The Persistence of a Nuclear Threat
15
exposes for all to see the cockeyed nightmares of those on the
lunatic fringe, the self-styled patriots who might even
embarrass the members of the John Birch Society.
The ideological implications of R e d D a w n also concerned other critics. Writing
in N e w York magazine, David Denby asserted, “Ever since D ir ty H a rr y , the
American right hasn’t had a movie-poster icon it could call its own, but this
movie may provide a few.” Denby noted the irony of idolizing young partisan
heroes fighting against a powerful and well armed adversary. Such heroic
images, however, were usually drawn from the international left of World War
II, as brave partisans (often communists) fought the Nazi occupiers in
Yugoslavia, Greece, and France. In addition, the only sympathetic enemy figure
in the film is the Cuban, Bella, who appears to be a Che Guevara-type figure.
Such subtlety, however, was probably lost upon most film audiences and some
politicians.17
Perhaps Lenny Rubenstein, writing in C in e a s te , best conveys the extent to
which American images of the cowboy and heroic warrior, celebrated by Milius,
influenced the political environment of the mid-1980s. Rubenstein concluded
that in R e d D a w n , “The squinty-eyed toughness of the cowboy is melded to the
nightmare image of invading Cubans and the rigors of wilderness pioneering to
portray the slaughter of the last unarmed Russian soldier for the audience that
has never shed a drop of blood, heard a shot fired in anger, or ever heard the
whine of falling shells. Milius is playing the worst possible politics in a
darkened hall from behind a screen. Even more horrifying is the possibility that
his Panavision and Metrocolor feature is a pleasant dream to those in high
places.”18
R e d D a w n , which earned nearly $36 million in its U.S. release, and the reelection campaign of 1984 symbolized and marked the ascendancy of the
Reagan administration’s efforts to displace the legacy of defeat in Vietnam with
a potent and vigorous foreign policy, restoring American greatness and
manhood.19 However, the President’s second term lacked the stridency of the
early Reagan years. The unfolding Iran-Contra scandal exposed the impotency
of much Reagan saber-rattling as well as the ideological inconsistencies of the
administration’s foreign policy.20 And on the Soviet front; the peace offensive of
Gorbachev led to the summits in Iceland, Geneva, and Moscow. Perhaps the
anti-nuclear discourse of the early 1980s was having a residual effect as
President Reagan and his new Soviet friend negotiated reductions to nuclear
stockpiles. The bellicose rhetoric of the early Reagan years failed to fit with the
international realities of the late 1980s as Gorbachev’s policies of glasnost and
perestroika failed to prevent the collapse of the Soviet empire and state.
Hollywood, nevertheless, continued to sign on with the Cold War. Noting
the political and cultural context of Reagan ascendancy and impressed with box
office receipts of films such as R e d D a w n , in comparison with an antiwar film
like T estam ent, Hollywood features of the late 1980s embraced a conservative
Cold War ideology with such features as Iron E a g le (1985), R o c k y /K (1985),