Notes on Review of DIRTY HARRY(Clint Eastwood & Don Siegel) in Counter-Currents Publishing

DIRTY HARRY reviewed by Trevor Lynch: https://counter-currents.com/2021/02/dirty-harry/

Dirty Harry (1971), directed by Don Siegel and starring Clint Eastwood as San Francisco Police Inspector Harry Callahan, is a classic of Right-wing cinema.

It has some right-wing tropes but ultimately cops out and settles for a conventional scenario and ending. This is true of SUDDEN IMPACT as well. Early in the picture, Callahan takes out a bunch of feral black criminals who try to kidnap a white woman for gang-bang rape, but then the rest of the movie is about a white woman taking revenge on white men as rapists. So, the black rapist angle merely serves to foreshadow the rest of the story which is about revenge against White Male rapists. (Of course, those into subtext could argue that those white rapists are actually stand-ins for black rapists in an 'anti-racist' cultural climate that simply wouldn't allow a black-rapist story.) So, DIRTY HARRY movies tease us with white right-wing sentiments but ultimately opts for what is permissible. None of the Dirty Harry movies had the balls to go where THE BIRTH OF A NATION did.

Along with THE FRENCH CONNECTION and DEATH WISH, it appealed to Liberals at the time because black crime had gotten out of control. And, old-time Liberals had difficulty making sense of the so-called New Left of the 60s with drugs, degeneracy, and sex. My haunch is that the older Jews who made ALL IN THE FAMILY agreed with Meathead on talking points but with Archie Bunker at the gut level. Older Jews were confused by boomer Jews like Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies. And when Altamont and the Manson Murders happened, many older Liberals were shocked. They'd been sympathetic to the Youth Movement, but things fell apart. The fiasco of the 68 Democratic Convention pitted Old Democrats with New Radicals. Richard Nixon couldn't have won so big in 1972 with conservative votes alone. Many Liberals were disheartened by new trends.
Also, there was a divergence between ideology(especially foisted from above as most people don't think for themselves) and instinct(formed by personality, family, and community). Many whites had become 'liberal' largely due to the New Deal and WWII era. They weren't exactly culturally or ideologically on the left but voted for FDR and Truman because they'd been through hard times. And WWII defined American Patriotism as rising to its greatest hour against the far-right regimes of Germany, Italy, and Japan. Therefore, it got seared into their minds: Liberalism = Patriotism.
Still, many of these 'liberals' were ingrained with 'racist' attitudes and Eurocentric worldview. After all, 80% of Americans polled in the 60s were opposed to race-mixing, which means a good number of Liberals opposed it too. It was only when Jews took total control of the gods that attitudes began to fundamentally change. To be sure, there was the Cold War that revitalized the Right against Godless Communism, but (1) Jews soon took control of the Narrative and made the 1950s about bad ole Joe McCarthy going after leftists who prize civil liberties (2) Vietnam War made anti-communism seem cruel and even genocidal (3) capitalism, though anti-communist, could hardly be a bastion of the Right and Traditionalism as consumerism and idolatry at their core tended to upend society, indeed more so than communism could dream of.

Dirty Harry was hugely popular with moviegoers, spawning four sequels and a whole genre of films about tough cops whose hands are tied by the system and are forced to go outside the law in order to protect the public.

Ironically, the most obvious precursor of DIRTY HARRY was HIGH NOON, a work of some controversy at the time. Though considered a classic(and even right-wing by some), it was produced by arch-Jewish-Liberal Stanley Kramer, and its script was by a communist sympathizer. And its hidden message or subtext was a dig at craven America during the Red Scare. It didn't occur to these Jews and Leftists that most Americans supported anti-communism out of conviction, not out of cravenness. Most Americans regarded communists and their spies as the Frank Millers of the World. Sure, there were craven types who named names, but they were fellow communists or leftists who wanted to keep working, like Elia Kazan and Sterling Hayden. In HIGH NOON, the entire town is cowed by the news of Frank Miller's return. (Miller, like Scorpio, has been freed because of the technicality of the law.) The town is meant to be a metaphor for America that is too cowardly to stand up to the likes of Joe McCarthy. Never mind that, at least for a while, many Americans sincerely regarded McCarthy as the sheriff with the guts to take on the communists.

Anyway, the sheriff in HIGH NOON has no recourse but to go it alone as all the individuals and institutions of the town simply refuse to stand by his side for one reason or another. The sheriff goes defacto vigilante. It's like Donald Trump was effectively all alone in the final months though without the character of Will Kane(Gary Cooper). And both HIGH NOON and DIRTY HARRY ends with the lawman tossing away his badge as a sign of contempt for the system. (John Ford's revisionist Western THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE also featured a system either too weak, inept, or corrupt to maintain law and order for children and womenfolk. No one dares to take on Liberty Valance who isn't merely an outlaw but a tool of Big Money. James Stewart's character finally musters the courage to take on Liberty Valance but he's no gun-man, and John Wayne's character, as the third man, secretly 'murders' Valance.)

In a way, DIRTY HARRY is like a urban Western, but it seems worse because, whereas the Wild West was understandably a hotbed of outlaws, one would expect civilization to be more orderly. But as DIRTY HARRY shows — MIDNIGHT COWBOY and TAXI DRIVER do also in greater detail — , the problem isn't merely the system of laws and politics but the climate of culture and values. There was always the wild/savage side of man, just like there is the inner-wolf in every dog. Still, prior to the youth-centric Sixties(defined by sex and drugs under the influence of blacks, the most savage of the races, and of Jews, the most radical of the races), the wilder side had been put in its place by forces of authority, tradition, and community.
Those controls fell apart, and the character of Scorpio is like the worst manifestation/embodiment of unmoored youth mentality. While most hippies were not killers or psychos(not even close), they created a cultural petri dish from which some foul fungi grew. Indeed, this is where TAXI DRIVER and DIRTY HARRY are different. Whereas Scorpio represents the figure of both degeneracy and mayhem contra the straitlaced(relatively speaking) Callahan represents order and decency, the character of Travis Bickle exhibits characteristics of both Scorpio and Callahan. Whereas Callahan's arch-foe, Scorpio, is indeed a real killer, there is no proof that Sport(Harvey Keitel) in TAXI DRIVER is a killer. He may have killed someone, but we can't be sure. But even if Sport never killed anyone, he is a soul-destroyer. He's a spoiler of values if not a taker of lives. In contrast, Bickle is sickened by the rot and wants to save the girl, but he does have the instinct of a real killer. He's both ultra-normal and ultra-psycho.

So, there are two issues at stake here. Criminal violence and cultural decadence. DIRTY HARRY would have us believe they make a natural pair. EASY RIDER, of course, begged to differ. In it, the 'decadent' hippie bikers, though peddling in drugs and loose in sexual mores, are certainly not killers whereas the deep-rooted Southerners are. They first kill the civil liberties lawyer played by Jack Nicholson, and later the two bikers are blown to kingdom come.
If indeed cultural decadence = criminal violence, things would be so much simpler. We could lock up all the pimps, pornographers, freaks, drug-dealers, and etc. and crime would screech to a halt. Though cultural decadence surely creates a more hospitable environment for crime, it itself isn't necessarily violent. If anything, decadence is problematic in its defenselessness against violence, i.e. too dazed to register what's really happening in society.
In DIRTY HARRY, the authority seems less decadent(or even weak) than naive in its decency and commitment to the Constitution(and thus could be called almost 'libertarian', and of course, libertarians were the biggest critics of the Patriot Act after 9/11).

At any rate, if the main issue of DIRTY HARRY is the problems of urban crime, the problem owed less to hippies and dippies than to blacks. Indeed, many blacks who never took part in the counterculture were nevertheless arch-criminals. Also, Japan has had a pretty decadent culture for awhile, but it's not a crime capital(though it will soon be as it begins to import lots of blacks from Africa). The problem of crime is black, and this is where DIRTY HARRY is least honest. By fixating on a degenerate freak, it creates the false impression that serial killers are the biggest threats to society when the average black street thug was the far bigger problem. While there will always be serial killers, they don't destroy an entire city. Serial killers didn't destroy Newark, Detroit, or Baltimore. Blacks did that. DIRTY HARRY movies focus on freaks, terrorists, or some conspiracy. They hook with scenes of black criminals, but the bulk of the stories deal with fantasies. Sure, psycho-freaks are bad, but they are few and far between.
Consider the Deep State. In another Eastwood film, IN THE LINE OF FIRE, the good decent men of the FBI and other US departments are tormented by some rogue lunatic, but as recent events have shown, the whole Deep State is compromised from top to bottom. It's not the oddball psychos who pose the most problem but the fact that the entire system is entrenched with craven careerists who will do anything for their masters, the Jewish Supremacists of course, to be part of the power-game. John Brennan and Mike Pompeo aren't foam-at-the-mouth clinical-psychos but, in some ways, are more dangerous because of their 'respectability'. So, if IN THE LINE OF FIRE really wanted to get to the heart of the sickness, it would have focused less on some agent-gone-rogue than how the system itself is rigged to serve the rich and powerful, indeed to the point where even those who signed up out of idealism are little more than errand boys for the Jews. (Oliver Stone's NIXON came closest to that.)

Harry Callahan's 'vigilantism' is problematic because he is a cop who is sworn to uphold the law. But then, he's not the top cop but a street cop who takes orders. He's both a figure of authority and figure of rebellion. After 9/11, could we say the system went 'dirty harry' with the Patriot Act? Certain civil liberties were suspended to capture the 'scorpios' of the world, the dreaded terrorists. CIA used torture. The system trampled on the Constitution for the 'greater good' to keep us safe. Was this power-grab 'right-wing' or 'left-wing'? Many so-called 'liberals' lambasted Bush II as a Christo-Fascist who was taking rights from the people. But then, the very same people were utterly silent about Obama's even bigger push for the National Security State and relentless drone strikes to take out the terrorists. (Libs were silent even when Obama aided the terrorists to take down entire regimes deemed as the 'bad guys'.) In a way, Neocons have mastered the rhetoric of Dirty-Harry-ism. "We can't follow the letter of the Constitution because we must protect American lives and save innocents from foreign tyrants, the new scorpios." And under Jewpet Biden, we are now told the state must take extraordinary measures to clamp down on "Domestic Terrorists" who would be anyone who dared to speak truth to Jewish Power. Apparently, we are now all Scorpios. DIRTY HARRY was made by Jewish Don Siegel, and I wonder if he, on some level, sensed that the movie's style of rhetoric could be used to the advantage of Jews. DIRTY HARRY is a dangerous movie, for the right as well for the left, because it asks us not to think but just go with gut emotions(which can easily be manipulated). After the terrorist bombings of buses in London, many conservatives and rightists lauded the governments dirty-harry-like measures to clamp down harder on terrorism, but over the years, it has allowed the state to go after nationalists deemed as 'homegrown terrorists' or 'domestic extremists'.

The BOURNE movies came out during the Bush II presidency, and it had a deep state asset gone rogue(or 'vigilante') to take on the Secret Government. And yet, most people consider the trilogy 'leftist'. It goes to show that moral outrage is often colored by partisan politics. The very people who cheered Bourne against the Deep State were supporting Obama Administration's Deep State against Snowden. It also means vigilantism's ideology depends on the context. After WWII, bands of leftists went about lynching Fascists and collaborators in Italy and France. It was a bloodbath. Blacks in RAGTIME take the law into their own hands, and one could say it is 'right-wing' from a black nationalist perspective, but it's the sort of thing leftists would feel greater sympathy for. The Negro of RAGTIME was inspired by the story of Michael Kohlhass, whose vigilante uprising could hardly be called right-wing given the rebellion was against the aristocracy. Harriet Tubman violated the law to help runaway slaves, and National Review says she was a great hero because she was a Republican and carried guns.

Things are further complicated(or confused) because Scorpio is presented as both a rogue hippie lefty and a 'racist', 'sexist', & 'homophobic' white male. But then, Charles Manson, along with the Hell's Angels, was similarly contradictory as a hippie idol into drugs, sex, & rock-n-roll AND a white radical dreaming of a race war. (Hell's Angels were the darlings of the hippie movement, but they supported the Vietnam War and made made up mostly of druggy deplorables.) To what extent Scorpio's contradictions represent tortured psychosis or calculations on part of the film-makers to avoid controversy is anyone's guess. One thing for sure, in case anyone accused the movie of featuring a counterculture villain, the makers could say, "But, he's a racist!"

