan: ever come out of like hollywood so if the cia is in the film literally you know

Evan: it's i was trying to find this book that i read a couple of years ago about

Evan: the united states entanglement with hollywood and all of the the funding that

Evan: they do and kind of how they create these liaisons for the dod and if the dod,

Evan: is if the movie mentions u.s military then they

Evan: have to be involved and then they have to get screenwriting access

Evan: and all these things people don't realize there's over 2500 movies and tv shows

Evan: that have been directly influenced by the u.s military like talk about we're

Evan: talking about before about censorship this is like the reverse this is just

Evan: we are pro-military i mean every marvel movie top gun every.

bill: I was gonna say every marvel film.

Jason: And and what's interesting is as you said earlier like,

Jason: Or somebody said, the U.S. will sit here and say, I can't believe that they

Jason: have all these propaganda movies in China and Russia and all these places.

Jason: Propaganda only applies to other countries. It never applies to the U.S.

Jason: It's like it would never even occur to a lot of people to use that word to to

Jason: attach it to something made by Hollywood.

ward: Oh, that's perfect. Cause it's the, that's the old Soviet joke is like the,

ward: the KGB and the CIA agent meet and like the CIA agents like to the KGB agent

ward: says like, Oh man, your guys' propaganda is so incredible. Like I'm so impressed.

ward: And the KGB agent replies like our propaganda. Oh, it's nothing.

ward: It pales in comparison to yours. Your propaganda is the best in the world.

ward: And the CIA agent replies, what propaganda?

Evan: Yeah totally yeah it's like people don't even realize

Evan: it's it's so i almost want to say like it's as american as

Evan: apple pie it's so ingrained in all

Evan: of film that people don't even have the ability to recognize i mean that was

Evan: part of like my motivation to starting this podcast is just seeing the things

Evan: that are in film that people don't realize because most people's media illiteracy

Evan: is unfortunately not good in part because that's what we're taught you know we're taught to not.

bill: Good that's that's a real that's a real.

ward: Credit there i mean i love it like we're going through this film and like fuck

ward: wasn't this like a box office success at the time.

Evan: 40 million dollars on a budget of 17 so yeah that's.

ward: Not bad like that's that's a successful movie yeah i mean I just like it because

ward: it just shows that we've always been Marvel-brained in America.

ward: That's not a recent phenomenon where we just associate everything through media

ward: and just wrap our identities and beliefs in that. It's been like that always.

bill: Zack Snyder named a character in his trash movie Rebel Moon after Milius. Yes.

Evan: That doesn't surprise you, Zack. Zack Snyder probably loves this movie, too.

bill: Well, I mean, I'm going to assume so, considering, you know.

Evan: Well, he likes Sam Milius, but yeah, you're right.

ward: Well, that he sucks just as much as this movie? Yeah.

Evan: We talk about most of it, I think. I know there any, any like scenes or aspects

Evan: of the movie that we didn't hit on that are just, you know, too good to pass up.

Jason: Um, one, one thing at the very end

Jason: that I thought was interesting and the phrase, a phrase stood out to me.

Jason: So I, I looked it up, but at the very end, um,

Jason: there's a glimpse of this another monument

Jason: so there's all these monuments throughout the film there's like

Jason: three or four right and and another monument at

Jason: the very end and this is years later obviously and it's called it's the monument

Jason: says partisan rock and it's interesting they use the phrase partisan because

Jason: we associate that with like communist partisans really one of the one.

bill: One of the Soviet soldiers references himself as a partisan.

Jason: Right, right. Yeah. And we didn't talk about him and maybe we should say, I'll come back to him.

Jason: But I want to say one thing about that.

Jason: He's meant to be the Cuban guy, but the partisan rock evoking this communist

Jason: language, you know, or left-wing language.

