S2E26: Rambo: First Blood
Added 2023-06-08 01:23:46 +0000 UTCKill... John.... Brambo...
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Comments
While the right wingers in the US are all about “the troops” now, in the years immediately after Vietnam there was a lot of feeling that these were the first Americans to lose a war, and therefore weren’t due the same respect as WWII or Korea vets.
Sublight Monster
2024-06-22 09:20:24 +0000 UTCI do love November, but her very shallow empathy shows through here again. Being unable to immerse herself into a film almost always works well for a show like this, except when it doesn't
heffa
2024-04-04 00:55:25 +0000 UTCComing to this very late but, watching the film for the first time last night, what struck me was that First Blood wants us to see the experience of Vietnam vets as paralleling that of Black Americans under segregation and in the Civil Rights era. The way the cops behave towards Rambo early in the film, the whole “we don’t want your kind round here, don’t let the sun go down on you in this town” vibe. It seemed to be echoing In the Heat of the Night in particular. Which is, of course, really shitty politics, and very much in the vein of contemporary conservative grievance-mongering of the “straight white men are the most oppressed group in America!” variety
Jae H
2023-07-16 18:56:15 +0000 UTCIf we're doing Stallone films I think you need to see Cop Land, just from the first 15 minutes it feels like a film you've talked about, and holy hellfire I can see why. I had to double check y'all hadn't done it already.
Delta357
2023-06-19 20:47:49 +0000 UTCWhat comes to mind for me, in terms of movies that explicitly deal with Vietnam as a subject, is "Full Metal Jacket", which is very much an anti-war movie (and is not very subtle about saying it is so), and the most popular character in the movie, to an extraordinary degree, is Gunnery Sgt Hartman, who is the film's clear number one villain and an absolute monster.
Bella DeBall
2023-06-14 21:17:22 +0000 UTCI think it's interesting how you've pegged this as a fundamentally fascist film while having various anti-war readings. There's something to be said about how a lot of films that are even more explicitly supposed to anti-war end up being unironically loved by right wingers and fascists. The problem is that in their world view when they see the hero at the end who has gone though unimaginable suffering and trauma and done horrible things for no real reason, they see all that as having actually just made him harder, or more of a real man or whatever. He gets a pass to have like a breakdown and like a little manly cry at the end because he deserves it and it highlights what a badass he's become. Because obviously he wouldn't do that normally, you know. So yeah it's something that can still be sort of fundamentally fascist, in a way.
Henry O'Brien
2023-06-14 20:46:27 +0000 UTCso glad you were aware of "the spitting image"
anamoy
2023-06-10 19:37:47 +0000 UTCI hope for part 2 you bring up the inexplicable children's cartoon and tie-in toy line.
Brian Danger Hicks
2023-06-10 16:24:20 +0000 UTC