Anyway, if vigilantism is breaking the law for the greater good or one's personal sense of justice/vendetta, there's surely a difference when insiders do it and outsiders do it. When James Clapper lied about the surveillance state(and its violations of the US Constitution), was the system going rogue-vigilante for the greater good to keep us safe from terrorists? Or, was it violating the Constitution to amass more power for itself. And when Edward Snowden blew the whistle, was he the good guy for remaining true to the letter of the Constitution or a mush-head who thinks the world can run along libertarian principles? Who is the 'liberal' and who is the 'rightist' in that case? Was Snowden being overly idealistic in his commitment to the law, even to the point of endangering the US to terrorist attacks? Was Clapper and the Deep State justified?

One thing for sure, DIRTY HARRY isn't about a cop who violates the law because the system does so. It's about a cop who takes the law into his own hands because the system adheres to it because the law protects criminals with 'rights'. This is what makes Callahan a more disturbing figure. Now, if he discovered that the system is circumventing the law to favor criminals against decent people, his vigilantism might make more sense in a Machiavellian manner. When the system won't play by the law, why should the conscientious lawman? But DIRTY HARRY, while showing the system to be naive, does show its commitment to the Law. This puts Callahan at a considerable ethical disadvantage.

In current reality, the system is obviously on the side of BLM thugs and Antifa terrorists. Judges and lawyers, especially the Jewish kind, ignore the Constitution & ethical principles and take part in Lawfare to coddle thugs and louts favored by Jews while throwing the book at the likes of James Field whose crime was manslaughter than murder(and only because he was surrounded by people threatening his life). Under this scenario, one can understand an Oath-Keeper sheriff who takes the law into his own hands because the system is so corrupt and rigged in favor of certain groups over others. But that is NOT the ethical dilemma in DIRTY HARRY, in which, as far as we can tell, the system is committed to adhering to the law. A far more effective right-wing movie would have focused less on the fantasy of the gun — how many cops carry magnum 44's? — and more on the power of the law, i.e. what can conservatives, libertarians, patriots, and normal decent folks do to gain control of the law and use it for sane and sound policies based on truth and are fair to all? After all, while guns can kill bad guys, it is the power of the pen that decides the laws. If the current laws aren't working, it's because they are either unenforced or defective. If the former, they need to be enforced; if the latter, they should be changed. But too often, the Right falls for the fantasy of the gun, which can only be the last resort. Besides, guns don't win hearts and minds. Mao said, "Political Power grows out of the barrel of the gun", but he wasn't calling for militarism. It was just an admission of the brutal reality of power built on war and victory. Why did so many people want to follow Mao? Because Mao brandished a big gun? No, the Chinese Communists were effective in using words and propaganda to win hearts and minds in times of crises. So, while guns are crucial in any war, the art of propaganda decides how many people with guns are on your side. While American Right stockpiles guns, the Jews and globalists got the pens, cameras, mikes, and big tech. No wonder so many white Americans, who should be right-wing given their identity and interests, are soul-owned by anti-white enemies that control the pens and cameras. (THE ONION FIELD is more useful to the Right than DIRTY HARRY is. It shows what mastery of the law can do.) Also, in ZODIAC, it's the brainy guy who comes closest to solving the puzzle.

John Simon, in his review of PATTON(compiled in MOVIES INTO FILM), took issue with how the movie was promoted as a heroic tale of a general who was a counterculture rebel in his own right. Apparently, the ad campaign pandered to Youth and liberals. (The screenplay was by Francis Ford Coppola who claimed to be a Liberal.) Yet, Simon noted that if the general was a rebel, it was in the name of more war-mongering, more militarism, more mayhem, and more blood & glory. (I wonder if Uncle Victor in HAROLD AND MAUDE was a parody of Patton.) Patton may have taken war into his own hands, but it was to better serve the agenda of beating the Nazis. And after the war, he itched for another, this time against the commies. Callahan is like Patton in that he's part of the system but believes the system isn't tough enough to go all the way, later echoed by Rambo who's sure the gung-ho Americans would have won in Vietnam but for the backstabbing politicians. Thus, he's a rebel only because the Power isn't powerful enough for him. It's like an overseer berating the master for not allowing him to whip the slaves even more.

Also, like Will Kane of HIGH NOON, Callahan might even be called something of a fool. Why does Will Kane stick around to fight Frank Miller and the baddies when the whole town doesn't care? Why risk his own life to defend the honor of townsfolk who won't stand by his side? Likewise, why does Callahan care? After all, the good people of San Fran elected those officials who, in Callahan's eyes, aren't doing enough. So, if the voters of the city want those politicians and the 'liberal politics', the sane thing for Callahan is to walk away from the city not worth saving. And yet, both Kane and Callahan decide to fight. Why? In the end, it may come down more to sense of personal pride and vendetta than anything else. It's sort of what Jon Voight's criminal character says at the end of RUNAWAY TRAIN to the cop: "It's you and me."

DIRTY HARRY is, of course, a fantasy despite its New Hollywood credentials of heightened realism. It was discussed in the company of such films as THE FRENCH CONNECTION, but there were as many differences as similarities. Gene Hackman was very much an archetypal New Hollywood actor. He lacked the classic features of a movie star and looked very much like a hard-nosed New York cop on the beat, and that's what counted. Also, he's far from perfect. He cuts corners and often plays it dirty unlike Harry Callahan who, despite his reputation, is essentially a clean and even flawless cop. Popeye Doyle(Hackman) is trigger-happy and ultimately responsible for two dead cops due to 'friendly fire'. In contrast, Callahan is like an angel of death who never misses his target. And there isn't an hint of corruption or personal fault in him. Even his 'racism' is the ironic wink-wink kind, mere tough guy demeanor, whereas Popeye Doyle really loves to stick it to blacks. This makes him heroic and mythic but hardly believable.
More interesting are the compromised characters in TOUCH OF EVIL, PRINCE OF THE CITY, and INSOMNIA. The fat cop in Orson Welles' film is corrupt, but that's what makes him so good. He's so much a part of the swamp that he knows where the swamp creatures swim. His keen instincts cannot be divorced from his cynicism. He knows the heart of the crook too well because he himself has a crooked heart. He's one of the best precisely because he's one of the worst. He has some admirable qualities, but Welles regarded him as a tragic and evil character because, when the figure of authority violates the law, the foundation itself is corrupted. After all, what is the main difference between the cop and the crook? They both have guns and use violence, but the cop plays by the rules whereas the crook has no use for rules. But what happens when cops themselves ignore the rules? The cop in INSOMNIA is compromised but also virtuous in his own way. He's done shady things but sometimes to do what, in his mind, was the right thing. But using a lie to send a bad guy to prison means he had to cover up that lie to save his own skin, and then, the question arises, to what extent is the coverup(amidst new scandals) to keep the bad guy in prison or to save his own ass? Also, once cops can get away with doing their own thing, who's to say they'll always do so for reasons of virtue than vice? How many cops are saints like Harry Callahan?

In PRINCE OF THE CITY(the best film about police work), Danny Ciello(Treat Williams) gives his rationale as to why he and his partners break the rules: They can catch more criminals. And yet, what do these cops do with the money they take from the crooks? They keep some of it for themselves. Once adherence to rules begin to break down, there's no guarantee where it will lead. The characters in PRINCE OF THE CITY are recognizably human, whereas Harry Callahan is simply an Ideal. No wonder Pauline Kael called him something like a saint cop. Callahan breaks the rules only for the most laudable reasons and his gun always miraculously tags only the bad guys. Thus, DIRTY HARRY is a New Hollywood movie with Old Hollywood tropes. It's no wonder John Wayne was first approached for the role. A classic Western hero in the urban jungle. But then, that's not entirely accurate either as John Wayne and old Hollywood stars were recognizably human whereas Harry Callahan is nearly superhuman at times, especially the moment he jumps onto the school bus from a bridge. In some ways, he owes more to the nihilism of the Man with No Name of the Spaghetti Westerns than classic Westerns. For this reason, some have argued that DIRTY HARRY is about the hero and villain being two sides of the same coin, but that's pushing it. That's more like TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A. Despite Callahan's knack for violence at opportune moments, he's totally a Good Guy whereas there isn't a single redeemable quality about Scorpio.

Liberalism holds that society can be ruled by impersonal laws, not men. Thus any film giving a favorable view of vigilantism—in which laws break down and individuals take justice into their own hands—is anti-liberal.

But that is the real problem with Liberalism. By the way, the emphasis on the Law has more to do with Libertarianism and its cult of 'Muh Constitution'. Liberalism failed in the late 60s and early 70s not because it upheld the law at all costs but because it undermined the (the rule of) Law with its sentimentalism, especially in relation to the Negro Problem. So, increasingly, the law was not applied to bad black behavior. And already by then, so-called 'liberal' Jews were manipulating the Law on the basis of "Is it good for Jews?"
Getting rid of racial discrimination was Liberal Constitutionalism, but Affirmative Action was not. Increasingly, so-called Liberals circumvented the Law to get whatever they wanted. Rule of Law became a game of Rule of Lawyers(backed with the Jewish-run media). However one may feel about abortion, Roe V. Wade was flimsy on Constitutional grounds, and of late, 'gay marriage' has NO standing in the Constitution whatever, but it became 'law of the land'.

So, it's wrong to characterize what goes by 'Liberalism' as a diehard commitment to the Law. Indeed, things wouldn't have gotten so bad IF so-called Liberals stuck by the Rule of Law.
Under Liberalism, Jewish crooks just got slap on the wrist. Today, while the FBI investigates signs "It's Okay to be White", Jews get to promote Jewish Supremacism at massive AIPAC rallies. Look how Jussie Smollett got off scot-free despite his 'hate hoax'.
So, the big irony of DIRTY HARRY is that the so-called Liberals(led by Jews of course) actually took the law into their own hands and rigged everything for their benefit. According to DIRTY HARRY, the mushy Liberals are sticklers to the law(despite the danger to the public) while Callahan is willing to bend the law to get things done. Actually, Liberals have been more like Callahan. Jews and Liberals play fast and loose with the rules to get whatever they want. They were for Free Speech when it served their purposes, but now, they are for controlling speech because 'hate speech' is the Scorpio of our age. We are all 'domestic terrorists' for daring to name the Jew or far less.

Harry Callahan is another one of Eastwood’s taciturn Aryan heroes, a physically imposing and highly capable alpha male who becomes a protector of public order.

Given the connotations, there was precious little that was 'Aryan' about Eastwood. He's too deadpan and too American to be 'Aryan' with its implications of the Nietzschean Ubermensch. While John Wayne and Clint Eastwood usually played the alpha type, they weren't hung-up on their superiority and got along swell with the rest of mankind. And even in HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER where Eastwood plays a low-and-dirty anti-hero, it's purely a personal vendetta whereas an 'Aryan' hero has a higher vision.
Charlton Heston, in contrast, had something of the 'Aryan' thing going despite having played perhaps the two most famous Jewish characters in cinema: Moses and Ben-Hur. Heston was always brazen, intense, radiant. Despite his height, Eastwood always seemed to be slouching; in contrast, Heston stands tall even when sitting, as if self-conscious of his Arno-Breker-like monumental status.

Like most of Eastwood’s classics, the world of Dirty Harry is divided into sheep, the wolves who prey on them, and the sheepdogs who protect the flock, to borrow a scheme from American Sniper. However, despite their opposed roles, wolves and sheepdogs have more in common with each other than they do with sheep, and the flock starts bleating nervously when the dogs bare their fangs at the wolves.

But is Scorpio really a wolf? He's more like a rat or weasel. A wolf is at least a proud and fearsome predator. Scorpio is like a parasite or scavenger. Wolves bring down animals much bigger than themselves. Scorpio goes after easy targets.
AMERICAN SNIPER is pretty good but deeply confused(or maybe genuinely complex). Many saw it as a patriotic movie, but the 'hero' seems a rather mindless gun-nut who's only good for shooting people halfway across the globe. The most admirable character is the guy who thinks for himself and begins to question his role in the Middle East. Sadly, he gets shot. Interestingly enough, the 'hero' of the movie is a sniper, not unlike Scorpio. Sniping is perhaps the least heroic of all military roles, especially when one is a part of an invasive force and must seriously consider shooting women and children who are resisting the Occupation.

He is a widower. His wife was killed by a drunk driver. He does not appear to have children. His work is his life now.