Jason: It has this inscription and

Jason: it says in the early days of World War III gorillas

Jason: mostly children place their names upon

Jason: this rock and then it goes on and throughout the movie they're writing their

Jason: names on rocks as they go to different places they're always you know moving

Jason: they're always traveling around to escape the enemy these teenagers but upon

Jason: this rock is a phrase that comes out of Matthew 14,

Jason: In the New Testament, Matthew 16, 18, where it says, And I saw also unto thee that thou art Peter.

Jason: Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Jason: So I don't think it's accidental that it's using this biblical language to invoke

Jason: this kind of, again, good and evil reference.

Jason: And this is a year after this really, really influential speech by Reagan,

Jason: Or he coins the phrase evil empire.

Jason: He likens them to the evil against our good place.

Jason: And so I feel like it's just ramming it home one last time before the credits

Jason: roll that there's this diabolical force out there known as the Soviet Union or communist.

Jason: And it's not just another way of life. It's not just another economic system.

Jason: It's like evil incarnate.

Jason: And that's the sort of language that they use. And it's crazy that it actually

Jason: worked for many, many people to this day.

Jason: I mean, Trump was denouncing communism today in some speech,

Jason: you know, it's, they still do this constantly and it works for so many people.

Jason: The last thing I want to say about.

Jason: That moment so the two brothers in this

Jason: little final raid they like ambush this and raid

Jason: this these you know these two guys raid this soviet

Jason: outposts and like you know mow down 50 people blow up all these things you know

Jason: they rambo has nothing on these two brothers and uh they go in there and just

Jason: wreak havoc and one of them is shot and so uh martin sheen is shot or charlie machine.

Jason: I mean, and so, um, his brother's carrying him off and then the Cuban colonel

Jason: guy or whatever he is, um, sees them.

Jason: And it's already been clear. Like he mentioned he was a partisan.

Jason: He was like feeling weird about being on the other side of the coin basically.

Jason: Now he's realizing that he had been a gorilla earlier and now he's part of this

Jason: big so-called empire or whatever.

Jason: So he lets them go he kind of

Jason: waves them on and so we're meant

Jason: to see that he's human

Jason: and he's having a little bit of change of heart in this so it's interesting

Jason: because cuba has never got the u.s has never given cuba a pass they've been

Jason: relentlessly anti-cuban the

Jason: whole time but maybe cuba was just a little better than the Soviet Union.

bill: See, that's the thing. They do not give the Cuban, they give the Cuban people

bill: a pass and they consistently, there is a stark dichotomy between the way the U.S.

bill: Portrays the Soviet Union and Russia versus Cuba.

Jason: Right.

bill: Cuba, it is.

Jason: Cubans are victims.

bill: Exactly. Of the dictatorship. Cuba is, it's the dictatorship,

bill: whereas Russia and the Soviet, it is the Russians.

bill: No, that's a good point. It's the evil partners. It's the barbaric Tartars of

bill: Russia, you know, the evil Asian hordes of Russia, like,

bill: Look at the, you know, the Cubans, they're just, they're victims and we can help them.

Jason: They're trapped. Same, same languages apply to the Venezuelans.

Jason: They're trapped in a, in a dictatorship. Exactly.

Evan: Or Iran or.

bill: It's the same thing. They are, it infantilizes the entire population and it

bill: allows them to push this narrative that, that America is the good guy and just

bill: wants what's best for people.

bill: And, you know, if it wasn't for the evil Russians, even today,

bill: whether they're Soviet, whether it's the Soviet Union or Russia,

bill: whatever, if it wasn't for the evil Russians, we could just have a better world.

bill: Cubans would be perfect. They'd be fine if it wasn't for the evil Russians.

Jason: Cuba is a puppet state of the Soviet Union and the Cuban people are under the

Jason: thumb of Fidel and so forth. Yeah. No, you're right. That's a good point.

Jason: So that's kind of subtly illustrated here in that character.

Jason: So there is some stuff going on that is worth pulling apart and examining.

Jason: That's an interesting observation.

Evan: You have any last things, Ward or Bill?

Jason: Oh, me?

Evan: Oh, go ahead.

Jason: No, no, I don't know if I do. I think it's crazy that his previous film was

Jason: Conan the Barbarian, but anyway.

