25 years ago Michael Douglass portrayed a disgruntled, middle-aged executive whose life was falling to pieces. His marriage was over, he was let go from his job as he was no longer “economically viable”, and he was suffering through the urban chaos of late 20th century America. The dystopian visions in Falling Down were only the tip of the iceberg as 2018 America has careened further down the oligarchical rabbit hole to levels of greed and narcissism unknown even to the debauched 1980s yuppie generation.
What crime did William Foster commit or was he a victim of the system? The movie on one side places blame on society but on the other hand is clear that Foster’s emotional violence is deep set in his personality. Foster shows early traits of the incel mindset where hatred is projected against everything non-white that is disturbing his vision of America. He rails against a Korean for being ungrateful for all the U.S. military did for his country, against Latinos in a gang, and dismissive of African Americans while trying to board a bus. But basically his rage is against all levels of society, to the poor white workers at corporate fast food, against a homophobic and anti-semitic store owner, and the rich white men and plastic surgeon of the country club. He of course is deranged, but his level of frustration is symptomatic of the downward societal spiral that continues to this day.
America has been successfully divided against itself, as so many countries are, since the founding of the country. Our continual inability to deal with our multi-ethnic and multiracial status continues to plague our ability to constructively build our future. Our alienation continues at many levels, most obviously since the crash of 2008 that pulled back the curtain on the oligarchical system so even rednecks can now understand their manipulation. As the far-right, white America continues to grasp at empty mottos like “make America great again” and the inherent idiocy of building walls, we sink further into the divide and conquer playbook of the elites.
Falling Down is an imperfect and uneven movie, and frankly reminds me of the limited choices for entertainment we suffered through in the pre-digital world, and the narrow and xenophobic mindsets we inhabited inside the cold, firm gelatin of the U.S. propaganda machine. All nations and people suffer from our human, insulated nature and inability to fathom “the others”. Falling Down was just the tip of the iceberg for the rage we feel when we perceive the world incorrectly, when we are prepared to scapegoat all others, when we are too cowardly or too weak to face ourselves in the mirror. The U.S. demonstratively has quite a ways to go still until we are back on our collective feet as a people… a unified, humane people.
Peace in America and Peace on the STEEM Blockchain @ClumsySilverDad
I don't know that we aren't hard-wired to tribalism. If you read through your post, you can read your disdain for certain people, which is the same "us vs them". Even the racist, the bigot, or whatever, is a person and has whatever reason for believing what they do.
I used to get wrapped up in this. However, I don't care anymore. I just accept them for who they are and that in their mind they have a perfectly sound reason for what they think. My wonderfulness won't change them. I don't excuse any of it. In the end, however, they are still people with people problems.
Change is messy. It breaks things. More importantly, it breaks people. The degree of change we are seeing, social and technological, is unprecedented. I am not optimistic that we will come out of these changing times without additional societal dysfunctions. I don't like it. But, I'm busy dealing with my own changing landscape.
Some of us are capable of enduring change. Others of us have limited capacity to deal with change. The spectrum of humanity that helps us survive as a species also necessarily means that progress will dash some poor souls on the rocks and leave them broken.
I haven't completely formulated my thoughts on this. These are just some ideas that popped into my head.
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Yes, great comments. The way I see it, we are all trying to accomplish things here, fighting some battles, living and loving... but in the great scheme of thing we are just tiny bits of history like everything else. I'm sure in 2500 and 3000 AD they will think us extremely primitive in mindset. It's unavoidable.
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Falling Down is one of the favourite films due to the way it questions morality in a society that appears to be working against you in every form due to its downright chaotic structure.
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I can dig that, ty
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Top flick!!
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I enjoyed 'Falling Down' quite a bit. My recollection wasn't that Foster was deranged, but that he was so traumatized by the cascade of destruction that befell him that he became unwilling to pander; to maintain the illusion that society was ok. He just spoke his mind, and took action - albeit with no social niceties - to effect his goal: to deliver the birthday gift he had for his daughter, who was being kept from him by his hyper-estrogenated ex-wife, using vile family courts to humiliate and disintermediate him from his family.
None of his rants and acts were pathological, nor racist, or bigoted. I found it refreshing, but also deeply disturbing, because the very act of speaking freely was considered not merely rude, but (as you seem to feel, as well) pathological.
The end of the movie, where the cop asks him where he thinks things are going to end up, is revealing. You can see the gears whirring in his head as he realizes no one believes that all he wants to do is deliver the birthday gift. It is assumed he's a homocidal maniac bent on murdering his beloved daughter, and no matter what he does, says, nor anything she might want, he will not attain his goal of letting his daughter know he loves her.
As you note, this is metaphoric for that demographic of men that sought to live the American dream and saw their fantasies become nightmares in the post-modern neoliberal Orwellianism we live in today, rather than the wholesome family oriented America of the 1950s, or what they thought America was supposed to be.
Thanks!
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Thanks, yes I think it is about what we bring to the table, or how we think things are supposed to be. Then it is on us deciding how to react. Digging deep and having to find true character and integrity is a bitch, a lot of us don't have the strength to to do it unless we have the promise of something completely worthwhle on the other side.
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Good point. He felt free of social constraints and acted, he felt, rationally. However, those yet maintaining society could not comprehend his acts as anything other than psychotic, since they were outside the realm of their conception of rationality.
That ending scene I resolve in my own mind by him understanding that to the rest of the world, to his daughter even, nothing he did, no matter how principled and ethical, could be understood by them within their social paradigm as anything but evil.
Taking the red pill in a world where everyone else has taken the blue pill means you are the bad guy. That is a disturbing truth!
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Good. A different perspective.
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Thank you for your continued support of SteemSilverGold
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Thank you so much for participating the Partiko Delegation Plan Round 1! We really appreciate your support! As part of the delegation benefits, we just gave you a 3.00% upvote! Together, let’s change the world!
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