One thing I like about Eastwood's role as Man with No Name and Harry Callahan is the near-celibacy. Also true of Charles Bronson. (Supposedly, there's a scene with Eastwood and a woman in bed in THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY but it was cut out.) I never cared for James Bond jumping in the sack with every bimbo and don't care for the hanky-panky in Eastwood's EIGER SANCTION. Women and action movies don't mix. Put men and women together in romance movies.

Dirty Harry didn’t just pioneer the loose cannon cop genre, it also established the convention of pairing these white alpha males with non-white sidekicks.

Hardly. There was the Lone Ranger and Tonto. And Robert Culp and Bill Cosby on I SPY. And Bruce Lee as Kato as sidekick to the Green Hornet. And it goes as far back as THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS where the white man has a trusty Indian by his side.

But a white alpha male mentoring another white man as a guardian of society would make Don Siegel hallucinate the sound marching feet.

Did Siegel decide on the Mexican sidekick? I think he just directed, though the original script seems to be by a Jew named Harry Fink.

However, if Harry hates honkies, he can’t be a white racist. And if his name is Callahan, that makes him a self-hating Mick. In truth, Harry is merely what today we call politically incorrect.

Of course, the guy was just joking as to why Harry is called 'dirty'. All he meant is Harry is a tough cop and shows no favor to anyone. It's like the opening of FULL METAL JACKET where gunnery sergeant Hartman hollers "Because I am hard, you will not like me. But the more you hate me, the more you will learn. I am hard but I am fair. There is no racial bigotry here. I do not look down on niggers, kikes, wops or greasers. Here you are all equally worthless."

Harry has more than just a touch of sadism, which is brought out in the movie’s most quoted scene.

I don't think the scene with Buckwheat is sadistic. And it's even less so at the end with Scorpio. It would have been sadistic IF Buckwheat was taunted by Callahan for no reason. In contrast, Callahan is trying to defuse the situation(and putting his own life at great risk because, had the Negro been better at math, he would have realized the whitey done emptied his gun in the melee). Buckwheat, eyeing the shotgun near him, is tempted to grab it and blow away the whitey's mothafuc*in' ass. But after hearing Callahan's lecture, a crude version of Professor Kingsfield's in THE PAPER CHASE — "you lie there with a skull full of Negro Mush, which I can blow clean off" — , Buckwheat makes the wise choice.
If there's a hint of sadism about the scene, it's AFTER the Negro decides to give up the gun. Buckwheat, being ever so curious, just 'gots to know, sheeeeeeeiiiiit', whereupon Callahan gleefully pulls the trigger knowing the gun's empty. The empty guns means Callahan was playing a game of San Fran roulette. If indeed Buckwheat had grabbed for the gun, he could have blown away the 'honkey-ass mofo'.

In the final encounter with Scorpio, it's not sadistic at all. If anything, Callahan is giving the punk one last chance to live. If Callahan really had a sadistic streak, he wouldn't have said anything and just shot Scorpio piecemeal by piecemeal: a hand, a heel, a knee, the balls, etc.

You wonder how many times he has done this. He enjoys killing scum.

But throughout the movie, we sense he prefers it easy than hard. When pushed to the edge, he can get riled up and kill with a cold heart, but he doesn't enjoy the thrills of police work. The thrill-maniac is the guy in TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A. who lives for the adrenaline of chasing and being chased.

The plot of Dirty Harry is a standard neo-noir police thriller.

Lots of things have been called 'noir', but DIRTY HARRY doesn't really count as one. There is an obvious bad guy in DIRTY HARRY, and the basic focus is between good cop Harry and bad freako Scorpio. Thus, it's more like a Western than a noir. CHINATOWN is noir, a genre where the dark, corrupt, and venal are part of the mundane. Seedy corruption could be in the heart of your next door neighbor who could be plotting with your very wife to have you murdered, and you, dark soul that you are, either deserve it or have something up your sleeve as well. Good and Evil are too clearly demarcated in DIRTY HARRY for it to be noir.

Scorpio is a Dostoyevskyian criminal Untermensch. He’s physically weak, unmasculine, and cowardly, palpably seething with resentment. He screams like a pig, blubbers like a child, and develops a severe limp after Harry stabs then shoots him in the leg.

Andy Robinson did a terrific job, and the reason why the first DIRTY HARRY is the only classic owes to the villainy. Still, Scorpio is a cartoon, more Batman-and-Joker than Dostoevsky.

(Scorpio) pays a black thug $200 to beat him to a pulp, then blames it on Callahan. This sequence is a viscerally powerful critique of modern liberal slave morality which rewards and weaponizes victimhood, creating an incentive to fabricate police brutality and hate crimes.

Is the current liberalism about 'slave morality'? Slave Morality, as I understand it, preaches to the masses to submit to their allotted roles without complaint. To be a Dalit or Untouchable is Slave Morality in the Hindu Context. Jesus preached love and brotherhood, and He sympathized with the poor & the powerless and told them to be meek & humble, and if this is Slave Morality, it was advantageous to the Powerful because the meek accepted their lowly state in This World in exchange for Eternity in the Kingdom of Heaven. If Christian Slave Morality is so dangerous to the elites and the powerful, why did they support the churches?
What is often called 'Slave Morality' is actually the Slave Rebellion Morality, quite a different thing. Slave Morality is about people accepting their slave roles in society. In contrast, Slave Rebellion Morality is about slaves throwing off their shackles and demanding their freedom or demanding their share of the power.
It's when Serfs are okay with being Serfs that they are part of Slave Morality. When Serfs want to be free, they are part of Slave Rebellion Morality, and it is what distinguished the West from the Rest where the great masses internalized Slave Morality and mostly bowed down before the Master Class.

Who do we respect more? Slaves who remain meekly as slaves or slaves who fight back and want to be free and masters of their own destiny? If anything, White People now need Slave Rebellion Morality more than ever because a Neo-Slave-Morality has come to define white mass psychology. So many whites are happy-sappy to cuck before Jews, blacks, and homos as racial, moral, and even spiritual superiors. Instead of joining the White Slave Rebellion against the Jewgromo Plantation, too many whites are happy to be like Mitt Romney, the total cuck, or Donald Trump, who talks big but when, push comes to shove, takes it up the arse from his Jewish Masters.

And even though Scorpio exploits the talk of 'rights', those rights are the ONLY things that stand between us and the powerful. Jews got media, academia, law firms, courts, deep state, banks, big tech, and just about everything to crush us. Jews aim to take away our gun rights and speech rights. Are we into 'slave morality' for championing those rights or pointing to how whites are being victimized by Jews? Only if you're willing to submit to the Great Reset. If you want to resist, you're into Slave Rebellion Morality.

Also, the Master Morality is no better than Slave Morality. It should be obvious by now that the Master Class was never what it claimed to be. Most heirs to the throne were spoiled namby pamby brats. While those who gained power for themselves proved their will-power and mettle, their total obsession with domination blinded them to finer things. And just look at the so-called 'best and the brightest'. What a bunch of nasty Jews and craven cuck goyim.
Also, any system of Master Class surrounds itself with the Toady Class. The powerful don't want to be challenged, and so, they want pliable flunkies than honest and courageous people. Who did Bill Buckley choose? Rich Lowry. Who did Hilton Kramer choose? Roger Kimball. Second-rate toadies. This is the problem facing Russia. Vladimir Putin had what it took to maneuver himself to top position, but he chose too many flunkies, the kind of people who will always follow the strong horse without convictions of their own.

Now, one can argue that the current PC is a kind of 'slave morality' in that the liberated non-slaves still cling to their slave-identity, indeed as if past victimhood eternally defines who they are. So, blacks act like they're still slaves, and Jews constantly invoke the Holocaust, as if they're all a bunch of Anne Franks forever and ever. But this is clearly not the kind of 'slave morality' as preached by Jesus who told people to accept their miserable lot in life without complaint and look to Heaven for salvation.
If Jews and blacks were into genuine 'slave morality', they would be forgiving and resigned to the fallen state of the world. But, they are really driven by a fiery will-to-power to dominate, amass power, and be worshiped by others. They act like slave rebels who'd come into positions of the New Master Class, but they still yap about victimhood. But then, American History is about a people who built a new nation and became masters of the world but still invoke 1776 about how freedom-loving folks rebelled against British Tyranny. This kind of 'slavery morality' is merely a moral shield for the Will to Power. Ruthless Jews tell the 'slave' story to justify their master status over us. In a way, it's clever thinking. People naturally love power but also want to feel justified. "Our power was gained against tyranny" surely goes a long way to justify the new tyranny.

Harry has been living the zone of what Carl Schmitt called the “Ernstfall,” the emergency situation in which the reigning liberal norms are not capable of pursuing justice. Faced with the choice of law or justice, Harry chooses justice. It is the first step down the path to the vigilante—or the superhero.

Of course, the danger of tossing the Law is a people could end up with Adolf Hitler. Hitler did take on bad Jewish behavior and did bring some measure of justice to the German people with his restoration of territories, economy, and pride. But without independent due process of the law and rights of dissent, the New Boss can do whatever he wishes, and what if he's pathological beneath the respectable exterior? When individuals promising justice(in exchange for absolute power) replace the legal functioning of institutions, the cure can turn out to be worse than the disease. This aspect of DIRTY HARRY was called 'fascist', but the communists made the same promise: "The Liberal Bourgeois order is full of BS and only serves the rich. For true justice, give us communists the power to destroy the exploitative class and you shall have justice. Real justice than empty liberal-bourgeois promises." The result was Leninism, Stalinism, and Maoism.

Whatever the current system in the West is, it is not liberal. It is Uberall, or Jewish Globalism Uber Alles. The White Right would be in much better shape if indeed the West was truly liberal and allowed free speech and open discourse for all under the protection of the law. But Jewish dirty harrys have decided to go rogue to destroy the 'scorpios' of the 'far-right' and of course BDS. Ricky Vaughn the 'domestic terrorist' is now in prison because of a prank meme. It's the time to be screaming about 'rights'.

Looking back, the 60s and 70s went badly not because of Liberalism's strict adherence to the Law but its selective application that increasingly favored Jews, blacks, and certain other groups over all others. The problem ultimately wasn't with hippies, a passing fashion. Or with serial killers, who will always be with us. The real problem was blacks whose rage Jews exploited to use against whites. But when Jews let out the panther to attack whitey, it also bit him in the ass. So, movies like DEATH WISH were both Hollywood's exploitation of white fears for profits and expression of Jewish disappointment that blacks dared to attack the Jew as well as Whitey.

The Dirty Harry Sequels: Deconstructing a Hero: https://counter-currents.com/2021/02/the-dirty-harry-sequels/

 The best way to appreciate Dirty Harry is to compare it to its four terrible sequels.

Sequels are reliably terrible. Still, DIRTY HARRY sequels weren’t as disgraceful as ROCKY and RAMBO sequels, among many others.

Sequels can be interesting IF a singular director has ample imagination to expand the material. No wonder FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE and THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY are even better than the first A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS. Such sequels are unified by an ‘auteur’ vision.

Sequels can work if the material is formulaic to begin with. The success of 007 and Zatoichi movies owes to this. The fan base essentially wanted the same old or the same new. It’s like ordering from one's favorite pizzeria over and over.

Sequels are justified when the original movie is incomplete or open to further development, as with THE GODFATHER PART 2 and THE NEW LAND(which follows THE EMIGRANTS). As Part 1 traced the rise of Michael Corleone, part 2 could focus on his consolidation of power. And there was more in the family saga, as well as the story of Vito Corleon's origins.

Though George Lucas ultimately botched STAR WARS, the sequels were part of his original big concept. Still, it was meant to be a closed system(like Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle) than open-ended, which is why the Disney Reboot was so ill-conceived; it was driven by money(and the ideological agenda to de-Aryanize the material). STAR TREK was conceived as a open system for TV and could go on and on. STAR WARS was meant to unfold like a fairy tale, with ‘Once Upon a Time’ beginning and ‘Happily Ever After’ ending.

Another way sequels can be interesting if if the material is open to new interpretations and variations. This was true of the ALIEN franchise, at least prior to PROMETHEUS. First-rate talents were recruited to give new spins on the core premise.

Unfortunately, the only rationale for most sequels is More Money(like with JAWS and HALLOWEEN). Usually, the director of the remarkable original isn’t interested IF he has any integrity. He did the first movie out of conviction and doesn’t want to compromise himself and cheapen the material for quick profit. So, sequels are usually done by second-raters. Also, the power of certain movies owes to their urgency & topicality. DIRTY HARRY was the right(ist) movie for the right time. Later, it just became a nostalgia act.