Evan: I was looking at his films and it's such a weird, it's weird.

ward: Yeah, certainly.

bill: Ward, I think your observation about the gun form, I think that was such an

bill: important and cogent point about that.

bill: And it's something that I think a lot of people would miss. I think that's a

bill: super important point to make, that it's that continued propaganda about that.

ward: Yeah, no, for me, I could definitely see it slipping by a lot of people.

ward: But like, I mean, I worked in a gun store and I've been, I'm very much a gun enthusiast.

ward: So I'd grown up with guns.

ward: I've been in a lot of right wing circles because that's where guns are.

ward: And, um, yeah, I definitely know a lot of the talking points.

ward: And so seeing and hearing that in the movie, like it immediately perked.

ward: I was like, oh, I know those talking points.

ward: Like, granted, you don't hear them much anymore these days.

ward: Like the arguments have changed and the talking points have changed nowadays

ward: in right wing gun circles. But like, yeah, no, it was that at the especially at the time.

ward: Yeah, no, that was a strong talking point, especially in a big box office movie

ward: like this, a successful one.

Jason: I was thinking about like, so these these kind of right wing spaces that are

Jason: anti-government armed to the teeth. I was thinking about Ruby Ridge.

Jason: So Ruby Ridge was this standoff not too far from where this movie set. It was in Idaho.

Jason: And they were part of that same Christian identity, sovereign citizen movement armed to the teeth.

Jason: Uh, and then the FBI shows up and it all hell breaks loose and there's a standoff

Jason: and that's been this kind of martyred.

Jason: I mean, that was the thing that Timothy McVeigh was lashing out about.

ward: Like it still gets talked about and heralded in right wing circles to this day.

Jason: Right so well and they've made some movies and

Jason: shows and things like but so yeah this has been kind of in the in the in the

Jason: culture of the far right the armed far right this is one of their like flash

Jason: points where they like they were martyred and so forth and then mcveigh comes

Jason: around and does this i'm from oklahoma city so the mcveigh thing is very like,

Jason: I remember when that happened very clear. I was in high school.

Jason: So, yeah. So it's just really interesting the way that these things are kind

Jason: of peppered into the movie. This is before Ruby Ridge.

Jason: They were still pretty underground. It's kind of crazy that he is using some

Jason: of the tropes and he's just involved in that kind of world.

Jason: I don't know if he's like hanging out with like militias or anything,

Jason: but he's definitely sympathetic to that mindset.

Jason: Which is nobody else in Hollywood was like that like besides Bannon and this

Jason: is before Bannon really I don't know how he must have been like a fish out of

Jason: water in Hollywood just being that he.

bill: Made an entire documentary about it or he was in one.

Jason: Oh, really? What's it called?

bill: He was interviewed in the documentary Rated R, Republicans in Hollywood, because he was so.

Jason: But he wasn't an average. He was a different kind of Republican.

bill: Yeah.

Jason: Like, that's the coalition that

Jason: he can kind of align with, but he wasn't a regular Republican. Yeah, so.

ward: Yeah, it's easy to attach himself

ward: to Republicans when he's like constantly has a gun on his hip on set.

bill: Yeah.

Jason: I would not want to work with this guy.

bill: It sounds like a nightmare yeah.

Evan: Documentary looks terrible but i'm also kind of interested,

Evan: i looked it up and it's like the description on it is so silly it's like arnold

Evan: the governor schwarzenegger and mel gibson aren't the only conservative thinkers in tinseltown

Evan: challenging the notion that every actor is a liberal blah blah blah like it's

Evan: actually not that 2004 wrong in the sense that people i think i mentioned that

Evan: early on like people just have this assumption that everyone in hollywood is

Evan: a liberal but that's not really how a lot of these studios, executives,

Evan: and for the most part are built, and even directors.

Evan: I mean, yeah, some of the big name directors, you know, Spielberg and so on

Evan: are like, you know, kind of liberals, but I think it leans far more right than

Evan: I think people are willing to admit probably.

