The Center Will Not Hold
Social instability and inequality in America is seemingly reflected in the paranoid dreams of other, even more repressive regimes, as evidenced by such “guns and ammo” governmental takeover fantasies as Antoine Fuqua’s Olympus Has Fallen (2013). Olympus H
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The Center Will Not Hold
Abstract Social instability and inequality in America is seemingly reflected in the paranoid dreams of other, even more repressive regimes, as evidenced by such “guns and ammo” governmental takeover fantasies as Antoine Fuqua’s Olympus Has Fallen (2013). Olympus Has Fallen is actually an updated riff on John Frankenheimer’s Manchurian Candidate (1962) for a new, more merciless generation. This film is just one of the hyper-paranoid visions discussed in this chapter, which examines the figure of American, and by extension world society in collapse, as delineated in a series of films that seem to be in love with destruction. At the same time, alternative visions are being created that challenge the dominant culture, and these works are also examined in this chapter. Keywords Politics • Fantasy • Destruction • Horror films • Genre films
But there is more. Social instability and inequality in America is seemingly reflected in the paranoid dreams of other, even more repressive regimes, as evidenced by such “guns and ammo” governmental takeover fantasies as Antoine Fuqua’s Olympus Has Fallen (2013). Part Kim Jong-un’s “the West must fall” fantasy come to life, part right wing wet dream and all around militarism anthem, Olympus Has Fallen is an updated riff on John Frankenheimer’s Manchurian Candidate (1962; though we’ve already had that in 2004, directed by Richard Condon) for a new, more merciless generation. US President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart) is taken © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 W.W. Dixon, Hollywood in Crisis or: The Collapse of the Real, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-40481-3_2
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hostage by North Korean fanatic Kang (Rick Yune) in the White House bunker, along with Secretary of Defense Ruth McMillan (Melissa Leo) and other members of the White House inner circle, and it’s up to disgraced Secret Service Agent and professional loner Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) to get him out and foil Yang’s plot. Banning has fallen into official disfavor as the result of an accident in which the president’s wife, Margaret (Ashley Judd, in a brief cameo) plunges to her death in a frozen river on the way to a Presidential fundraiser on a snowy evening; though Banning really isn’t responsible, and saves the President from an equally watery grave, he’s racked by guilt— you know, he’s got to make up for it somehow. Relegated to a desk job, Banning longs to get back into action, and the unfolding crisis gives him the perfect opportunity to pull a Bruce Willis/Die Hard riff and almost single handedly bring down the invading terrorist force. All around him, cops, civilians, and military personnel are being shot to ribbons, but somehow Banning survives the considerable amount of gunfire to worm his way into the White House basement, and start a counteroffensive. Since the President and Vice President are both Kang’s hostages, it’s up to Speaker of the House Trumbull (Morgan Freeman, projecting his usual effortless gravitas) as acting President to calm the nation, and ove
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