DIRTY HARRY should have been a stand-alone movie. It ended like HIGH NOON, and who’d want a sequel to HIGH NOON? Sequels followed THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, and they were a bad idea.
Some stories say everything that needs to be said and MORE would simply be superfluous. This was true of ROCKY where the local palooka loses the fight but earns self-respect. Anything more would spoil the magic. (Sadly, the audience didn’t agree and kept rewarding Stallone for Rocky sequels while neglecting his attempts to do something different.)

DIRTY HARRY also has nothing more to say as it ended. Harry Callahan’s flinging the badge has double meaning. The system isn’t capable of dealing with criminals, and he wants nothing more to do with it. But, there’s also the sense that his way is unacceptable. It isn’t the Wild West anymore, and if every cop could just go around with a Magnum and blow away bad guys out of personal vendetta, cops would be the new outlaw class. So, Callahan is caught between a rock and hard place. The system is too soft, but then, he doesn’t want to be a mad killer cop. He did it against Scorpio whom he especially came to loathe, but it was so out-of-control. So, unwilling to serve a weak system and unwilling to be a monster, he walks away. It is a pessimistic happy ending. The killer is dead, but Callahan's heart is too.

There is a dark integrity to Callahan's methods — he risks his job and reputation to mete out true justice —, but it vanishes with the sequels because he’s back to doing the same thing with apparent approval of officialdom. As such, the sequels undermine the social critique of the original. If indeed the system cannot tolerate a man like Callahan, why is he allowed to remain on the job even as he piles up body counts in ever more spectacular ways? Hmm, maybe the system can use a man like Harry after all. In the original, we shared Callahan’s frustration when the system obstructed his actions, but in the sequels the System vs Callahan is just a wink-wink horseplay where he’s routinely reprimanded but let loose to fire off his cannon in every direction. Also, whereas Callahan was a beleaguered individual in the first film, he’s a celebrated institution in the sequels. Even the obligatory reprimands are part of the legend, elevating than degrading him. It’s like Godzilla was a terrifying monster in the first movie but a beloved national symbol in the sequels.

Dirty Harry was decried as “fascist” for making a hero of a vigilante cop who was also characterized as a racist, although the movie pulled its punches on this particular matter by making Harry an equal opportunity hater and partnering him with one Chico Gonzalez.

There are ‘racists’ and then there are ‘racists’. People love the soft bigot for three reasons: (1) Being less 'sensitive', he might blurt out the inconvenient truth — Mike Royko the famous Chicago columnist often played on this (2) bigotry is often funny, e.g. Dumb Polack Jokes and Jewish Jokes (3) there is the chance for redemption, like when the Negro in PHILADELPHIA comes to feel for the homo dying of AIDS. (And of course, Oscar Schindler goes from a war profiteer who dallies with Nazi stalwarts to a savior of Jews. Apparently, soft bigots can be turned, and this Damascus Moment is inspiring.) People don’t like hard bigots like the KKK guy on Howard Stern Show. They come across as too grim and extreme. But they love soft bigots who function like the hooker with the heart of gold in fiction. 

Soft bigots like Archie Bunker, George Jefferson, and Fred G. Sanford were always funny, even endearing. Despite their outward bigotry, they had a heart and, when push came to shove, could be expected to be on the side of sentiment. And sometimes, Archie Bunker was closer to the truth than overly idealistic and naive Meathead. Dirty Harry was a soft bigot, a role Eastwood reprised in GRAN TORINO.

At the end of Dirty Harry, Callahan looks like he is quitting the police force and going rogue.

No, it looks like he’s calling it quits for good. There’s no indication that he’s going rogue. He’s just walking away. System is soft, thugs are brazen, and he’s sick & tired of being a tough guy against rough guys in a system gone too soft. He’s not planning to be Judge Dredd.

It turns out that the culprits are four good-looking white motorcycle cops played by David Soul, Robert Urich, Tim Matheson, and Kip Niven. Of course the “real” Harry Callahan would have been mentoring young men like this, not trying to arrest them.

No, Callahan would never have mentored them to be vigilantes. He is above all an individual, something of a loner. He did it his way in DIRTY HARRY because HE felt it was right. He resents having his decisions(based on experience) blocked by some paper pusher, but neither does he want to be a ringleader forcing his agenda on others. Callahan is a case of pulp existentialism. He doesn’t claim to know the truth or the way for all times and all places. Rather, based on experience and intuition, he believes his way is best for himself in a town he knows like the back of his hand. But, he doesn’t believe his way should be The Way for the system or for others. Pauline Kael mentioned Ayn Rand in her review of DIRTY HARRY, and there is indeed something similar between Harry Callahan and Howard Roark. Roark believes his way is right for himself. He doesn’t want to be told what to do, but then, he would never tell others to do it his way. Everyone has to know himself and find his own right way.

The scenario of MAGNUM FORCE is a dark reflection of the system in the original. Whether too-soft-and-liberal or too-authoritarian-and-hardline, both systems are about some paper-pushing bureaucrat turning theory into practice with automatons who only know how to follow orders. So, if cops in DIRTY HARRY are expected to mindlessly follow the ‘liberal’ line, the cops in MAGNUM FORCE are trained to follow authoritarian dictates. Callahan sees both ways as mindless and faceless, an abandonment of individuality in total submission to the system.
Also, if the evil mastermind in MAGNUM FORCE is secretly building up a new police corp., he isn’t really going rogue but crypto-statist. And who knows how this power may be used in the future if it becomes the New Way? After all, conservatives assumed that the US military and US police are bastions of conservatism, but the US military is now the warring force of globo-homo and miscegenation(and war drums are sounded by progs and libby-dibs). And US police stand idly by while Antifa thugs attack American patriots and move into action to arrest the patriots who dare to fight back.

So, in a way, the concerns raised by MAGNUM FORCE are relevant. While the Holbrook character may be building up a new authoritarian police force to fight crime, once instituted who is to tell how it will be used? After 9/11, we were told the Patriot Act was to defend us from terrorists, but under Obama the US was working with Alqaeda, and worse, we are now told that half the nation are potential ‘domestic terrorists’. Patriot Act is now being turned on Americans as the enemies of the state.

Today, the libby-dibs wanna go ‘rogue’ with the Constitution and are cheering suppression of free speech by invoking ‘hate speech’ and thought criminals. Supposedly, we are so evil that lawyers and journalists must stop upholding age-old principles and use whatever means to shut us down.

And according to TIME mag, it was so inspiring for a cabal of Jewish oligarchs and elites to use extra-legal means to rig the election in favor of Joe Biden because Donald Trump is unfit for their idea of ‘democracy’. Whether it’s called going rogue or going gangster, it can be turned against you… like Germany’s use of poison gas in WWI. When the wind shifted, the gas came right back.

Clean Harry argues (1) that vigilantism is a slippery slope that will lead to shooting people over parking tickets, which is absurd, and (2) that the system may be broken, but it is the only one we’ve got, and we can’t let go of it, which is Republican

Harry’s argument isn’t really about vigilantism per se. Brigg(Holbrook) isn’t just an angry official lashing out at thugs and crooks in a city going down the sewer. He’s trying to institutionalize what is considered ‘vigilantism’ into a new system of law and order. He’s trying to create a deep state within the police system. But if such power becomes reality, there’s no guarantee it will be used only to fight thugs and criminals. It can be politicized. Vigilantes tend to be individuals than institutions. 60s radicals of the Long March through the institutions proved that what was once ‘radical’ and ‘seditious’ could become the New Normal and Obligatory Officialdom. The rogue can become the new vogue.

Over the years, the militarization of the police has taken place. Also, Charlottesville taught us about how the system can use an authoritarian police force to violate the rights of free speech and free assembly. The police didn’t stand by the Constitution but took orders from Jewish and black bosses to use magnum force against the Alt Rightists, pushing them into crowds of Antifa and other scum.

The current order of lawfare and militarized police force don’t shoot people for parking tickets, but James Field in sitting in jail for 500 yrs for what was, at most, manslaughter.
In our time, the question isn’t “Is the legal system too soft?” or “Is the legal system too tough?” but “Why is the legal system so soft on some people, esp. Jews, homos, & blacks, while so tough on others, especially white conservatives, populists, and nationalists?” If you’re a Jewish gangster who stole billions and support Zionist terrorism, you get pardoned and walk freely. But if you’re a white patriot, the banks deny you service, you get fired, and you can be dragged to prison for fighting back against Antifa.

Magnum Force was directed by Ted Post. I didn’t need to visit Wikipedia to know that he made his career in television.

Ted Post was a decent journeyman director who worked with big stars.

https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/hang-em-high/Film?oid=1053493

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/25/movies/ted-post-director-for-film-and-television-dies-at-95.html

On its release in 1978, “Go Tell the Spartans” received respectful reviews in major newspapers and a few raves. Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic called it “the best film I’ve seen about the Vietnam War.” But appearing in theaters at virtually the same time as the better-financed and better-publicized Vietnam films “Coming Home” and “The Deer Hunter,” it failed at the box office.
“Spartans” began receiving a second look when the influential film quarterly Cineaste published an article in 1983 comparing it favorably to “The Deer Hunter,” “Coming Home” and Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 epic, “Apocalypse Now.” The article, by the film historian Rob Edelman, helped spur the movie’s re-release in 1987.
Upon the re-release, the film historian Burt Cadullo wrote, “It’s time that this film received the recognition it deserves,” but “Spartans” still performed poorly in theaters.

The allegedly clever line that Harry repeats is, “A man’s got to know his limitations,” which is a far cry from, “Do you feel lucky?”

Most Dirty Harry lines mean little on their own. They have meaning within the context; they work like jokes, and the final line in MAGNUM FORCE does work in timing and delivery. It’s like Blondie’s line THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY.

It’s why some of the most famous movie lines are actually pretty dull or lame minus the context, like song lyrics without the music. Take the line “I’ll be back” in THE TERMINATOR. On its own, it’s hardly Shakespeare, but in that scene where the killer robot crashes the car through the station and lumbers down the hall with rifles, it’s classic.
Lines in a play must rely on the power of words alone, whereas words in movies often serve as mere counterpoint to the spectacle. Like John Wayne’s “That’ll be the day” that, on its own, is dull but takes on various meanings within the context ranging from comic to tragic.

Harry is paired with a female rookie (Tyne Daly), .. But her lack of experience gets her killed while rescuing the mayor. Thus The Enforcer actually amounts to a powerful critique of affirmative action and the political flakes who push it.

This is simply not true and you’re projecting your ideological bias onto the scene. The movie shows her to be quite capable, a fast learner. Also, her death isn’t the result of lack of experience(and if it were, it could be remedied with MORE experience) but of risking her own life to save Harry’s. When she yelled, “Look out”, Callahan’s back was turned to the killer who could have blown him away. Her warning saved his life, and she took the bullets meant for him. Thus, it is Callahan who owes her one. Also, she’s professional enough to tell Callahan to go save the mayor than concern himself with her. So, she dies with honor.

Harry suspects that Jennifer is the real killer, but since Mick has the murder weapon on him, Harry pins the other murders on him and lets Jennifer walk away. It is a bizarre ending. It is not really an endorsement of vigilantism, however, because Harry doesn’t actually know why Jennifer is killing these people. It is just a bizarre lapse of responsibility.

How could Callahan not know when she spelled it all out?

“Read me my rights? And where was all this concern for my rights when I was being beaten and mauled? And where were my sister’s rights when she was being brutalized? There is a thing called justice Callahan, and is it justice that they should all just walk away?”

 There have been three major arguments against vigilantes.

1. Even if the aggrieved go after the real villains, there is no due process. Thus, justice itself becomes criminal.

2. Even if the guilty are caught and punished, the vigilantes may go overboard in vengeful sadism and resort to cruel & unusual punishment. Like torture and horrible lynching. While prog-types condemn the lynching of blacks in the South(deemed ‘racist’ and cruel even when blacks were guilty), they seem to delight in their own torture-porn revenge fantasies. There was a nasty piece of work called HARD CANDY(though its pedo-gate vibes might appeal to the pizzagate crowd). Blacks and progs loved DJANGO UNCHAINED where a black guy and a German take the law into their own hand against slave masters and ‘racists’. Blacks reveled in the bloodbath, and there was a movie recently called MA where a fat black woman takes revenge on white kids. And a movie called INVISIBLE MAN had a white woman allying with a noble black man(LOL) to kill an evil white male. And blockbuster GIRL WITH THE DRAGON ASS TATTOO movies are vigilante movies as anti-Nazi fantasies. In a way, many Nazi-hunter movies are vigilante in nature. Jews go rogue to catch Nazi criminals and bring them to justice.

