Terrorism Through Film: Die Hard, Fight Club, Team America

I'm pretty sure I got an A for this one.

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In terms of media representation, in recent times perhaps nothing has been more depicted, discussed and presented as terrorism. As such, media interpretations of such a complex and inexhaustible topic of interest have the potential to affect understandings of criminality and criminal justice. By focusing on three fictional films dealing with terrorist crime and criminal justice responses to it, this essay aims to discuss how such representations and conceptions might uphold or challenge dominant ideologies; affect perceptions of criminal justice systems and create avenues by which audiences can form opinions on the topics presented.

Morris notes that there has been a fetishistic privileging of images in the modern media (Morris, 2004: 403), meaning that images have replaced dialogue in terms of how people understand and perhaps even legitimise information. Indeed, Baudrillard has suggested that an image consumes the event it depicts, in the 'sense that it absorbs it and offers it for consumption' (Baudrillard, 2003: 27). Bearing this in mind, what can be gleaned from fictional representations of terrorism if images are so paramount? Terrorism may be, in the mind of an audience, made up of the different representations - images, primarily - that are presented by the media in its many forms. Newsmedia falls into this category, as does film.

The three films to be discussed are Die Hard (1988, dir John McTiernan); Fight Club (1999, dir David Fincher) and Team America: World Police (2004, dir Trey Parker). All three are fictional accounts of terrorist crime but each is significantly different, allowing different perspectives to be explored and constrasted. Further to this, there will be a general discussion of the possible effects of media representations - including newsmedia - of terrorism and the forms they make take.

Films work, at least to some extent, on the presupposition that audiences know how to consume movies. They are predicated on the ability of audiences to recognise the familiar formats and cinematic tropes each film is imbued with. Films are also full of ideological standings, but these are taken in as part of the whole visual and auditory - sometimes even visceral - film experience. Indeed, audiences come to films as if to 'hegemonic discourses' that are embodied in these regular formats to which they have become 'thoroughly accustomed' (Wilkins and Downing, 2002: 422). Films work with these discourses to represent their own versions of terrorist crime.



The first film to be considered in this discussion is John McTiernan's Die Hard (1988). Die Hard concerns New York City police officer John McClane (Bruce Willis), who makes his way to Los Angeles in order to spend Christmas with his children and his estranged wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia). When McClane arrives at Holly's workplace - the sterling tower of the Nakatomi Corporation - for the company Christmas party, he obviously doesn't fit in with his wife's yuppie co-workers and retreats to the private en-suite of the one of the offices. Meanwhile international terrorists are infiltrating the building, in a carefully choreographed manner. The terrorists make themselves known to the guests, who are on the 30th floor, and take the company CEO, Mr. Takagi (James Shigeta), along with everyone else, hostage.

The terrorists, all European except for one American - the computer whiz with the job of breaking various codes - are led by the sophisticated, witty and arrogant German Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman). At first he parodies the stereotype of terrorists being idealistic activists who want social or political change, but it soon becomes clear that Gruber is actually after the $640 million worth of negotiable bearer bonds in the Nakatomi safe. However, the terrorists don't yet know there is an NYPD cop somewhere in the building.

When McClane obtains a radio walkie talkie after killing one of the terrorists, he manages to communicate with LAPD Sgt. Al Powell (Reginald VelJohnson) continuously. Powell is fighting his own battle against his idiot boss Chief Dwayne T. Robinson (Paul Gleason), who constantly hinders the operation. McClane tells Powell his situation and the two develop a friendship over the radio waves.

Over the course of the film, McClane uses his police smarts and cunning in an attempt to get the better of the terrorists. By using the terrorists' own weapons against them, McClane stages an effective resistance, until Gruber finds out that McClane's wife is one of the hostages. With Gruber threatening to kill her, McClane appears to surrender only to pull a dangerous stunt and save the day.

