“America will never be destroyed from the outside,” President Abraham Lincoln once argued, explaining, “if we falter and lose our freedoms it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” Or rather, according to Hollywood’s latest masterpiece [1], “White House Down,” America’s suicide will arise from racist right-wing sociopaths, hateful bloggers, NSA hackers, and weapon-manufacturing companies – with ABC News reporting live.
Once again, Hollywood can’t bring itself to acknowledge America’s real enemies – the ones who actually kill American soldiers, diplomats and civilians. Instead, it turns fellow citizens with a differing view into bloody-minded monsters. In White House Down,” Columbia Picture’s new film [2] directed by Roland Emmerich and written by James Vanderbilt, pro-military citizens and right-wingers – the destroyers of the peace – bring are the culprits.
When Capitol Policeman and decorated soldier John Cale (Channing Tatum) accompanied his young daughter on a White House tour, a “heavily armed paramilitary group” captured [2] the White House and kidnapped President James Sawyer (Jamie Foxx). The weight fell on Cale’s shoulders to save his daughter, the president, and the world from these domestic terrorists.
While reporters on the scene, frequently from the only identifiable network on screen, ABC 7, first blamed Al Qaeda, the evil villains actually were spawned from the “manufacturers of weapons” and the “military industrial complex” that will “do anything for power.” The bad guys also included a “right power hate-blogging” citizen, a “right-wing sociopath” who once blew up his local post office for employing too many African Americans, an ex-Delta Force member, an NSA hacker (sound familiar?), a power-thirsty Speaker of the House, and the Secret Service’s Head of Presidential Detail whose Marine son died overseas.
Why the domestic terror? President Sawyer chose to withdraw troops from the Middle East and transfer money spent on war into funding for education, healthcare, infrastructure overseas and other noble liberal causes. Sawyer maintained that the “number one source of violence is poverty in the world” and his plan to redirect money would destroy poverty, and thus violence. Besides, he argued, military bases there are really only “for show.”
Infuriated, the right-wingers demanded the war continue to keep their “buddies,” or “American companies who do business with the American military,” happy. When the Speaker voiced the defense industry’s concerns, President Sawyer retorted, “corporations are in bed with radical regimes.”
Besides Cale, the film placed President Sawyer – or, by another name, President Obama [3] – as savior of the day. From the beginning, the Speaker declared about Sawyer, “I think voters today want somebody cool,” while Emily, Cale’s daughter, unabashedly adored him. So much so that her father applied for a Secret Service job because, when he found out he was no longer his little girl’s hero after returning from deployment, he decided “I’d try to help the man who is.”
Although White House attacks appear a popular theme for 2013 media entertainment, films, such as “Olympus Has Fallen” [4] refrained from outwardly bashing conservatives.