Jason: Well, like one of the things we talk about a lot on our podcast is like,

Jason: obviously the blacklist and, you know, there were these different organizations

Jason: that, that formed in response to this obvious left-wing presence in Hollywood

Jason: before and during the blacklist.

Jason: John Wayne was right wing Barbara Stanwyck was right wing I mean some of these

Jason: really famous Hollywood icons were very right wing John Ford was right wing

Jason: I mean he started out kind of liberal but moved right,

Jason: the searchers was co-written by the CIA which is crazy,

Jason: the CIA.

Evan: Owns the rights to 1984 or animal farms sorry.

Jason: Yeah. Oh, that was, yeah, they wrote and produced and then put that out.

Jason: I don't know if they produced it, but they, they had a lot to do with the distribution

Jason: and the production of that, but they, they had a lot to do with the production of, of the searchers.

Jason: Um, and they had a lot of meetings with Ford and John Wayne,

Jason: but yeah, like it's, there were a lot of left-wing people, but there was quite

Jason: a few right-wing people.

Jason: And of course, Ronald Reagan himself was in that room and in that. reactor,

Jason: and what's crazy is he he snitched on all his friends he was an fbi informant

Jason: in the 40s shocker yeah right uh yeah it's just it's really crazy good guy.

ward: Heard incredible things about his wife, though, in Hollywood.

bill: Oh, man.

Evan: Yeah. I don't think I have any other things here. Bill or Ward,

Evan: do you have any last thoughts on it?

bill: No, not myself, no.

Evan: Or Jason.

ward: It was so bad.

Evan: But like rich in the sense, like there is a lot to say about it.

ward: Oh, absolutely. There's a lot to dissect from it, absolutely,

ward: and take away. but like this is not going to be one of our uh recommended re-watches.

Evan: Yeah sometimes at the end we say like you know like oh like would you to the

Evan: listeners like would you recommend watching it you know and i think based on

Evan: our conversation probably the answer is no other than like a morbid curiosity

Evan: just to kind of like see see this and like see what they were capable of making,

Evan: or not making in the 80s so go.

Jason: Watch battle of algiers instead.

Evan: Yeah yeah like i think you mentioned earlier the scene where leah thompson like

Evan: drops the bomb or like put something inside of the convenience store and like

Evan: you know it's gonna blow up that like feels like it was pulled directly from

Evan: battle of algiers and it kind of makes me mad well.

Jason: There's a lot of things that are pulled from battle of algiers even even just like him like,

Jason: with the cop with the um not the

Jason: cop but the the soviet guy where he's like got this

Jason: sketch of the wolverine and he's like laying out

Jason: the strategy that reminds me of like this french

Jason: colonel who's laying out the strategy there's a lot

Jason: of like sort of structural things that reminded me

Jason: but but battle of algiers is great because first

Jason: of all it's just beautiful and a great film but you're also rooting for these

Jason: people it's a decolonial project you're not it's just like it falls flat and

Jason: the premise is so bad that it's just hard to know what to do with your allegiance

Jason: as you're watching it like it's hard to you can't it's nerve-wracking to watch.

Evan: Awesome well jason uh it's been a pleasure to have you on left with projector

Evan: and people can go listen to your podcast cold war cinema in all the same places

Evan: you can listen to all great podcasts.

Jason: Yeah thank you for having me it was a lot of fun thank.

bill: You very much for joining us and uh Despite the fact that this movie is terrible,

bill: you did provide us with just a rich vein to explore in terms of terrible propaganda.

bill: And that really is one of the best, you know, one of the things we all enjoy,

bill: picking apart these things.

Jason: Yeah.

ward: I might have hated watching this movie, but I'm glad we had you on and we could

ward: discuss it. This was a really good time.

Jason: Yeah.

bill: Thank you.

Jason: I'm a bit obsessed with the Cold War. So thanks for letting me indulge a little bit.

Evan: Of course. Well, you've been listening to Left of the Projector,

Evan: and we'll catch you next time.