Die Hard's depiction of terrorists is both stereotyped and a parody of that stereotype. Hans Gruber pretends to be an idealistic terrorist, making phony demands to the police about wanting members of 'Asian Dawn' released from a prison in Sri Lanka. When questioned by a fellow terrorist Gruber replies, "I read about them in Time Magazine." What Gruber and his men want are bearer bonds: far from being anti-establishment, anti-capitalist political activists, they are only after money. Gruber is self-consciously aware of the popular idea of terrorists as being driven by ideology and uses that as a facade.

It is of note that Die Hard's terrorists are essentially all European and/or foreign in some way. This reinforces the idea that terrorism is from the outside, a polluting force that comes from an unknown place. In Die Hard, this notion of fear of the 'Other' extends to the Nakatomi Corporation itself, which is Japanese and highly technologically advanced. In contrast, hero McClane distrusts technology, is scared of air travel and winces at the computers he encounters. Technology has an arrogance, perhaps, and a mystique that comes from it being somehow foreign. Interesting, then, that the terrorist who is sent to hack - fight, almost - the foreign technology is an American. McClane similarly defeats the terrorists without recourse to technology: he uses old fashioned guns, explosives and cunning.

The formal justice systems in Die Hard are basically inept. Aside from McClane and Powell, neither the LAPD (stupid) nor the FBI (insane) can stop the terrorists. It is McClane's bravado, coupled with Powell's bravery and foresight that defeat the terrorists. The hero is quintessentially American and he defeats the foreign 'Other'. The notion being upheld here is one of individualism; in a way, it reminds of recent UK legislation that seeks to make young people active, responsible citizens and move away from the 'passivity of youth' (Vaughn, 2000: 348).



In David Fincher's Fight Club (1999), terrorism is expressed in a different way to that of Die Hard. Fight Club's story concerns the nameless Narrator (Edward Norton), a neurotic businessman who has become completely disaffected with his white-collar surroundings and suffers from terrible insomnia. In a bid to rid himself of the numbness he feels, he joins support groups for various diseases - notably among them testicular cancer - despite him not being sick. Attending these support groups cures his insomnia until another 'faker', Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter) joins.

Presently, the Narrator's apartment mysteriously blows up and he moves in with Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), a soap salesman he has met on a plane. Durden is engimatic, charismatic and dispenses strange pieces of information, like how to make napalm, into casual conversation. Durden tells the Narrator that his possessions getting destroyed was the best thing that could happen. "The things you own end up owning you" he says. Together they start Fight Club, a place where young professional men pummel eachother for the experience of being hit, rather than hitting. Along with the fighting comes a nihilism and anti-establishmentism that emanates from Tyler's charisma.

Soon Fight Club becomes wildly popular and is transformed into 'Project Mayhem', an urban terrorist cell. Since terrorism is a subtype of human aggression (Victoroff, 2005: 35), Fight Club's violence and nihilism provides the framework for the terrorist Project Mayhem. At first Project Mayhem is about making large scale pranks as statements against society, but it soon escalates to a plan to destroy an entire city. Terrorism in Fight Club is a means to an end: Tyler desires a new order of society and his philosophy is read in the way same that an Islamic theological justification for terrorism is.

When the Narrator finds out that Project Mayhem has orders to harm Marla - who Tyler has been sleeping with, much to the Narrator's disgust - he tries to warn her, only for her to reveal to him that she believes he is Tyler. That is, Tyler is revealed to the audience to be the imaginary friend of the Narrator, created from his psyche.

The Narrator finally confronts his alter ego at the top of the only high rise building in the city not to be imminently demolished by a nefarious terrorist plan to reset society. The Narrator shoots himself in the face, leaving him perhaps mortally wounded but killing Tyler: terrorism, then, is a rogue element; a tumour to be eradicated. Marla shows up and the two watch the city begin to collapse, hand in hand.

Fight Club is separate from the other films discussed here in that it depicts the terrorist experience as happening at the level of the individual. Terrorism is presented as a sexy and masculine activity that will free the modern world of its shackles, returning it to a romanticised Eden-like state: Tyler says he dreams of swinging over the ashes of high rises buildings on overgrown vines. It also shows the terrorist group from an ethnographic perspective: the audience is with the terrorists throughout, not some outside 'good guy'. Indeed, even the cops are members of Fight Club/Project Mayhem and the lines between good guy and bad guy are blurred.