Atom Egoyan’s trashy and sleazy —how he has fallen as an artist — REMEMBER, like BOYS FROM BRAZIL, is about a 'Jew' who goes rogue to hunt down Nazis. (Actually, it has a twist ending, but you get the point.)

GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO might be called leftist, but are the revenge fantasies of Jews and blacks leftist or rightist? If they are about pursuit of justice, they could be called leftist, but if the rage is driven by tribal animus, they’d be rightist. Leftism is about Us over Them, whereas Rightism is about Us vs. Them.

The vigilantism in Clint Eastwood's THE UNFORGIVEN is closer to leftism because the men are motivated, at least ostensibly, by a sense of injustice over what was done to a woman. But the revenge fantasy of something like SWEEET SWEETBACK’S BLACK ASS SONG seems driven by racial animus, thus it could be called black-tribalist(if not exactly rightist).

Vigilantism becomes further confused when crime itself is regarded as a form of crude justice.
Some vigilantes are surely law-and-order types who venture outside the law to get the criminal. And yet, in going outside the law, they are nominally criminals themselves. But, what about those who turn to crime itself as righteous rebellion against society? Thus, crime itself becomes a kind of vigilantism. Black mentality works this way. They commit crime on the self-serving premise that they are OWED by a ‘racist’ society. A strain of leftism, especially in vogue in France in the 60s, encouraged acts of crime as revolutionary acts of justice.

3. The biggest problem of vigilantism is catching, tormenting, and/or killing the wrong person. If the system of due process can sometimes convict and execute the wrong person, a vigilante gang has a far bigger chance of hanging the wrong horse thief. Frontier justice was problematic for this reason, and movies like OX-BOW INCIDENT illustrated the danger of vigilantism. Three men are hanged but they turn out to be innocent of the crime. And in Henry King's THE BRAVADOS(starring Gregory Peck), the hero catches up to the villains and kills them… only to discover out he killed the wrong men. The men are bad alright but not guilty of the crime that obsesses Peck's character.

MAGNUM FORCE is actually consistent with the theme of DIRTY HARRY. Callahan is quintessentially American. He has a frontier mentality and believes in manhood and violence. But he’s all about freedom and standing on his own two feet. He will never sacrifice freedom and individuality in the name of Order. He’s not the enemy of freedom and liberty. He’s the enemy of naivete and political opportunism. Some legislators just don’t know the reality, and some politicians are more interested in public opinion polls. So, he feels he must go the extra mile to do what’s right on occasion. Still, he’s a defender of freedom, thus very much a John-Wayne-like character. John Wayne characters believe in toughness and violence but would never give up freedom and liberty. In THE SEARCHERS, he goes his own way and does it his way.

In contrast, the crypto-fascist cops in MAGNUM FORCE are about Order uber Freedom. They are committed to rooting out crime but their agenda goes much further. They have no use for freedom or liberty. They are about conformity, not individuality. They take orders from above and do as told, and they speak like clones. They are like Stepford Cops. Harry is somewhat like Gary Cooper's character in MEET JOHN DOE. 'John Doe' wants something better but doesn't want to be a tool of an power-mad organization that seeking to impose its will over the populace. It's part of the American Ethos of individualism and freedom, though it may have been more myth than reality where the real power was concerned. After all, while Jews were certainly for individuality, they were also for tribal-communal-unity. Jews feared German collectivism far more than Anglo-American individualism because collective unity leads to amassing of real power and could be used effectively against Jews.

And in a way, they were prescient of the national security state that really took hold after 9/11, what with Bush II saying, “If you’re not with us, you’re against us.” And Jewpet Biden intends to broaden the War on Terror… this time against ‘deplorables’. Of course, the insane Jewish power plays it both-ways-schizo. It will sometimes rile up BLM & Antifa mobs and call for ‘defunding the police’ in the name of combating ‘systemic racism’. This throws a bone to the radicals and black voters. But when Jews feel threatened by white populists, they will totally be for law-and-order and turn DC into an armed camp and hail the police as heroes.

This was the danger of National Socialism. True, there was a need for stability and order from the chaos and degeneration of Weimar Period, but should people have surrendered their freedom and individuality to radical authoritarianism? Could they be sure that the New Power would limit itself to national restoration? Hitler couldn’t stop once the goals of national renewal were met. He had bigger expansionist ideas that led to war, and by that time, Germans couldn’t do anything about it because they’d given up all their rights and freedom to the Fuhrer.

So, in that sense, DIRTY HARRY isn't really fascist. Upon release, it was a retro-Western in contemporary setting. It was about anger and violence, but it was never about surrendering individual freedom for order. If anything, it is a message of ultra-individualist rebellion against Liberal Statism premised on naivete and cynicism. Unlike fascism, it wasn’t calling for more statism as the solution but more individual freedom to deal with criminals.

So, Callahan of MAGNUM FORCE is very consistent with the incarnation in the first film.

Incidentally, Jews called Trump ‘fascist’ for asking the military to do something about BLM riots, but after the Capitol building was occupied for a couple of hours, Jews and Democrats went ‘full-fascist’ and turned the whole city into a military zone. So, as usual, it all comes down to “Is it good for Jews?” 

Jews are in heaven in the US. Just think. Jewish Capitalists use ‘commies’ to attack ‘nazis'(the deplorables), but the ‘nazis’ defend the capitalists from the ‘commies’. ROTFL. Jewish oligarchs use Antifa against Deplorables, but Deplorables gripe about ‘socialists’ who supposedly threaten the capitalism of the oligarchic class of Jews... who use Antifa against the Deplorables. Why, it’s like a man using dog A to attack dog B but dog B defending the man from dog A. Total Clown Show. If Deplorables had any sense, they would be for socialism of the national kind.

Notes on An Essay on "Jewish Themes in THE GRADUATE(1967, dir. Mike Nichols)" by Brenton Sanderson

https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2020/07/26/jewish-themes-in-the-graduate-1967/

The Jewish Angle in THE GRADUATE has been much discussed. But whatever its implications and meanings, there's no denying the brilliance with which Mike Nichols made the movie, something that eluded him in later works... though CATCH-22 has its moments and CARNAL KNOWLEDGE is pretty compelling as an arty take on the Sexual Revolution. So, the talent has to be discussed in relation to the film's impact. THE GRADUATE would likely have failed with critics and audience in lesser hands, whatever its message. It's like almost no one talks about GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER or just about anything by Stanley Kramer. Though Nichols ultimately didn't turn out to be a great director, he made one great movie, THE GRADUATE, much like Ridley Scott surpassed his limitations one time with BLADE RUNNER. Likewise, other key works by Jewish directors of the period must be considered(even in criticism) with an appreciation of their power as artists, wits, dramatists, expressionists. Even if there is a Jewish angle to THE GRADUATE and other works by Jewish artists, there is much more than mere ethnic propaganda. Stanley Kubrick made 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. Roman Polanski made ROSEMARY'S BABY. Stuart Rosenberg made COOL HAND LUKE. Arthur Penn made BONNIE & CLYDE. Arthur Schlesinger made MIDNIGHT COWBOY. Richard Brooks made IN COLD BLOOD. Earlier in the decade, Blake Edwards made BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S. Though Sidney Lumet would come to greatness in the 70s and 80s, he was emerging as a force as well. (Norman Jewison, who made IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, isn't Jewish despite the name.)
Now, not all the above-listed directors attained greatness. Rosenberg made one great movie, COOL HAND LUKE, but was mostly a journeyman director. But for whatever reason, it was the Jews(and then some Italian-Americans) who were most adept at hitching onto the new sensibility and conceiving new possibilities for Hollywood. Of course, many new or newer talents were not Jewish. Sam Peckinpah, Robert Altman, Hal Ashby, and the like. But Jewish film-makers were among the key figures in the development of New Hollywood. They were bolder, hungrier, more curious, more radical, more hip to trends. They were also among the most admiring of the great European directors(most of whom were not Jewish) and some Japanese ones. Their impact on cinema was somewhat akin to Bob Dylan's on Rock Music, though it's arguable that the only Jewish film-maker to match the cultural significance of Dylan was Stanley Kubrick who struck a chord with both critics and the audience. To be sure, cinephilia of the Film Generation was somewhat different from the attitudes of Youth Culture. Whereas Rock fans had close to zero interest in pre-Rock music and foreign music — though Folk Rockers were more reverent of the past and other cultures — , Film Culture was about remembrance and international curiosity. So, the seminal film critics of the 60s didn't just discuss the latest trends and hottest hits but wrote extensively about foreign cinema and classic Hollywood. College kids who had no interest in music prior to Rock might nevertheless look up to Howard Hawks and Orson Welles as cultural heroes and icons.
Still, despite the respect accorded to the Old Hollywood greats by Andrew Sarris, Peter Bogdanovich, and their acolytes, the fact is the culture was changing fast. So, while even young cinephiles might marvel at a John Ford Western or Frank Capra comedy, they no longer believed movies could or should be made that way. There was a new spirit in the air, and Jewish film-makers were among the first to run with it. And yet, the Europeans and Japanese had been ahead of American Cinema in personal expression and experimentation. In a way, the new batch of Jewish film-makers had a greater affinity for non-Jewish-controlled foreign cinema and were rebelling against the Hollywood System controlled by old-fashioned Jewish executives and careerists. And they had their chance because the Old Studio system was either dead or moribund, just barely hanging on, as the result of Hollywood's loss of theater monopoly and the rise of TV.

One can socially critique movies like COOL HAND LUKE, THE GRADUATE, BONNIE AND CLYDE, and many others as hostile and subversive, and there is certainly a Jewish angle to this. Still, the real power and effectiveness of these works owes to their artistry, brilliance, and deeper implications than their apparent message, be it blatant or esoteric. It's like Shakespeare's HENRY V is more than a 'nationalist' piece of propaganda. Also, they were refreshing because there is a bit of anarchist in each of us that roots for the oddball, eccentric, maverick, outsider, or underdog. (The audience rooted for Sylvester Stallone in ROCKY because whites had become underdogs in boxing.) And the similar strains could be found in European and Japanese movies that were, if anything, even bolder in thumbing their noses at the established order and social norms. Nagisa Oshima, Shohei Imamura, and Hiroshi Teshigahara were not Jewish. Neither were European directors like Alain Resnais, Jean-Luc Godard, Bo Widenberg, Fassbinder, Gillo Pontecorvo, and etc. So, in some ways, the Jewish American directors were following in the leads of European and Japanese cultural pioneers and enfants terribles, though one could argue that modern radicalism anywhere in the world was inspired in part by Jewish Influence.

At any rate, Jewish Power of Propaganda cannot be understood apart from the talent and visions that go far beyond whatever the original 'political' intent may have been. In some ways, David Mamet is an unpleasant Jewish chauvinist, yet he is also artist and thinker enough to raise questions and face truths that challenge his ethnic biases. (In contrast, Aaron Sorkin is a mere propagandist-hack, albeit a talented one.) Sergei Eisenstein's propaganda films are crude as message but works of genius as experimental formalism. ROSEMARY'S BABY would likely have been a third-rate movie in the hands of someone other than Polanski, just like JAWS would have been one more dumb monster movie if not for Steven Spielberg. (Polanski and other Eastern European directors are a special case. Whereas most of the great Western European directors were non-Jewish, many of the Iron Curtain's 'new wave' directors, especially in Czechoslovakia and Hungary, were Jewish. Though the White Right generally sees Jews as radical leftists, many of these Hungarian and Czech 'new wave' Jewish film-makers were problematic to communist authorities for their espousal of individualism, irreverence, satire, and/or something approaching libertarianism. Most were liberal than leftist, highly problematic as communism regarded liberalism as a bourgeois conceit. And even if not pro-capitalist, they leaned more towards social democracy than communism. Polanski detested communism, and Milos Forman, the Czech Jew in exile, found great success in Hollywood with ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, which would be very un-PC today, and AMADEUS, a work that is, at once, subversive of authority and defensive of genius as natural hierarchy.) Talent goes a long way, and whatever ideological agendas or ethnic biases may have shaped the works of Jewish directors, the top Jewish talents were not only born with natural intelligence but grew up with a genuine appreciation of arts/culture. As such, Mike Nichols' main objective was to make a popular but personal art film inspired by the cinema of Europe. (Nichols was especially impressed with Fellini's 8 1/2. THE GRADUATE also has nods to Michelangelo Antonioni and Francois Truffaut.) But if some American directors miserably failed at making Art Films— THE SWIMMER had all the elements to be a great piece of personal film-making but suffered from strained uneven direction, and Lumet's PAWNBROKER is an embarrassing assemblage of obvious homages to European Art House — , others found their own stride, and THE GRADUATE may be the most significant work in this spirit. At first glance, it seemed a Hollywood movie riffing on European Art film mannerisms, and yet, it was so genuinely American and Hollywood. Moreover, Nichols, unlike Lumet before him, totally made the work his own. Instead of imitation, he drew inspiration and found his own beat and rhythm. As such, while THE GRADUATE may resemble a work like BLOW-UP by Antonioni, it has a uniqueness all its own. Also, the great appeal of movies like THE GRADUATE and MIDNIGHT COWBOY owed to American Jews being less hung up with intellectual conceits. As much as they admired European cinema, they also loved humor, effect, and fun. Increasingly with European Cinema, there developed the purist notion that true art cannot be much fun or rely on time-tested conventions. Also, theory began to dominate practice. For instance, Pier Paolo Pasolini began his film career with lively works with expressive actors, but along the way, he got this idea that actors shouldn't act dramatically. Godard's films got increasingly self-conscious. Ingmar Bergman's films grew colder. Now, an artist who really knows what he's doing can make it work, as in the case of Robert Bresson. But too many aspiring auteurs in Europe became allergic to doing anything that might violate the monastic or radical mission of cinema as art or commitment.
In contrast, Nichols had far fewer such hang-ups. So, even as he drew certain ideas from European cinema, he was mindful to lots of humor along with the songs of Simon and Garfunkel, whatever worked. Such use of songs might have aeen deemed as cheating or relying more on non-cinematic expressions than on the pure possibilities of cinema. But the use of songs did wonders for THE GRADUATE, just like the use of classical music added another dimension to 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. So, Nichols and others like him had the best of both worlds: The new language of Art Cinema as personal expression but also the eagerness to please and win over the audience with timeless tricks of entertainment. And that is why THE GRADUATE, like HAROLD AND MAUDE, works on so many levels. It is seriously committed to cinema as art but also shameless in presenting a good show. New Hollywood was closer in spirit to Serious Rock — Later Beatles, Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, CCR — than Modernist Music that took out all the fun from music.

So much of PC mentality is reductionist in evaluating works for their 'toxicity' level, e.g. 'racism', 'misogyny', 'sexism', 'homophobia', 'antisemitism', and etc. It's too bad that this tendency exists on the Right as well. Now, it's fair game to notice socially or politically problematic ideas and messages in any work, but the question still remains, why do certain works, regardless of their moral or political content, have such power and influence on the audience? And here, we have to address the matter of talent, brilliance, originality, and/or genius. While THE GRADUATE isn't the work of a genius, it is a brilliant piece of film-making, one where everything clicked together. (It both supports and subverts the cult of the 'auteur' as its miracle couldn't have been possible without Mike Nichols' guiding hand but also depended so much on the chemistry among the assembled cast and crew.) And also a poetic one, even if it amounts to pop-poeticism, like the songs of Simon and Garfunkel. Likewise, THE GODFATHER movies would likely have been nothing special and soon forgotten but for the understanding, knowledge, and skills brought to it by Francis Ford Coppola. There's no point to condemning or praising an entire work because of its said politics.

Turman bought the rights to the book for $1,000 and sent it unsolicited to Jewish director Mike Nichols (born Mikhail Peschkowsky) who signed on to the project. Turman’s search for financing led him to Jewish film mogul Joseph E. Levine—“the schlockmeister of the world”—who put up $3 million... Nichols assigned Jewish screenwriter Buck Henry (born Henry Zuckerman)... Songs by the Jewish duo Simon and Garfunkel were used for the soundtrack. Given the many Jews involved in the film’s production, it’s hardly surprising that Jewish sensibilities and ideological fixations pervade the final product.

But Jewish finance and Jewish producers had long been a dominant force in Hollywood. Also, Jewish writers had been embedded in Hollywood since its inception. And many music composers were Jewish. So, THE GRADUATE is hardly different from works of Classic Hollywood in the preponderance of Jewish money and talent.

In the hands of director Mike Nichols, however, the story became a scathing critique of bourgeois WASP American culture and the oppressive burden it purportedly imposed on young Americans. Nichols employs two recurrent visual metaphors to symbolize this oppressive culture: black-and-white stripes and water.

Many people saw the movie that way, but I'm not sure Nichols meant it that way. When pressed about Elaine and Benjamin by a young female fan of the movie, he answered that they'd probably end up just like their parents. Also, even though there is gentle mockery of upper middle class life, it's hardly hateful. (If anything, even as the audience is glibly laughing at the 'shallow' people in the movie, they are attracted to displays of affluence and the good life, also true of works like LA DOLCE VITA and LA NOTTE. Would THE GRADUATE have been as successful if it were about a working class guy living in a tenement? MARTY with Ernest Borgnine proved to be more or less a one-off thing.)
Benjamin's woes have less to do with social oppression than loss of youth. He's worried about the future, i.e. it has arrived, he's living in it, so it no longer exists for him. This is a universal problem faced by people all over the world. When you're young, the future is always something in the distant horizon. It's always a day ahead, like the song from ANNIE. Or consider how Scarlett in GONE WITH THE WIND always assures herself that 'tomorrow will be another day'. This procrastination about the future loomed larger among the boomer generation as more of them grew up in affluence, could attend college, and followed their bliss, that was as long as one was young and still at work or play. But school eventually ends, and one must be an adult with responsibilities and burdens. So, even though the movie is based on Charles Webb's novel, its spirit also flows from CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger. Braddock is not a victim of social oppression, that is made clear. His parents provided him with everything. He has a nice big room all to himself. He could attend the college of his choice far from home. His graduation gift is a fancy sports car. And as the movie makes clear, his parents pretty much allow him to do as he pleases. At one time, his father expresses displeasure with Ben's taking it easy, but he doesn't do much about it. Also, Mr. Robinson's advice to Ben is that he should sow some wild oats and have the time of his life(without realizing it would lead to an affair with his wife). Later, when his mother asks him what he does all night long and his answer isn't forthcoming, she just walks away and leaves him alone; she's a very understanding, even permissive, parent.

Ben also has no problem with job prospects. 'Plastics', he can make lots of money working for corporations. Or, he can continue with his education, especially as he got a scholarship. So, what is bothering him? His youth is over and thrill is gone. Whether work or more school, he feels his youth slipped by. It went from looking-forward-to-life to life-itself. He's going through what might be called the Beginning-Age Crisis, the crisis that befalls someone who realizes his youth is definitely over and his first chapter as an adult begins. He doesn't want to be like his parents or their friends, but it's not because he hates them. It's because it means just working, making money, and then growing old and retiring. Such is life, and there is no escape, and it's something everyone must accept at some moment, but Ben simply isn't ready yet to make the transition. (Perhaps, he feels especially cheated because his youth passed him by without him even having gotten laid or fallen in love or done something truly exciting.) And in the 1960s when youth itself became an identity in its own right, the boomers developed this notion of Forever-Young. They said stuff like "Don't trust anyone over thirty" without realizing they themselves would be over 30 sooner than later. So, Ben's problems are essentially personal and psychological(and generational) than social or cultural. The problem is not lack of freedom but too much freedom that he came to associate with youth. Finally, with graduation, he will have less freedom as a full-time worker who just grows older and becomes just another suburban man. Granted, there is a certain irony in his transition from student to full adulthood. On the one hand, he has more freedom after graduation. He doesn't have to attend classes anymore. He's his own man and can do whatever he wants. And yet, it's a freedom of responsibility, a kind of drag and burden. In contrast, while as a student he was more under the control of institutions and his parents who paid his tuition, he wasn't responsible for himself. As a son and student, his sole responsibility was to attend school and get good grades. He was taken care of, and furthermore, he could focus on knowledge and learning than on mundane matters of life. And he could always look to the future as something special. But the day finally arrived, and it just proved to be another day, and all the days following that day will turn him into just another suburban man. His life will be comfortable and affluent but not particularly meaningful, as only a tiny handful of people actually get to pursue their dreams.

The water metaphor is less about societal weight on Ben's shoulders than about Ben's emotional state of melancholy and confusion. In a way, the watery depth is more a solace than a prison. Notice how he keeps running back to his bed room from the graduation party full of admiring friends of his parents. These people are full of affection and praise for Ben. Hardly oppressive, but he finds the situation insufferable because they all remind him of what he will be in two or three decades. So, he would rather be in his room staring into the aquarium. Thus, he feels comfortably numb. The fish, like the ducks in THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, may stand for a more ideal existence. Unlike Holden Caulfield who doesn't know what to make of his life, the ducks naturally know to fly south for winter. The fish in the aquarium need not worry about anything as the tank is cleaned by humans and as they're regularly fed. Having graduated, Ben is out of the fish tank of childhood for good and in the river of adulthood. Later when we see Ben having a good time with his affair with Mrs. Robinson, we see him floating on the water glinting with sunlight. There's the memorable moment with the rain, but I think it was more for effect and mood than symbolism. It also foreshadows his desperate race against time later in the movie. Of course, as he sweats up a storm, he's his own rain-maker.
A special thing about THE GRADUATE is it finds a special beauty in the melancholy. In a way, Ben wants to break out or break on through to the other side, but the meaning is in the struggle, not in the victory. He studied hard all his young life to be a top student and graduated with honors, but it seems hollow once it's behind him. Same with his 'second graduation' with Elaine as trophy wrested from the church wedding. His greatest desire is to win her heart and make her his. It becomes an all-consuming passion and obsession... but once he has Elaine with him in the bus at the end, he begins to feel somewhat empty again. The dream is always sad, even a bit depressing, because its realization seems so elusive, even impossible. The dreamer hopes the dream will become reality, but per chance it does, the result is always bound to be anticlimactic. So, Ben is caught in a psychological trap. A neurotic-romantic, he's given to aching for what's beyond his reach. And yet, upon attaining his dream, he realizes that he was truly happy when he was in yearning. It's like hunger calls for satiation but, once satisfied, soon fades in pleasure.
Once he gets it, he realizes it's just one more trophy and life goes on. It's like the scene in BLOW-UP where a bunch of guys tussle over a broken guitar neck, but it is tossed aside soon after it's taken by one guy. It's the curse of a dream coming true. It just becomes more of mundane reality and loses its luster as future vision.

In a way, Ben's problem isn't all that different from the personal crisis of the young man in BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES. War was hell, and he dreamed of returning home alive in one piece. But as a civilian, he's just another Joe, just another guy working 9 to 5 to make ends meet. As horrific as war was, he was a hero and felt more alive precisely because death was everywhere. But back in the States, where life is everywhere and so humdrum, he feels empty. And when he sees the many bombers rusting in the airfield waiting to be scrapped for metal, he senses another kind of death. End of war means life, but the airfield looks like a graveyard of heroism. Feeling alive isn't the same thing as life. There can be lots of life but no sense of being alive, feeling alive. In contrast, one could feel most alive around death. While Ben hardly had to worry about death, the experience of growing up and graduating from school to school was a kind of adventure of mind and spirit. Every year meant he was rising another level, growing into adulthood. But once an adult, there is growing older but no more growing up. It's like once peak height is reached, there is advancement in years but not in inches(except around the waistline).

Ben's situation in the final part of the movie is like David and Goliath. It’s the same reason we root for Tony Montana who defies the chief kingpin in SCARFACE and takes on all-comers. Ben is the scrappy fellow who pursues his dream come what may and runs off with the girl. But what he does isn’t normal. It’s not normal to expect a relationship with a girl whose mother you had sex with. It’s not normal or very honorable to come between a woman and her prospective groom. The scene where he informs his parents about the marriage says it all. They assume Elaine and Ben came to an agreement, but Ben says he decided on his own and that Elaine doesn’t even like him. And unbeknownst to his parents, there is the problem of Mr. and Mrs. Robinson. (We are not sure when exactly Mr. Robinson found out about the affair.) Ben's father says his plan is half-baked, and Ben says, no, it’s completely baked. And it is. The normal and honorable thing would be for a guy to accept the reality of the girl being betrothed to another. The proper thing is to walk away, but Ben just won’t. To be sure, he decides to call it quits after Mr. McClusky(Norman Fell as landlord) threatens him with eviction, but then, Elaine tells him not to leave until he has a definite plan. And then, Ben is back to his crazy dreamer self.

