Is Law Abiding Citizen a Republican Revenge Fantasy?
There's something weird about Law Abiding Citizen, and it isn't simply the movie's attempt to gussy up the legal thriller genre with gruesome, Saw-style theatrics. No, the most notable thing about the film is how it appears to inadvertently channel the recent, inchoate Republican anger at the Obama administration and use it to power a violent revenge fantasy. Don't believe me? Here are four ways Law Abiding Citizen feels like a Republican wet dream. Mild spoilers ahead:
Sympathy with the Devil
Jamie Foxx's district attorney Nick Rice is ostensibly our hero, struggling to put an end to the murderous schemes enacted by the imprisoned Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler), but it's clear that the film favors Clyde over Nick, who's caricatured as a "soft on crime" liberal that let the killers of Clyde's family walk free. Clyde, by contrast, is a death-penalty-enforcing warrior hero who hates lawyers and is distrustful of the government (unless he's being hired to conduct shadowy black ops for an unnamed administration -- that stuff's OK). In fact, he goes to trial and angles for bail specifically so that once he receives it, he can call the judge too lenient. You get the feeling that the only thing he may hate more than all this is the public option.
Weird Racial Undertones
It's a little queasy-making, too, for Republican analogue Clyde to delight in torturing a successful, politically ambitious black man. In fact, both of the film's ultimate authority figures are black if you include Viola Davis, a mayor that Clyde is targeting for (gulp) assassination. That's right: an entire set piece generates suspense from whether Nick can foil Clyde's plot to kill a black, female, presumably liberal politician. There's no sympathy generated for Davis's terse character; in fact, I had more sympathy for the actress for having to play her.
Retrograde Gender Stereotyping
Then again, the only female characters venerated in the film are the ones killed off in the opening sequence. When Clyde is granted bail and launches a tirade against his judge, he adds a gratuitous insult at the end -- "I bet you like it up the ass, don't you?" -- simply because she's a woman (what's worse is how director F. Gary Gray sets the line up to receive supportive laughs and cheers from the audience). Later, Nick's pretty, thirtysomething coworker (Leslie Bibb) is so perturbed by the murders around her that she openly questions whether she should have sacrificed having a family to pursue career advancement. It's a question the men in the film don't have to ask, since they've all managed to have families; only women must choose one or the other.
Unintentional Homoerotica
It wouldn't be an aggressively conservative movie if it didn't somehow sneak in some gay eye candy, would it? Top Gun had its bro-on-bro shirtless volleyball scene, and Law Abiding Citizen goes it one better by asking Gerard Butler to strip fully naked as Clyde surrenders to the authorities. Why? No reason, except to provide a butt shot -- as if Law Abiding Citizen wasn't already Republican masturbation material enough.
Subscribe to the new Movieline on YouTube
Comments
Republicans don't have wet dreams, they only dry hump.
So let's see... A black Oscar winning actor, a black director, and a black Oscar-nominated actress (all of whom, according to your apparent worldview, can assumed to be liberal simply because of the color of their skin) are too ignorant to realize they agreed to collaborate on a racist, homophobic Republican revenge fantasy? Perhaps white liberal bloggers need to re-evaluate their own fantasies...
Oh, wait. I need to lighten up, right? You wrote this piece as a snarky satire, I'm sure.
You've twisted my words! It's a racist, homoerotic revenge fantasy. There, that's better.
was nobody hanging out on Gerry Butler's internet to snatch the nudie pics to the makeup artist?
maybe jamie offered to hand deliver them... for security purposes.
True - black people with Oscars go on to make the best career decisions...
Halle Berry in Catwoman
Whoopi Goldberg as Buckwheat's mom in The Little Rascals
Morgan Freeman in the Big Bounce or, better yet, Edison Force
Lou Gossett Jr in Jaws 3-D!
Cuba Gooding Jr in everything since his win
and with F. Gary Gray at the helm??? Be Cool... it's gonna be great!
i can't tell if i'm being sarcastic anymore.
Hey, I dig your site and read it every day. Just have to call bullshit when I see it.
How did you get Bullshit's phone number? Please stop calling or a restraining order will be issued. . .
Am I the only person who saw this when I first viewed the above photo??>>
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r113/moondawg9/TextMessage.jpg
Wow! I wonder if Gerry is aware he's been relegated to channeling the 'aggressively conservative, inchoate Republican anger' genre that left-wingers so love to vilify and condemn at every opportunity. Nice...
So what if there is more and more people like you that say the above -- Well, if the left-wingers so love to vilify and condemn at every opportunity - the Republicans, What are they Doing that is Wrong(and Why are they doing things that are wrong) and if they were Doing No Wrong then there would be NO Reason to "so love and vilify and condemn at every opportunity". Now would they? And not all repub.'s are homosexual either. Also left-wingers Don't vilify and condemn @ 'every' opportunity because they simply have a Life to Live and Not ALL left-wingers vilify All republicans. How do you know what ALL Left-wingers think about?
Hmmm. I didn't realize I had used the term "ALL left-wingers", but thank you for clarifying that...
Of course, I meant the universal "I" which lives in all of us. . .
How many chicken wings would a left-winger eat if a left-winger did eat chicken wings?
I just got back from this movie... and it was indeed racist... but not in the way you put it.
NO BLACK PEOPLE DIED IN THIS MOVIE!!! WTF???
This movie should have been called "Kill Whitey" because that is ALL that happened. It was so bad that at the end...
***SPOILER ALERT***
that at the end I KNEW that the mayor' chamber was not gonna blow up because there were black people in there.
One glaring problem with playing the Race Card here:
For two years of production, Jamie Foxx had signed on as the angry husband and Gerard Butler was the deal-making lawyer. The swap was made at the last minute, and it was Jamie Foxx's idea. So he's the racist?
And I suppose the author would've found the original just as racist, but for the exact opposite reasons?
people who see racism and such in this movie are they themselves racist pigs who need to grow up and realize that there is only one race - THE HUMAN RACE! Stop being such tools and see it for what it is, an entertaining movie that makes you think, what would you do in his position? would you point out the flaws in justice or would you take your own justice?
You've gone straight retard in this review lol
I also do it like this but haven't gone as far as creating a blogpost about it! good on ya!ss
It's not my first time to go to see this website, i am browsing this website dailly and obtain nice information from here every day.
My family always say that I am killing my time here at net,
except I know I am getting experience daily by reading
thes nice articles or reviews.