The formal justice systems are thus depicted in Fight Club as corrupt and contemptible, capable of being taken over be extremists. In a sense, there is a no hero, since the villian - Tyler - and the protagonist Narrator are revealed to be the same. This symbiosis perhaps suggests the dialectical relationship between terrorism and its opponents; and how a society may create its own deviant elements, rather than it being imported from elsewhere.

The political content of fictional films is often in rhyme with the dominant ideologies of the day. Just as Die Hard is a product of Reagan's 1980s, with its focus on the 'everyman' saving the day, Fight Club is symptomatic of the cynical 90s, with terrorism ultimately more fulfilling than white collar life. However, movies dealing with terrorist crime have the potential to influence public perceptions about such acts: the power of film is such that in the immediate aftermath of September 11, the Bush Administration sought Hollywood's help, with many US politicians hoping to see a 'convergence of foreign policy agendas and film content' (Pollard, 2002: 138).

This would amount to a contribution to what Pollard calls the 'Hollywood War Machine', where wartime exploits are glorified as heroic in studio films (Pollard, 2002: 121). Indeed, the production of movies - or even the marketing of them in the post-production process - is often done with political and social climates considered. For example, the films Black Hawk Down (2001, dir. Ridley Scott) and We Were Soldiers (2002, dir. Randall Wallace), having been produced just before September 11 and released soon after, have been described as 'mood music' for the nascent War on Terror (Carruthers, 2003: 168). Similarly, these depictions reassured the American public rather than alarmed them, evincing how media can work cathartically (ibid: 171).



This may also be the case with Trey Parker's Team America: World Police (2004), a feature film entirely made with a cast of marrionettes, which automatically places the film into the realm of abstraction, although it does raise many current issues. The movie's plot concerns an American squad of Thunderbirds-style anti-terrorism fighters who enlist the help of a Broadway actor - Gary - to infiltrate a terrorist cell, using his acting talents to thwart an attack in Cairo. When a terrorist attack in Central America - defined on screen as '2193 miles from the Real America', parodying the American-centric view it ultimately espouses - responds to the attack Gary loses faith in his acting abilities, only to rejoin Team America to stop North Korea's Kim Jong Il, who is funding terrorist groups around the world.

The terrorists in Team America are deliberately and undeniably of a stereotypical nature. They are the 'deranged fanatical Arabs harbouring an irrational hatred of America, the West, modernity, and civilisation' (Matthews, 2005: 220). However, Team America adds a new card to the deck by depicting an actual world leader - North Korea's Kim Jong Il - as a terrorist. Thus, state-sponsored terrorism emerges in popular fiction, perhaps as a reflection of current discourses regarding it. Kim Jong Il's motivation for supporting terrorism is simply that he is lonely; or, as he sings in one of the film's many musical numbers, 'so ronery' - marking him out as the definite Other, who cannot grasp English properly.

Media representations of the 'enemy' or the 'other' have the potential to drum up support for violent measures against them. For example, representations of Arab or Muslim people as 'inferior, threatening, immoral and dehistoricized' have been said to have played a part in gaining public support for the first Gulf War (Muscati, 2002: 131). Similarly, representations of 'Other' peoples as being exemplars of an inferior culture or civilization can inspire not just aggression but also a paternalistic response, where Western 'humanitarian' instincts emerge in an attempt to save 'them' from 'themselves' (Cloud, 2004: 286). Team America acts in this regard, policing the world to save it from itself.

What, then, does this suggest about the depictions in Team America of 'Middle Eastern' culture? While fun is poked at racial profiling - rookie Gary has a matty beard haphazardly applied to his porcelin face which, to the Team Americans, signifies Middle Eastern - the depictions of Arabs in Team America tend to conflate the terrorists with all Arab/Muslim people. Once again, then, there is the notion of terrorism as being an outside force; the external; the Other.

Team America's seeming conflation of Islam, terrorism and the 'Middle East' could be seen as dangerous. 'Us and them' rhetoric, despite its intent to define terrorists as separate from everybody else, may 'invariably be used by many to defame a whole cultural entity or entities' (Martin and Phelan, 2002: 268). Films that use such rhetoric, then, are perhaps handling a volatile means of representation.

The formal justice systems, as they exist in Team America, are heroic. Team America members are police officers and they basically do good, even if they mess up sometimes (and indeed, they are thwarted by meddling celebrities, not inept governments or justice bodies). Team America embodies the very spirit of America: their head-quarters are located inside Mount Rushmore, the design of their weapons, vehicles and uniforms are based on the American-flag motif. They have Good on their side in a fight against Evil and being quintessentially American (which may stand in for 'the West' in general) displays this.

Central to the discussion is the notion of the us/them or internal/external dichotomies at play in all three movies. Such dichotomies are not invented by the texts, however; rather, they are inherited from a Western cultural tradition and replicated in the media (Matthews, 2005: 219). Movies use familiar tropes and forms to bring up issues, whether it is intended, explicit or otherwise. For example, patriarchy has been cited as the 'ruling ideology' that legitimates events such as violent terrorist acts as well as the violent responses to it (Rasmusson, 2005: 141), which would imply that fictional representations of terrorism carry with them the burden of patriarchy. This can be seen in Fight Club and Die Hard: both depict terrorism - and the fight against it - to be a male domain. However, while Team America's terrorists are all male, the heroes are of both genders.

In any case, the main focus here is the terrorist as 'other'. Consider that although both Die Hard and Team America depict terrorists in contrasting ways (cunning and intelligent versus cariacture), both films have representations of terrorists as distinctly foreign. Terrorism, then, becomes defined as an invading force coming from without; terrorism exists outside 'our' Western industrialised society and its attacks are necessarily from such a position, both spatially and ideologically.

This idea of terrorism coming from outside, however, has its most significant problem in Fight Club, where the terrorist group is made up of men explicitly from within the society that it wishes to attack. That is, they are 'homegrown' terrorists in the sense that they are not of foreign backgrounds that carry with them vastly different sets of values. In Fight Club, the values the terrorists have come to know by virtue of having lived in such a modern Western society have been rejected, in favour of a new, nihilistic philosophy. As a contrast, Die Hard's terrorists believe in the Western value of accumulating wealth, and use terorism as a means to that end.

However, there is a way to reconnect Fight Club's complex marking of the self/other distinction to Die Hard and Team America's terrorists as explicitly 'Other'. Fight Club's terrorist leader, Tyler Durden, is revealed to be an imaginary alter ego that the Narrator has created out the 'thoughts and desires that he cannot integrate within himself' (Palladino and Young, 2003: 204). Thus, in a sense, Tyler is the Other and his terrorism serves as a foreign agent's (to the Narrator's mind) deviance.

Just as Fight Club subverts understandings of the internal/external dichotomy as it relates to terrorism, the events of September 11, with its 'sleeper' terrorists, have forced a reassessment of what constitutes internal and external. Indeed, 'the enemy is no longer a spatially removed “other,” but one that subverts such an understanding' (Palladino and Young, 2003: 214). Perhaps Fight Club, then, is a film that would not have been allowed to be made in the post-9/11 world, such is its complex depiction of terrorism.

Similarly, some images are believed to be too 'psychologically disturbing to the general public' (Brottman, 2004: 167) to be shown, given a particular world climate. Both Die Hard and Fight Club involve terrorists exploding tall buildings which, in the post 9/11 world, might have seemed inappropriate. However, Team America - undeniably a product of the post 9/11 world - shows puppet terrorists (and puppet heroes) blowing up various landmarks: the Eiffel tower, the Sphinx, Mount Rushmore. Perhaps its level of abstraction and its claim to satire makes these representations more acceptable.