Things can never be normal with Ben and Elaine even if they do eventually get married. After all, she made her wedding vow and is legally wed to Carl Smith. So, she must go through the whole legal rigamarole of filing for divorce. And if Ben and Elaine were to tie the knot to make it official, they will still be estranged from their parents, especially the Robinsons. Ben’s father can’t be too happy either as his partner in the law firm is none other than Mr. Robinson. In time, Ben and Elaine as married couple will likely end up like their parents, but their lives can never be normal due to strained situations with their parents(and perhaps the scandal of the wedding crash).

That said, THE GRADUATE had an almost universal appeal because it was as sentimental as it was cynical. It was like the Beatles and SGT. PEPPER’S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND, an album beloved not only by youths but older people and even highbrow types. It was a Rock album pandering to Summer of Love and Youth Culture, but it was also arty and even a bit old-fashioned, with tunes like “When I’m Sixty Four” and “She’s Leaving Home”, a song that is rebellious in message but traditional in delivery. (A HARD DAY’S NIGHT was also a winner with both young and older audiences.) Young people regarded Ben as a rebel-hero who says hell to ‘plastics’, experiments in free love, seeks authenticity, and takes action to realize his dreams. And yet, even non-radical or non-experimental boomers could relate to him because he initially comes across as something of a square and stuff-shirt, someone who focused more on books than all the groovy things happening around the period. Charles Webb's novel came out before Counterculture happened, whereas the movie was made in its midst. The scenario feels all the more alienating for that reason. It's like an early 60s mindset time-traveled to the latter-60s. Now, one might say that those were just a few years, but SO MUCH happened between 1963 and 1967. That sudden sense of change was the subject of FUTURE SHOCK by Alvin Toffler. If Ben were graduating from high school in the movie, he might be ecstatic. Alas, he graduated from college and officially became an adult just when the culture of youth was taking off to new dimensions. He's too young to identify with his parents generation but just old enough to feel out of sync with the youth culture. Thus, he feels alienated from old and young. And yet, he feels attracted to Mrs. Robinson who, though twice his age, seems defiant of growing older by making up her own rules. And part of the reason he may feel such attraction to Elaine is she's still in school and therefore symbolizes the youth that has passed him by, at least in official capacity. Ben was following the track of being an Organization Man than a Creative Soul. Or, at the very least, he's like an Early Beatle with suit-and-tie who suddenly finds himself transported to the Age of Aquarius. For older or more traditional audiences, it was a story about a guy who initially finds escapism with easy sex with an older woman but then falls in true love and wants commitment and marriage. As for the ending, it can be seen as a rebellion against social norms(as how many people crash weddings?) or confirmation of true love, the classic fairy-tale of a hero saving a damsel from distress.

Now, why would Elaine be attracted to Ben when Carl Smith is taller and more handsome(and has good prospects as a doctor)? Ben has personality. Also, Elaine has a soft side and feels for others. Carl Smith is so sure of himself whereas there is a passive/aggressive boyish side to Ben that needs mothering. So, her maternal instincts kick into gear in the presence of Ben. (She is actually more mother-like than Mrs. Robinson who seems bitter that her youth was cut short by pregnancy and marriage.) Also, Ben is a funny guy, and humor goes a long way. Furthermore, love isn’t only about sexual attraction but the feeling of being appreciated. A person can fall in love with the love shown him/her by the other. For Carl Smith, Elaine may be a good catch but not the only one. If she slips from his grasp, he will likely find another good catch. But for Ben, Elaine is the ONLY ONE, and she senses the depth of his passion for her.
And it’s also what happened between them at the night club. Ben was acting like a total ass but later confesses that he went against his nature due to parental pressure. Of course, that’s not really true as the real reason he tried to sabotage the date was because Mrs. Robinson had forbidden him to date her daughter. Anyway, something clicked in that moment. Elaine is a physically a fully blossomed woman, but there is still something of the little girl inside. You can tell she hasn’t yet lost her innocence, and she lives in something like a paper doll world. Ben realizes how much he hurt her, and he does everything to make amends and this creates a special bond between them. With the kiss, Elaine goes from weeping girl to a real woman, and Ben goes from a confused adult without direction to a man who finally understands what gives his life meaning: Elaine as his true love. (At the same time, there is a quality of puppy love.) With Mrs. Robinson, he was toyed with and used, and he used her in turn. It was just about sex and to stave off boredom. An escapism from life. But with Elaine, there is no guile and gamesmanship. He feels natural in her presence. His plan was for a short date where he’d act the jerk, make Elaine dislike him, take her home, and be done with it. But Elaine’s reaction in the night club is more that of a vulnerable girl than an angry bitch. He sees a side of her he never expected, and in turn, he feels born-again when he tries to console Elaine. It's as if he's finally found his true self and no longer feels so alienated. Thus, the problem was less social alienation than auto-alienation. It suggests that an individual is only half-a-person, therefore a person can only be complete when he meets one's soulmate. It lends a mythic overtone to the movie — Greek mythology says Zeus separated men and women from their embrace, therefore life is about men and women trying to reconnect with their lost mates. Much has been made of the Christian and Jewish angle of the story, but perhaps the main appeal is closer to Greek mythology and Western fairy tales. Earlier in the decade, there was a hit French movie called BLACK ORPHEUS, the telling of the Greek myth with black actors. THE GRADUATE is like the Jewish Perseus. At any rate, it was this ‘subversive’ and multi-faceted blend of cynicism and sentimentality that made THE GRADUATE so special. But the same could be said of THE GODFATHER, which is both a heart-warming family story and a cold & ruthless gangster tale.

The perennial theme of Jewish alienation from a WASP-dominated mainstream American society played an important role in how the character of Benjamin Braddock—and the entire film—were conceived by Nichols—though this only became fully apparent to him after the film had been made.

But it works in the movie because even the character in the novel is alienated. Indeed, many leading characters in novels and movies are outsiders, eccentrics, oddballs, or mavericks. We find such characters more interesting. Even Clint Eastwood as Harry Callahan is alienated from the System he works for. John Wayne's character in THE SEARCHERS is something of a misfit, at odds not only with Indians but with fellow whites. Marlon Brando and James Dean became famous as malcontents. Orson Welles said he cast homosexual Anthony Perkins because his closeted neurosis might add something to the character of Joseph K. in THE TRIAL, and it seems Nichols had something similar in mind in having a Jewish character play Ben. I think it works better than it would have with Robert Redford, though a younger Paul Newman, as half-Jew and half-Aryan, might have been even better. Redford, though a capable actor, was rather colorless and inexpressive. The movie wouldn't have been half-as-funny with Redford as Benjamin. Dustin Hoffman was an actor of limited range but fantastic at his best. His Ratso Rizzo in MIDNIGHT COWBOY is genius-acting.

Also, Hoffman-as-Ben has an ambiguous presence in the movie, making it all the more interesting. He's both Jewish and Wasp. Boy and man. Awkward and aggressive. Timid and bold. Calculating and chaotic. The Jew/Wasp tensions within the character intensifiy the contradictions within Benjamin who is both eager and afraid to be free. Hoffman is short but physically fit. Topless, he does have the physique of a long-distance track star. Also, while not handsome, the young Hoffman is rather attractive from certain angles. There is also something of the 'cute' quality that Ringo had. And then, there's the timing and intelligence in his acting, something truly rare in cinema as most actors aren't known for brains.

Ben’s scream in the church is so reminiscent of Rod Steiger’s wailing at the end of THE PAWNBROKER. As for Wasps trapped in the church, that has nothing on the ending of DIRTY DOZEN where Nazi officers are barricaded in the basement and roasted alive with gasoline and grenades. That is one cynical movie. Nazis are so evil they deserve to be slaughtered like animals. But American heroes are a bunch of crooks, criminals, thugs, and psychos. It’s like an insane hashing of BRIDGE ON RIVER KWAI and THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. Truly a dirty movie.

Nichols cast Hoffman, “despite the fact that he was virtually unknown and looked nothing like the leading man described in the script, which called for a tall, blond track star, not a short, Jewish guy with a schnoz for the ages.”

But in the end, we must judge by results, and I think the success of THE GRADUATE is inseparable from Hoffman's shell game of drama and humor. While an actor like Redford or Ryan O'Neal might have been closer in looks to the character in the novel, Hoffman had that blend of straight man and clown that made the role so different and unique. Also, the final part of the movie when Ben is speeding back and forth from LA and Berkeley has something of the silent comedies of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, the tales of underdogs who overcome all obstacles to end up with the girl. Robert Redford running off with the girl would seem less amazing and outrageous than Dustin Hoffman doing so. Buster Keaton was a short guy but one who out-maneuvered the competition and usually came out ahead. Same goes for Harold Lloyd, and especially as Nichols came from comedy background, he was looking for the most comic as well as dramatic actor, and he hit gold with Hoffman.
Now, take Jack Nicholson in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST. The character in the novel is much stronger, a tough Irishman who takes on three Negroes in the shower and beats them all up. Nicholson's McMurphy is smaller and weaker and no match for the Negroes, but it's a masterly performance, and he came to own that role. Many, indeed most, movies deviate from the novel or the original screenplay, but at the end of the day, the only question that matters is "Does it work"? Hoffman made it work. But then, Victor Mature played Samson and Charlton Heston played Moses, and they made it work, at least as entertainment.

Hoffman’s anti-heroic character gave the green light for Hollywood to promote “the ethnic Jewish matinee idol and youth icon in the forms of George Segal, Elliot Gould, Richard Benjamin, Charles Grodin, and Gene Wilder.”[9] These Jewish romantic leads were invariably paired onscreen with beautiful non-Jewish actresses like Marsha Mason, Candice Bergen, and (in the case of Dustin Hoffman) blondes like Mia Farrow, Faye Dunaway, Susan George, and Meryl Streep.

It's been said that THE GRADUATE changed the rules of who can be a star in Hollywood, but this is a gross exaggeration. Hollywood always had lots of room for Jewish, ethnic, different, ugly, short, and weird actors, even among Wasps. Alan Ladd was a short guy. Humphrey Bogart, though Wasp, looked ethnic and could have passed for Italian, Greek, Spaniard, or Jew. But he was a big star. Short and funny-looking Mickey Rooney was one of the biggest stars of the 40s. James Cagney was no looker but a tremendous star. The Jewish Paul Muni was in many prestigious roles. Peter Lorre and Edward G. Robinson, both Jewish, became world famous. Short actors were nothing special in Hollywood. Many actors, if not downright short, were hardly tall. James Dean was 5'7. Marlon Brando was 5'9, not exactly short but far from tall. It could be that shorter men gravitate to acting because they have to be more expressive to gain the kind of attention that taller men usually get. How tall is Tom Cruise? Long before Dustin Hoffman became a household name, Frank Sinatra was a big movie star. He was only 5'7, had pocked face, and was Italian. And movie stardom was often less about looks than the hook. Certain actors and actresses, even if not handsome or pretty, had a certain screen presence, an allure. Take Charles Bronson who could even be said to be ugly. But he had a great movie face. Same was true of Telly Savalis and Anthony Quinn. Tony Curtis the Jew played a Norseman in THE VIKINGS and did a pretty good job.

As for George Segal, Elliot Gould, Richard Benjamin, Charles Grodin, and Gene Wilder, they usually starred in lesser or more 'independent' productions. Among the new batch of Jewish actors, the only one whose success matched that of Hoffman in the 70s and 80s was maybe Gene Hackman(though Henry Winkler hit pay dirt as the Fonz on HAPPY DAYS, but that was TV). Richard Dreyfus seemed to be on the up and up but soon faded. Of course, one could count Harrison Ford as Jewish, or half-Jewish. Woody Allen might qualify but he was appreciated more as 'auteur' than actor. (Correction. Gene Hackman doesn't seem to be Jewish.)

Hoffman won the role over Charles Grodin, another Jewish actor who was no model of conventional WASP good looks.

Grodin, though no heartthrob, had a certain goofy charm. And unlike in THE GRADUATE where everything is 'crypto', THE HEARTBREAK KID is very much a public airing of the Jewish Male obsession with the 'shikse'. It is in satirical than romantic mode(as in the case of THE GRADUATE) and, as such, cinematically less interesting but even more revealing of the Jewish sensibility. Hilarious stuff.

