'Die Hard' Is the Only Christmas Movie That Bridges America's Political Divide

A West Coast-hating 'good guy with a gun' trying to get his nuclear family back - it's a conservative fantasy that liberals can't get enough of every holiday season

Source: Fox

I can’t think of many Hollywood films that hate cops and law enforcement in general more than DIE HARD (1988) does. Every member of the Los Angeles Police Department is presented as a clown, especially its Deputy Chief of Police. The Feds are trigger-happy fools. Even Sergeant Al Powell (Reginald VelJohnson), our hero’s police lifeline outside the Nakatomi Plaza, erroneously shot a thirteen-year-old with a “ray gun” – an act that wouldn’t muster sympathy today, but rather a city-wide protest. Out of the dozens of badges that assemble to intervene in an alleged terrorist attack, only one manages to demonstrate both competence and bravery without a hint of professional flaws. This is, of course, out-of-town cop John McClane (Bruce Willis). So, what are we to make of this?

John McClane — for all his working-class intelligence, resilience, and all-around badassery — is still playing a prototypical “good guy with a gun”. This why John Wayne and Roy Rogers, iconic American cowboys, come up so often in the script. In other words, he’s the ultimate American hero. (I recently wrote about this toxic trope in American culture: “The Church of John Wayne’s Star-Spangled Wang”.)

He’s a cop himself, sure, but he’s operating “outside the law” and is even dismissed by the Deputy Police Chief for his vigilante antics. The Feds don’t care about him or how many terrorists he’s killed. No, at the end of the day, it’s John’s willingness to pick up his gun and “do the right thing” — mete out good ole frontier justice to save the innocent people on the 30th floor — that wins the day.

Along with the “good guy with a gun” trope that President Ronald Reagan had all but made official U.S. policy by the time DIE HARD hit movie screens, the film also embraces numerous other deeply conservative ideas about American culture.

Consider John’s general disdain for everything Los Angeles represents. His eyes lust after women he passes while he judges their skin-tight and chesty attire. He shoves a man away who kisses him on the cheek, declaring “Fuckin’ California.” He encounters money-hungry cokeheads like this guy:

Source: Fox

In his mind, L.A. is populated by whores, gay people, and drug addicts. Everything he polices every day back in New York. Everything that’s wrong with America, in his mind.

The film’s concept also has an anti-corporation attitude on the front end, only to reveal in the back end that the terrorists are actually thieves here to act as “corporate raiders” in a manner. They are the epitome of unchecked capitalism – a conservative wet dream. Steal whatever you can if you can get away with it, right?

It’s hard not to root for Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman), and director John McTiernan makes sure you do when Gruber’s men finally crack open the vault. He uses Ludwig von Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”, a symphony so triumphant that you genuinely cheer for the bad guys.

Then, we come to John’s estranged wife Holly Gennaro (Bonnie Bedelia).

Source: Fox

He’s come to the West Coast for Christmas to win her back, more than happy, we learn, with the idea of spending the rest of her life with her. But on the limousine ride to Nakatomi Plaza, he admits to the limo driver he didn’t think her job out here would pan out and so he never planned on moving out here to be with her (how little must he have thought about her?). When he gets to Nakatomi Plaza, he’s angered to find out Holly has changed her last name back to her maiden name (without John’s name, how will people know she belongs to him?). Then, he has an argument with Holly about that name and this job of hers, which by two testimonials we’ve just received, she is crushing. When he says she has no idea what he thinks their marriage should be, she snaps back, “I know exactly what your idea of our marriage should be!”

In other words, Holly belongs in the home. Taking care of their two kids. Because what John expects is a nuclear family. That’s really the thematic journey of DIE HARD – putting that nuclear family back together.

Look no further in this regard than Holly’s Rolex watch. For her accomplishments at Nakatomi, she’s been gifted one by her boss. John isn’t even interested in seeing it when it’s first mentioned, not even a hint of pride in what she’s accomplished here. The watch, we realize, is a symbol of Holly’s West Coast freedom. Her independence from John. Her success as a woman outside the McClane family home.

In the end, Hans Gruber clings to Holly’s wrist — her Rolex watch used for purchase — as he dangles out a Nakatomi Plaza window. John has no bullets left to save his wife. It’s time for her to finally make a choice about her future. And so, she unfastens her Rolex and lets go of her independence.

Source: Fox

As soon as she does, she falls back into her husband’s big strong arms. No more career for her. In fact, in the very next scene, Holly introduces herself not as Ms. Gennaro as she did earlier in the film. Now, she’s Mrs. McClane.

Source: Fox

Long story short, DIE HARD is a deeply conservative and, all too often, terrifying vision of America.

It’s also wildly entertaining, a MasterClass on how to structure action films (or most films, for that matter), and required viewing for me every Christmas season. It’s one of the great mysteries of art, how we revel in so much of it that unsettles our sense of our own morality, our ethics, our very identity. I couldn’t imagine picking up a gun for any reason and, in fact, left America because of its mass addiction to gun violence. But I also can’t get enough of John McClane blowing the smoke rising from the barrel of his gun and saying, “Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker.”

DIE HARD is a film about a good guy with a gun, about a nuclear family imperiled by a woman rejecting her traditional place in the home, about an idea of America and what makes it great that no longer has a place in intelligent conversation. And yet every year during the holidays, this film — which I love so much — brings the most conservative and progressive minds in the country together. I don’t know how to explain that. Call it a Christmas miracle.

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