Where’s Dirty Harry When We Need Him (Now More Than Ever)?
Back in the 1970’s, pre-woke Hollywood latched on to the zeitgeist of a post-1960’s American audience battered by economic and cultural decline: skyrocketing crime, the “sexual revolution,” stagflation, corrupt politics (Watergate), defeat in Vietnam, Leftist revolutionaries seemingly setting the agenda and well on their way toward realizing their Communist revolution.
Two movie “franchises” emerged: Dirty Harry (1971) and Death Wish (1974), featuring unambiguously masculine males taking care of business: the (literal) elimination of bad guys. Bad guys portrayed not as “victims of society,” but what they really were (and are), threats to civilized society. Bad guys who were very much a metaphor for the Leftist agenda and the havoc it was wreaking upon our land.
Much to the horror of handkerchief-clutching “liberal” critics, “silent majority” audiences flocked to see the renegade near-take-no-prisoners cop of Dirty Harry, and the everyman vigilante of Death Wish. Each began eliminating the criminals that the Supreme Court / ACLU hobbled police could or, at the behest of weak, bureaucratic leadership, would not.
In a way, those characters provided comfort, as audiences were reassured that they were not the only ones dismayed at the decline of our society, and heartened (at least during the movie) that there were still white-hat men out there who would, indeed, meet exigent times with commensurate measures. And do so with great effect … again, in an unambiguously masculine manner.
Those movies provided a temporary salve to a growing hunger for the restoration of America. Thus, in an indirect way, those movies may have helped set the stage for the soon-to-be Presidency of one Ronald Wilson Reagan.
The 1970’s came to be known as the (President Jimmy Carter) “malaise era.” Today, we find ourselves in a similar period – one that portends even worse — not decline, but genuinely existential threats. Our present may someday be referred to as the “malign era.”
Jimmy Carter was a buffoon, one influenced by the Council on Foreign Relations, but likely himself didn’t intend to take-out the USA. Moreover, presumably he was legitimately elected.
The same cannot be said of the current regime in Washington, D.C. The 1960’s radicals heeded Saul Alinsky’s advice of the early 1970’s, and burrowed into the system – where they now wield the levers of power. They very much intend to take-out the USA in all but name, snuffing-out our Constitutional Republic.
We have a dementia-addled puppet “President” who was installed in 2020 by those forces – i.e., the Globalist-CCP Axis – via a stolen election (a/k/a coup d’etat).
In other words, the USA right now is in the midst of a non-kinetic Communist revolution.
The “misery index” of inflation / stagflation is increasing.
Crime – especially in Democrat-run cities – is off the charts. And continues to grow.
The forces taking-down our country openly boast of how “by 2030 you will own nothing,” and that we’ll reduced to eating bugs instead of meat.
From Beijing and Davos they have been, and are executing their plans.
Communist-aligned groups, such as Antifa and BLM, were allowed by (supposed) law enforcement to run-rampant as a leadup to the 2020 coup d’etat, and presumably are poised for further action before and during the 2024 election.
Meanwhile, what could be called counter-revolutionaries (patriots) are defamed as “insurrectionists” — with many post-J6 held as political prisoners in the D.C. Gulag.
People who merely speak out are routinely cancelled; with what’s been released about Twitter, we know often at the behest of our (apparently) Communist-controlled “intelligence community.”
Parents at speak at school board, who are righteously trying to protect their children from K-12 groomers promoting deviant lifestyles, are now targeted by the FBI.
Thus, our situation is orders of magnitude worse than the 1970’s. We face not severe economic and cultural decline, but extinction as a functioning Constitutional Republic, and a neo-feudal existence under the Globalist-CCP Axis.
A reprise of Dirty Harry and Death Wish could provide some needed morale boosts for those of us who steadfastly believe in God and country.
Not necessarily as direct sequels of those titles and characters – those usually s**k; you can’t easily recreate the magic. But new characters and scripts in the same vein, albeit updated for today’s circumstances and threats. I have some ideas for how such screenplays might unfold, and I’m sure that you can think of some too.
The question is: would woke (and CCP dominated) Hollywood ever green-light such productions, or at least do so without polluting them with wokeness and Leftist slants (and so ruining them)?
The success of American Sniper and 13 Hours and 12 Strong and Top Gun Maverick show that occasionally something along the lines of what we’re talking about slips through Hollywood “woke content quality control” … and are financially profitable.
Perhaps age-appropriate (i.e., appropriate for our age) Dirty Harry and Death Wish type movies are too much to hope for. Maybe not.
In the meantime, I’ll take solace in my mind’s eye, imagining a scene with a “Dirty Harry Callahan” type standing over some mother’s basement dwelling Antifa type sprawled on the ground, hand cannon pointed at his now not-so-cocky face, with Harry gutturally uttering something like:
“I know what you're thinking: 'Did he fire six shots or only five?' Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track myself. But being that this is a Glock 17 — it holds at least 17 rounds — enough +P 9mm to blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do you, punk?”
[Screen goes dark, and we hear: BANG … BANG BANG … BANG BANG BANG BANG … BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG …]