Lingmiao's Blog

Today, I watched a famous action movie, “Die Hard”. This movie depicts a story that a cop fight with a group of armed and trained terrorists. The New York cop, John McClane played by Bruce Wills, went to the party of his estranged wife’s company. A group of terrorists led by Hans Gruber intruded into that party because they want to obtain money from the stock of that company. The terrorists killed the boss of company and other people in that party were kidnapped as hostages, including John’s wife. It was all up to John to save the hostage situation.

Overall, this is an exciting movie. John McClane, a cop from New York, displays all the character that an ideal cop should possess. He is brave, strong, clever, and sensitive. Unlike the deputy police chief and FBI, he actually cares about the safety of all hostages and never gives up on rescuing them. What is more, his perfect body shape really gives audiences a sense of security.

One of police officer, Powell, impressed me even though I kind of feel he irresponsible when he didn’t search the building carefully at the beginning. Powell always supported John and tried everything he can to comfort and encourage John. I have no doubt that John cannot rescue the hostages and kill all terrorists without Powell’s help. In the earlier of this movie, Powell talked about that he is not on duty any more because he killed a child. However, at the end of movie, Powell still pulled the trigger when one terrorist was going to shoot John. He is John’s excellent partner.

I always hate all the bad guys in the movie. But I didn’t hate Hans, the leader of terrorist since I am kind of Alan Rickman’s fan. Except his purpose is insidious, Hans is a clam, clever and confident man. When John interrupted his plan, he is not out of control like other terrorists. He know what is want and how can he get what he want. However, He is very cruel and cold-blooded. He will kill a man without second thought and won’t feel guilty of it.

On the other hand, I think the duty police chief is such an asshole! He doubts the identity of John at the beginning and try to stop John from rescue hostages simple because he deem John break a possible negotiation between the terrorists and the government. If he think about the words of Powell, the situation would not become that bad. Maybe the existence of him is to magnify the excellence of John and Powell.

At last, I have to admit “Die Hard” is a good movie even if I don’t like it. I don’t like it simple because the plot of this movie is so predictable.

In the article “Why Most Mass Murderers are privileged white man”, Hugo Schwyzer argues the unearned privilege of white male leads to the current situation that most mass Murderers are privileged white middle-class male. Schwyzer’s inference are very convincing. He refers to the previous mass murderers, Seung-Hui Cho and Maj. Nidal Hasan, to demonstrate that media focus on murderers’ family background and faith instead of their mental illnesses. And connecting his personal experience, Hugo acclaim that white man are raised to expect to be welcomed wherever they go. So they are confident enough to choose a public place to commit massacres. Schwyzer decodes James Holmes’s crime in negotiated reading. He believes dominate ideology of stereotype of people from different background encourages the white man to commit crime in public place.

But I kind of have a mixed feeling about his inference. On the one hand, I agree that most people have some stereotype towards people from different background and media magnify this effect. On the other hands, I don’t believe white middle-class male privilege is one of reasons that white male criminals choose public spaces. Stereotype of other people do influence the behavior of people. But it is no longer a big factor.

Nowadays, when we are communicating with others, we more focus on that person’s character and his or her pasted accomplishments or failures instead of his or her family background, religion or faith.  I am not very familiar with how American people judge the murderers of massacres. But in my country, the similar case happened in 2004. The criminal Jiajue Ma is a university student. Because of unknown reason, he killed some students and professors in his university. That event shocked the whole China. Media attribute his behavior to his family background. But, people’s analysis about why he skilled so many students and professors in his university is not merely based on his background. Instead, his pasted behavior and his mental illnesses are the focus of people. Media did magnify the effect of Jiaju Ma’s background. But people are not fool. They will unbiased explain the whole events and decode the message from media in negotiated reading or even oppositional reading.

You will probably object that I have misrepresented Schwyzer’s work here. I concede the white male privilege do exist and influence our life. But I just thought that Schwyzer exaggerates this effect. Today, people may become inferential racists unconsciously because of the preferred reading from the media. However, I do not deem that effect is powerful enough to switch people’s whole judgment towards serious public events. Nowadays people’s dominate ideology is not racist ideology any more. Today’s dominate ideology, I thought, is that people can only understand the matter utterly by analyzing ALL aspect of that matter.