Such overt anti-Christian imagery jarred with the film’s first audiences—but was only the start of Hollywood’s disparagement of Christianity, and seems tame by today’s standards.

Maybe Jews are doing white people a favor by bashing Christianity, a religion that originated from renegade Jews. In a way, what is more 'crypto-Jewish' than Christianity? Though Christ is often depicted in Western Art as an Aryan-looking fellow, He was actually Jewish and probably looked more like Norman Finkelstein or Noam Chomsky. And speaking of neurosis, how about the story of a Man who claimed to be the Son of God and got Himself killed over it? Western Civilization is founded on Jewish Neurosis. So, even though Hoffman the Jew plays a Wasp in THE GRADUATE, white people over the eons have been worshiping a Jew with a big nose in the image of European whites. And look at the sculpture of David by Michelangelo. I'm thinking that David, being Jewish, looked more like Jerry Seinfeld or Sean Penn, but the statue resembles something out of Greco-Roman mythology.

At any rate, when will whites find their own covenant with the ultimate power of the universe? As long as whites keep with Christianity, it means they are forever beholden to the imagination and vision of Jews. Also, Christianity, if followed to the letter, is a death cult as we are now seeing in the West. If Christian West was powerful in the past, it was because it heeded only about 1/4 of Jesus' teachings. Go beyond that, and you end up dead. And if you don't, you get blamed for hypocrisy, preaching 'turn the other cheek' while using violence to conquer and control the world. Christianity has been a great religion, but it is now dead. It's very sad in a way, but it means the white race must finally GRADUATE toward a new consciousness with prophets of its own that can meditate on the ultimate power and receive the covenant that has meaning to whites and whites alone.

By the way, thing in the church happens so fast that it hardly registers as an anti-Christian screed. And, whatever the significance of Ben wielding the cross as a weapon, it is funny as hell, and as the characters in THE WILD BUNCH say, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” The outrage element is part of the fun. A little irreverence never hurt anyone.
Also, just look at the church. Its design is so Californian, so modernist and soulless. It looks like a bleached shell devoid of spiritual meaning. A church as status-symbol of the affluent and modern. So, it’s less a Christian ceremony than a matter of custom. They get married in a church because it’s just what people do. And who are among the attendees? None other than Mrs. Robinson, hardly a virtuous character. And there’s Mr. Robinson who pressured his daughter into marrying Carl Smith out of his seething rage at Ben. We don’t know much about Smith the ‘make-out king’, but he doesn’t seem the spiritual type. So, even without Ben’s presence, the wedding is just an empty show, a ritual devoid of spiritual or even much moral meaning. Elaine is getting married to console her father. Her heart is really with Ben.
Ben’s wielding the cross as a weapon could be seen as a desecration of Christianity, but it could also mean he’s the christ-like figure for true love. He’s willing to sacrifice everything, even sanity and limb, for the girl he loves.

The problem with clinging to Christianity in our age is it no longer provides the answers. As such, people need to seek out new visions and find new directions. It’s like a horse. It is highly useful when strong and hardy. But what use is a dead horse? Christianity is now a dead horse. In Europe, it’s totally dead. They say America is still religious, but no one gets fired or blacklisted for insulting God, Jesus, or Paul. But you may be fired and blacklisted even at a so-called ‘conservative’ Christian institution if you criticize Fentanyl Floyd or Jewish promotion of globo-homo. For many Christians, even those on the ‘right’, the highest holies are Jews, Negroes, and Homos. Indeed, many churches would have us believe that god and jesus serve Jews, homos, and blacks than anything else.

Christianity has become a suicide pact. If Christianity still had martial spirit, it would be in much better shape. In the past, Christianity served the West well in the form of 'hypochristianity'. Christianity had to be hypocritical in order to survive and expand. The teachings of Jesus, such as ‘turn the other cheek’ and ‘meek shall inherit the earth’, don't do much for worldly power. Jesus urged people to give away all their wealth, live in righteous poverty, and meditate on spiritual matters. But people who act that way end up dead or oppressed. If they believe in Heaven, they may expect something better in the afterlife. But most people are attached to the real world, and power is about money, weapons, hierarchy, and violence. So, the Christian West at its peak preached one thing but practiced something other. Now, the West wasn’t purely hypocritical and much of its values & practices derived from Christian morality. Still, the kindly side of the West relied on the hard side that kept and expanded power by ruthless means.

But such kind of hypocrisy is no longer tenable, especially as Jews gained power in the West and never lose sleep pointing out all the hypocrisies of the West. This shame has been internalized by most whites. This has led to whites either rejecting Christianity or trying to practice a Christianity that is closer to the spirit of Jesus’s teachings… which can only serve as a death/suicide cult. Worse, there are so many idiots or opportunists who seek to use the church as a club for other agendas, often satanic in nature, like globo-homo and worship of savage Negro as Magic Negro. And of course, many non-religious and anti-religious people are possessed of a zealotry derived from puritanical strains of Christianity. If the church in our times is an empty shell devoid of spiritual passion, post-Christian passion of radicals is like fanaticism without a meaningful vessel. Shell without flesh and flesh without shell are, of course, both doomed. Form without content and content without form are both ultimately useless. Christianity, both Protestant and Catholic, is dead as a useful and virile creed. When the Vatican has Pope Francis as top leader, what does that say? What is Mainline church in the US but promotion of globo-homo and Magic Negro? What is Evangelicalism but about More Wars for ‘Muh Israel’? There is the Orthodox Church, but it has no meaning to most Greeks who are secular. And in Russia, it is a museum culture than a living one despite all the new cathedrals built.

In the first scene of the film, Benjamin rides to the left on an airport conveyor belt as everyone else accedes to the airport’s public announcement system’s request to “Please stay to the right.”

I think 'stay on the right' in that moment meant stay to the right on the conveyor belt or in walkways, which is conventional rule in all places. It's like people usually walk on the right side no matter which way they're going.

In One Dimensional Man, he argued that advanced industrial societies like the United States repress their populations by creating false needs via mass advertising, industrial management, and modes of thought which resulted in a “one dimensional” universe of thought and behavior which stifled people’s capacity for critical thought and oppositional behavior.

Even if we disagree with Herbert Marcuse's solutions, was he wrong in his critique of consumer-capitalism? Look all around today, and corporate-consumer-capitalism is a big part of the problem. The rise of Pop Culture as Main Culture has led to the one-dimensional idiot. And we need critical thought and oppositional thought more than ever.

In the end, the real problem of whites was not 'authoritarianism' but complacency. Post-war boom made white people lower their guard and care mostly about the good life. They became passionless with crass materialism. The boomer generation rebelled against such complacency with utopian dreams and commitment to authenticity, but they too came under the power of materialism as their main inspirations came from pop music and TV. Like Peter Fonda said in EASY RIDER, 'We blew it'. If the Greatest Generation drowned in alcohol, the boomers failed to find nirvana in pot smoke, which is now just more big business.

Reich claimed the role of traditional “repressive” Western sexual morality was “to produce acquiescent subjects who, despite distress and humiliation, are adjusted to the authoritarian order.” Marcuse agreed with Reich that the “liberation of sexuality and the creation of non-hierarchical democratic structures in the family, workplace and society at large would create personalities resistant to fascism.”

There is obviously some truth to their claims. Any form of repression, sexual or otherwise, is to create a more stable order of unity and consensus. And it is true that 'sexual liberation' will undermine fascism as each boy and girl will be more into hedonism and self-gratification than suppressing one's individual desires for the good of the whole, the volk. If German youths in the 1930s had mostly been into sex, drugs, and rock & roll, would they have paid any heed to Hitler? And same could be said for youths under communism, which is why communist nations did all they could to suppress individualism as expressions of capitalism.
More interesting is why Marcuse and others blamed capitalism for the repression when it was obviously the forces of capitalism that were leading to the triumph of hedonism, 'sexual liberation', individualism, and youth culture of impatience. Maybe, it was difficult to immediately abandon the ideology, Marxism, that had shaped them for so long. Consciously or subconsciously, maybe the Frankfurt School was seeking to serve as the bridge that would allow the left to go from communism to capitalism as the more useful ideology.

The Frankfurters were right that 'sexual liberation' would be bad for fascism. But they overlooked how 'sexual liberation' would lead to the rise of new barbarism. After all, sexual politics is hardly egalitarian as alpha males usually win and as women prefer winners over losers. Some women seek out long-term winners who gain success in professions, but other women seek out short-term winners: the thugs, studs, and athletes. So, instead of resulting in the peaceful eternal summer of love where everyone is happy with good vibes, it has led to the rise of demented heavy metal culture, rap culture, pornification of even kiddie culture, and countless displays of narcissism & vanity, indeed as if everyone is a diva, his or her own 'hitler'. Fascism represses and channels virile barbarian energies in the service of civilization whereas the raw barbarian energies of 'sexual liberation' has led to the degradation of family and society, resulting in lots of violence and stupidity. Black African savages demonstrated that sexual licentiousness is no immunity to ultra-violence. Being sexually far less inhibited, blacks were generally unable to repress their wilder energies for the development of civilization, but they were murderous just the same. And the European barbarians long long ago were less hung up about sexual morality(before the coming of Christianity and its stricter ethos), but did that prevent them from rampaging other communities and raping and pillaging, i.e. acting like Alex and his droogs in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE? Indeed, people like Marcuse seem blind to the fact that National Socialism gained in popularity precisely because Jews pushed the most demented kind of anti-values in the Weimar Period, leading to a new barbarism. Degenerate personality leads to social chaos, which leads to people demanding an authoritarian personality to clean up the mess.

Frankfurt School was right to critique capitalism-consumerism and its mind-numbing and conformist influences, but its proposed solutions were useless because people like Herbert Marcuse were not honest, not least with themselves. Marcuse wailed against fascism, but he meant goy fascism. As he was pro-Zionist, he was for Jewish fascism. This is a key truth about Jews. They are so virulently anti-fascist precisely because they want fascism only for themselves. It is through fascism that both the right wing and left wing of a people can unite into a combined force. Fascism serves as the bridge and bond between left and right. Don’t make them fight one another but work together. This was the basis for National Socialism and Zionism. Where both ultimately failed morally is they went from nationalism to imperialism. Just like Jews hated Christianity and Islam for passing the secrets of the Jewish God to goyim, they hate fascism because it allows goyim to develop the kind of power specialized by Jews. Leo Strauss was a ‘rightist’ while Herbert Marcuse was a ‘leftist’. But what did they have in common? They were proudly Jewish and Zionist. For all their ideological discourse, identity came first. Zionism was created by Jewish socialists and Jewish capitalists working together. So, even as whites should give credit where it’s due — Frankfurters made useful criticism of capitalism and consumerism — , they must forge their own answers and solutions to problems, one that prioritizes the needs of whites. Jews are often interesting in their critique but useless in their proposed solutions, at least for goyim, as the utmost priority of Jews is to maximize Jewish power, not to make goyim more powerful. Frankfurt School is like a doctor that diagnoses the disease but advises the wrong cure.

In a way, much of modern form of Jewish Alienation derived from acceptance by White Society. Jews were both ragging Wasps for not being sufficiently accepting of Jews AND fretting too much assimilation may lead to loss of Jewish identity.

So, even as Jews felt alienated from Wasps, they also felt increasing alienation from their own roots. The more they became modern and Western, the less they felt traditionally bound to Jewishness. It’s one reason why Jews cooked up ersatz-form of being Jewish, such as being fixated on the Holocaust or celebrating Globo-Homo. Barbra Streisand’s YENTL is both celebratory and critical of Jewish Tradition, and it features a woman posing as a man to be accepted into the world of Rabbis. Around the same time, Blake Edwards made VICTOR/VICTORIA and soon after, there was TOOTSIE where Hoffman plays a ‘woman’. And Woody Allen made ZELIG. Paradoxically, Allen’s film seems to imply that the thing that Jews most fear as being harmful to Jewishness, which is assimilation, is also what most defines Jewishness. In other words, Jews have developed remarkably adaptive strategies of assimilation. And yet, even as Jews morph and blend into goy societies, at the end of the day, they revert back to Jewishness; they don’t really transform into the other. It’s like an octopus can take on all sorts of shapes but returns to being an octopus. But if an octopus is so fluid and flexible in its shape and structure, is there a core structure to octopus-ness? Or is the essence of the octopus to have no definite form? It’s no wonder Jews are so into trans-business where there can be infinite number of ‘genders’. It’s like sexual Houdini-ism. ZELIG is almost like a satire of an intellectual Nazi movie about Jews.