SUBVERTING RED DAWN
The Iraqi Insurgency

I watched the film Red Dawn (1984) last night on TNT. I was trying to get some reading done for a class I'm going to be teaching at LSU this fall for my assistantship duties, and had the TV on for some background noise. I really should have continued with my reading, but the movie sucked me in. You see, despite my anti-war rantings here at Real Art, I love a good war movie, and Red Dawn, even though its plot is built on an absurd premise, is a good war movie.

What makes it so good, primarily, is the acting: a bunch of A-list Brat Packers make up most of the cast. You won't find Emilio Estevez, Molly Ringworm, or Andrew "Wuss" McCarthy here, no sir, no whining about Saturday class in this picture. Instead we get to see Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Charlie Sheen, Lea Thompson, and Jennifer Grey mowing down lots of reds; this is a much better group of actors, if you ask me. There are also some pretty cool character actors involved such as Powers Boothe (a native Texan) and Harry Dean Stanton (you have no taste if you don't dig him). The actors are focused and efficient in their work, without much of the inwardly directed, isolated, heavy emoting that I railed away on in my Marlon Brando post a few days back.

In addition to the good acting, and more importantly, what makes the film so enjoyable for me is its hyper-patriotism. Red Dawn is one of the better cultural relics from the Reagan era, fighting the "evil empire" and all that. I put it into the same category as Rambo and Missing in Action; almost certainly, the film would be just as cheesy if not for the honesty and focus of the cast.

If you haven't seen it, here's a brief plot description. A series of unlikely global events robs the US of all allies, and the Soviets, Cubans, and Nicaraguans take advantage of the situation, knock out our nukes with a preemptive strike, and launch a conventional invasion through Mexico into Texas. (I told you that the plot is built on an absurd premise!) The movie's heroes are a group of rural teenagers in Colorado who manage to evade capture by Cuban paratroopers, hide out up in the mountains, and quickly become guerilla fighters against the communist occupation. In the end, most of them are killed, but the overall war is eventually won.

On the surface, the film reads as a very pro-American call to arms. That's exactly how I understood it back when I first saw it as a teenager, cheering on the heroes as they blew away commie pigs, feeling sad as each hero dies, well, a hero's death. Twenty years later, while an insurrection composed of young men kills American soldiers in Iraq, I saw the movie quite differently.

One can never be too terribly sure of exactly what a writer has in mind, but I'm tempted to say that, once one digs beneath the film's hyper-patriotism, Red Dawn makes some unequivocal anti-war statements. It is impossible to escape the film's sense of deep sadness. That is, not only is it sad to see each of the heroes knocked off one by one, to see civilians put to death as a counter-insurgency measure, to see these kids cry for their families and nation, but there are also moments when we see the sadness of the enemy. One subplot shows a Cuban colonel growing disillusioned by the mounting casualties among his troops, troubled by the fact that he is no longer a revolutionary; now he is an oppressor. There is also a telling moment when the Patrick Swayze character holds a gun to the face of a Russian soldier not much older than him: the helpless soldier looks back with fear and grief, and the moment lingers until it is cut short by Swayze pulling the trigger of his pistol. Furthermore, the film shows the heroes' torment and sadness about their own actions: they decide to execute a member of their group for helping the enemy; nobody really wants to kill him, but they do it anyway--all of them are tortured and haunted by their act of wartime justice. On the one hand, Red Dawn seems to say, "isn't it great that these kids are fighting and dying for their country?" On the other hand, it also seems to say, "isn't it terrible that these kids have to fight and die for their country?" I suppose I like art that contradicts itself.

Red Dawn also struck me in another way: if it is so wonderful for American youths to resist an occupation by foreign invaders, how can we despise the Iraqi insurgents? The film lays it all out--an illegal and preemptive invasion, bringing a new and wonderful form of government to the defeated nation, sleazy collaborators, killing those collaborators, strongarm "pacification" techniques used by the enemy, national humiliation, anger, torture, revenge. If you let the film do its propaganda work, it's hard not to hope that, given the same situation, you too would have the balls to pick up arms and resist. That's exactly what's happening in Iraq right now, and the numerous reports of low morale among US soldiers also echo Red Dawn. This time, we're the "evil empire" and the Iraqi resistance fighters are the patriots.

What a long strange trip it's been.

Red Dawn, in spite of its silly plot and goofy dialogue, is an enjoyable film, mostly because of the actors' dedicated work. However, in hindsight, the movie is much more sophisticated than it appears to be, contradicting its major pro-war and pro-American themes with elements of pacifism and a call for resistance to power and oppression. It's worth revisiting, if only for that. After all, as Michael Ventura of the Austin Chronicle once said, "there's no such thing as 'just a movie.'" Red Dawn is a prime example of that thought.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$