Is Die Hard a movie that secretly contains a conservative message?
https://reelchange.net/2012/03/23/the-most-secretly-conservative-movie-of-all-time/
Released during the last year of Reagan’s presidency, “Die Hard” is a paradigm of 1980s conservative dogma, decrying Communist governments, the breakup of the traditional family, Japanese takeover of American culture, and big government. John McClane (Bruce Willis) is a New York cop who has recently separated from his wife, Holly. More specifically, McClane has lost his wife to the feminist revolution. She left him and their home in New York (taking the kids) for a great job in L.A., choosing career advancement over her role as domestic homemaker. She has even started using her maiden name again.share
As the film opens, Holly is working late on Christmas Eve, neglecting her family on a major holiday to put in time at the company Christmas party. McClane surprises her at her office in the huge Nakatomi office building. The Christmas party is a great opportunity for the filmmakers to drudge up the old anti-hippie propaganda that originated in the 1960s but was employed politically in the 1980s to rally conservative support. The filmmakers depict Holly’s new world as hedonistic and anathema to McClane’s traditional American values. At the party, he catches one of Holly’s colleague doing cocaine, and another pair having a drunken office tryst.
By the time German thieves storm the building and take everyone hostage, it is clear that McClane has two geopolitical enemies. The depiction of Germans, our chief enemy in World War II, as villains further cements the film’s value system as post-war, pre-counterculture. But in some ways, it is Holly’s Japanese bosses who pose the biggest threat to McClane.
Throughout the film, McClane is depicted as a cowboy, the most traditional of American icons. He even nicknames himself Roy, after famous cowboy Roy Rogers, and his catchphrase – “yippee-ki-yay” – comes straight from every old cowboy film you’ve ever seen. But in the 1980s, Japanese culture was enjoying great influence in America. From sushi to Hondas to Mr. Roboto, Japanese culture was everywhere, and their economy was booming. Japan was seen to be a manufacturing powerhouse while American industry was struggling to keep pace. Many credited the Japanese work ethic, while inherently criticizing American workers for becoming complacent.
“Die Hard” is a bombastic, violent, and brainless response to America’s fear of losing its global superiority. By depicting the promotion of Holly by her Japanese bosses as the catalyst for the dissolution of her family, the filmmakers link the 1980s Japanese takeover of American culture with a deep existential assault on traditional American values. The Nakatomi Corporation lures McClane’s wife away from his family with a promise of financial independence, symbolized by a gold watch given to Holly as a company Christmas bonus. In film’s thrilling climax, villain Hans Gruber is dangling from the top floor of the building, certain to fall to his death. He wants to take Holly with him, and as he tries to pull her down, his hand grips the watch on her wrist, while McClane tries to pull her back into the building. In this moment, the watch symbolizes everything: Holly’s feminist desire to be more than a homemaker; the decreasing stature of the American male; and the rise of foreign economies at the expense of our own. The stalemate is broken when McClane gracefully unhooks the watch from her wrist, freeing her from the shackles of independence. Gruber to falls to his death.