Live Free or Die Hard: A Progressive Look at the Working Class Man?

     Len Wiseman’s 2007 movie Live Free or Die Hard follows the story of working-class, middle-aged cop John McClane, played by Bruce Willis. In the film, it is quickly established that McClane is “the brawn,” so to speak, and the savvy, wealthy antagonist Thomas Gabriel is “the brain.” What I found to be most interesting about Live Free or Die Hard is the fact that in its direct comparison of the low paid cop and ex-FBI member turned top-tier hacker, the film clearly puts more value on McClane’s working-class stature than Gabriel’s elitist intellectualism.

     Throughout the movie, we are given constant reminders of McClane’s out datedness. He is portrayed in terms of his technological illiteracy: in a scene where Gabriel has hacked into a webcam so he can see and speak to McClane, John covers up the camera with his hand and begins formulating a plan with his hacker friend Matt, thinking that Gabriel will no longer be able to hear them if he cannot see them, which Gabriel quickly mocks him for. In contrast, Gabriel’s strength lies solely in his knowledge of computers and how to manipulate them. He is a worthy adversary to McClane and, indeed, the entire FBI. However, his tech-savvy is no match for John’s brute strength: though Gabriel masterminds attacks on McClane time and time again, he is always thwarted by McClane’s physical power. When Gabriel changes the traffic patterns and the timing of the traffic signals in Washington D.C. and sends numerous henchmen to kill him, McClane overpowers them all, even going so far as to launch a car at a helicopter filled with baddies when he "ran out of bullets."

     The overarching slant of Live Free or Die Hard is clearly in McClane's favor: no matter how many times he is outsmarted by Gabriel, he still manages to overcome the odds by way of brute force. While it seems significant that we are rooting for the working-class everyman over the intelligent, technologically advanced programmer, I think this is due to the fact that, as an action movie, it is Live Free or Die Hard's duty to reinforce stereotypical views of violent masculinity as the norm. Do you think Die Hard's portrayal of brawn over brain beaks the mold, or do you think it plays into pre-existing stereotypes?

Wife Swap: Do the Women Really Have a Say?

      What do Gary Busey and Ted Haggard have in common, you might ask? They plan to trade wives for two weeks. Busey and Haggard are slated to appear in an episode of ABC's Wife Swap together, a show in which two families trade wives to "see if the grass is greener on the other side of the fence," according to the show's website. The interesting thing about this upcoming celebrity episode is that Haggard is a former Evangelical pastor embroiled in scandal: he was fired from his post at the New Life Church in Colorado after it was discovered that he had been patronizing a male prostitute for three years. It was also discovered that Haggard had engaged in sexual acts with a 20 year old male volunteer at his church and offered to pay him to keep quiet about their affair. Gary Busey has had his fair share of bad publicity as well: he was arrested for cocaine possession after a near fatal overdose and for spousal abuse in 2001.
     Perhaps the most interesting thing about this upcoming episode is that there has been absolutely no mention of either man's wife. Both women have endured tremendous attention due to their husbands' shortcomings, and it seems to me that this is just another publicity stunt meant to attract interest Busey's and Haggard's slowing careers. Especially in Haggard's case, I would argue that his involvement in the show is due to a need to assert his masculinity: although he has come out as bisexual since his scandal, it appears he is using this television show to prove that he will not disappoint his followers by reverting to homosexual urges. On the contrary, he will live with another man's wife for two weeks to show his dedication to living a heterosexual lifestyle. Do you agree? What do you think Busey stands to gain from this publicity?

Just How Modern Is "Modern Family"?

After watching an episode of ABC’s critically acclaimed show “Modern Family,” I was struck by how clichéd and unimaginative the relationships between characters were, with particular regard to Phil and Claire Dunphy. Though the show has been touted as progressive due to its inclusion of a gay couple, Phil and Claire’s relationship simply recycles tired TV stereotypes of the “average” middle-class American family. Phil takes the role of the irresponsible, buffoon husband, while Claire is the intelligent and competent stay-at-home mother to their three children.

In the episode I watched, called “Good Cop, Bad Dog,” Claire is fed up with being undermined by her goofy and immature husband when disciplining their family and decides it’s time for Phil to dole out the punishment when the children misbehave. This role-reversal, however, completely backfires: Phil, always portrayed as being more or less “whipped” by his wife, becomes borderline abusive to his daughters when he gets a taste of power, refusing to let them eat and threatening to cut off his daughters' hair. And Claire, who decides to take her son and 11 year old step-brother go-karting, seems to be incapable of having fun; she runs over her son’s hand during the race and unwittingly intimidates him into eating so much junk food that he becomes violently ill. The episode is then resolved by the parents agreeing that “things [need] to go back to the way they were,” even though this means Claire will again be seen as the “bad cop,” while her husband shirks all responsibility.

            Though the show prides itself on being contemporary, the characters of Phil and Claire follow the same template as the husbands and wives in famous sitcoms throughout television history. Modern Family’s Phil is practically a carbon copy of The Flintstones’ Fred or The Simpsons’ Homer, who are seen as “well intentioned, even lovable, but no one to respect or emulate,” according to Richard Butsch’s article “Ralph, Fred, Archie, Homer, and the King of Queens: Why Television Keeps Recreating the Male Working-Class Buffoon.” Butsch reveals that writers of these television shows are well aware of the stereotyping, “but argue its necessity on the basis of time and dramatic constraints. Typecasting is easier and much quicker.” The conformity of Phil and Claire's characters to stereotypical TV gender roles show us just how old-fashioned the writing of Modern Family is.