Patrick Swayze's Forgotten Role
- 1984’s politically incorrect Red Dawn
The nation is mourning Patrick Swayze, who passed away yesterday at age 57 after a long fight with pancreatic cancer. Everyone remembers his performances in Dirty Dancing and Ghost, but few if any obituaries will commemorate his role in one of the most politically incorrect films of the last 25 years: Red Dawn.
Leftists have always despised, and still revile, the film. For a quarter-century, the far-Left has claimed Ronald Reagan brainwashed the nation’s youth with this movie. Less than a year ago, David Plotz was so troubled by it that he assailed it in a full article in Slate. “Red Dawn embodies conservative nutterdom in a way few films not made by Mel Gibson have ever managed,” he wrote. “If Ann Coulter made a movie, it would look like Red Dawn. ” (Jonah Goldberg responded on “The Corner.”)
It is fun to remember the libertine Left fretting about its violence. The Guinness Book of World Records, through some reckoning system invented by Enron, named it the most violent film in history. (It was the first film rated “PG-13.”) Its real crimes were two-fold: it showed the Soviets as aggressors promoting an insidious agenda, and it depicted the potentially Orwellian implications of gun control.
When Powers Booth gives the geopolitical back-story to WWIII, what was then jarring today sounds too familiar. Socialism and the anti-nuclear movement render Europe powerless, while a then- (and now-) ascendant Central American Communism brings thousands of soldiers to our southern border. (Read a thorough synopsis here.) Red Dawn defied the conventional wisdom, expressed by Walter Mondale’s campaign, that the Soviet leaders “are just people, too”; re-education camps, attempted rape, and mass execution of civilians are part of occupied American life.
This situation developed courtesy of U.S. government form 4473, the record listing all gun owners. The Communists’ first move is to implement a ruthless gun control, leaving the population helpless.
Except for the Wolverines! The rest, as they say, is Hollywood film history. (And apparently, prologue; a remake is currently being shot in Michigan, reportedly starring Tom Cruise’s adopted son, Connor. China will take the lead in the invasion.) The scenario — guerrilla warriors, fighting in the style of the Minutemen, successfully repel the invader — inspired Reagan administration officials to assess the viability of the scenario.
Patrick Swayze convincingly played the leader, a politicized version of his role in The Outsiders (which included some of the same stars). The film may give some idea of what a great actor he was; according to Red Dawn co-star Lea Thompson, Swayze and future Dirty Dancing love interest Jennifer Gray first met in this film and intensely disliked one another.
They worked romantic magic in 1987, in a film that I believe is mandated by law to be on one of Ted Turner’s networks at all times. (Ditto The Breakfast Club.) But they gave America renewed hope during the twilight of the Cold War.
For another forgotten treat, see an earlier Swayze film, the 1983 film Uncommon Valor, about an independent group of soldiers led by Gene Hackman and Randall “Tex” Cobb, who rescue POWs and MIAs who have languished in Laotian prisons since the Vietnam War. Before Rambo and Missing in Action, this film raised the issue of the thousands of Americans never accounted for. (We didn’t just abandon Vietnamese when we withdrew.)
We are grateful he let us share his artistry and masculine grace. (He excelled at ballet.) The country is better off that he displayed it in Red Dawn instead of Reds or Redacted.
May he rest in peace.
My brother Dave and I have always loved this movie. It was one of our all time favorites. As a child of the 80s I would relive this movie playing war with friends a million times! Thanks for bringing it up. Good job!
And remember, the unit that captured Saddam out of his little hole had named themselves WOLVERINES! Swayze did a wonderful job in that movie and so many others, he will be missed.
One of my favorite films. Gonna have to watch it again. In addition to Swayze, it featured a young Charlie Sheen and Lea Thompson, plus an amusing and sardonic performance by Powers Boothe as a downed American fighter pilot.
I enjoyed Swayze in “The Outsiders,” plus one of my all-time guilty pleasures, “Road House.” He did some great work.
Let’s not forget Roadhouse and one of my favorite’s, Uncommon Valor!
I only saw this movie once (sorry!), but there was one line that I often think of & will never forget: One of the kids is whining about “Why do WE have to do all this? I’m tiiiiired,” or something like that, and the answer was “Because we live here.” I love that.
We played this for one of our Right Wing Movie Nights. Such fun.
I hear they are remaking it! Lots of folks angry about that, let me tell you, mostly because there are apparently no Muslim terrorists as bad guys in this one. I know: what a shock!
i seldom waste money on hollywood films, but “red dawn” is one of the few i’ve bought on tape, along with “hunt for red october” and the “lord of the rings” trilogy. as for the remakeof “red dawn” i’ll wait to see what they do with it, if they turn it into just another hollywood liberal propaganda sermon i’ll pass, even if they give it away free.
add: coincidentally, i watched “red dawn” again a week or so ago, its still as good as ever and does not need a “remake”, particularly not a “politically corrected” version from the usual suspects in todays hollywood.
The new “Red Dawn” movie. Just great. Let me see.
Bad guys.Hmmm. Muslim terrorist? No.To close to reality. Communist? No. (To close to white house politics.) Has to be Right wing Nazi Europeans.
Good guys.Hmmm. God fearing gun toting bible carrying hero? No. To close to reality. Has to be a liberal soup kitchen volunteer who drives only hybrid cars and doesn’t eat meat and blames America for the war because America causes global warming.(Extra points if gay) Runs the schools socialist newspaper, the “World Togetherness Press”
All right everyone. what about a script? Please add your ideas here.
Patrick Swayze was married to the same woman for 34 years, this man is my Hero!
I loved the mini-series North and South, he did a fantastic job. And I have to say, I have watched Road House several times! Red Dawn had such an emotional impact on me, it was a great movie, but I only watched it twice, I guess the idea of an enemy invading America is just too unthinkable…
Rest in Peace Patrick, we will miss you….
He was a great actor. I need to get caught up on his movies.
I enjoyed Red Dawn, but never saw it as a realistic scenario for an attack on America. I’ve always harked back to Abe Lincoln’s words about a foreign invasion. He once said that no foreign army marching over the Blue Ridge would ever conquer the United States. “As a nation of free men (he said) we shall either live forever, or die by our own hand.” Of course, that allows for the possibility that we could be so destabilized by internal political and cultural strife, so weakened in our foreign policy, and so riddled with national self doubt as to invite an invasion by some coalition of the willing such as Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, Russia — name your poison. Hmmm — maybe the Red Dawn scenario isn’t so far fetched after all…
As a leftist, I always found the film hilarious. I mean, here the Russians and Cubans were so brilliant in taking over the US and couldn’t take out a handful of high school students. I loved it when the Cuban guy’s first words as he’s getting out of the helicopter are orders to go down to city hall and get a list of all the registered gun owners. And the bumper sticker about the cold dead hands, as the camera slowly moves to the gun in hand, with the soviet heel prying the cold dead fingers. Woooo. That was deep. And of course the angle of illegal aliens being a secret invasion because nobody can tell the difference between Cubans and Mexicans.
But best of all was the Green Party takeover of Europe leading to the demise of NATO.
In the end, why didn’t the Russians just poison the food? They would have had all of them right there.
I bet they do to this what they did to “war of the worlds”, take a great classic and turn it into some liberal B.S. about how rotten a father Tom Cruise was.There were no children in the original movie, and no “politically correct” garbage, either.