Film often calls attention to itself as a constucted medium of juxapositions and interpretations. In both Fight Club and Team America, attention is called to the abstract nature of the experience: Fight Club's narrative is told in flasback by voice over and comment is made on the flashback (when the film returns from the flashback, the Narrator makes a joke and Tyler replies "Flashback humour. I get it"). Team America is made up of puppets manipulated by some unseen architect, subtextually implying a divine power, but cinematically defining the chartacters as not being part of the real world.

Some note should also be made of the fact that in 21st century terrorists are prone to making videos themselves. Indeed, non-state terrorists are quite interested in media exposure (Ben-Yehuda, 2005: 44). It is not trivial to suggest that the form these videos take has been influenced by the same kinds of representations discussed here: Western media, like film and television. Thus, terrorists are not only depicted in films, but depict themselves in films of their own making. They may know the filmic shorthand and Hollywood tropes to convey certain pieces of information, hence the righteous egomaniacal speeches read out by terrorists on home made video. Hans Gruber, then, becomes a lens through which audiences may view terrorists: theatrical, intelligent and, above all, foreign.

Note, too, the way the newsmedia represents Osama Bin Laden as being a leader of a finite group called al Qaeda, who has 'deputies' and cells that operate in much the same way as action movie villians' groups do. Indeed, in all three films discussed here, the charismatic terrorist leader has considerable control over his group, in agreeance with the theory that leaders of terrorist cells are of a greater cognitive capacity than followers (Victoroff, 2005: 35).

Terrorism's victory is that it can claim all violence as its own, such is its mysery. Baudrillard suggests that Bin Laden 'might even claim natural disasters as his own' (Baudrillard, 2003: 33). Fight Club's terrorist cell is based on a mysterious and secret arrangement of many members of society: Project Mayhem demonstrates that society is made up of individuals, some in very menial jobs, and prosperity - read:society- rests on them (Palladino and Young, 2003: 213). Any violence, then, could be attributed to terrorism, if a terrorist group is seen as pervasive.

Of course, films about terrorism have been inspired and influenced by real terrorist events, but it is perhaps just as valid a suggestion that fictional accounts of terrorism in movies have influenced not only news media depictions of terrorism but also of terrorist attacks themselves: buildings crumbling in films replicated in the real world, yielding similiar panic and horror.

Indeed, terrrorists can utilise the media as another weapon at their disposal; they aim to be portrayed in a sympathetic light and draw attention to their actions (Ben-Yehuda, 2005: 36). The media can become part of the terroristic act, as 'part of the terror' (Baudrillard, 2003: 30). It is for such reasons that some commentators have suggested that the media take a careful look at its impact on audiences and portray terrorists as weak, cowardly, disorganized and psychopathic killers (Pech and Slade, 2005: 59). This would deny terrorists the ' "dignity" of coverage' and thus may strip the terrrorists of some of their power (ibid: 58). Extending this to film, the depictions of Hans Gruber and Tyler Durden do not emasculate or demonize them, whereas the Team America terrorists are depicted as foolish and psychopathic. In a world apparently changed by terrorism post-September 11, depictions of likable terrorist characters have perhaps ceased to be acceptable.

However, despite the potential for unhealthy or dangerous depictions of terrorist crime in the media, representing such things also has the ability to act in a different way and provide a kind of catharsis. In times of social instability, for example, people often turn to the media in the hope that it might provide them with 'frameworks for understanding, acting or escaping' the situation (McNee, 2002: 282). Indeed, McNee argues that the fictional media can have as important a part as the newsmedia in opening up arenas for discussion and airing pertinent questions (ibid: 286). In the case of Team America, perhaps the crude humour and simplicity mark out a desire in audiences to laugh at the state of the world.

Oliverio suggests that the media are at the 'heart of the production of history' (Oliverio, 1998: 8) and that violence labelled terrorism 'provides the dramatic script' (ibid). As such, media representations of events such as terrorist crimes have a complex and important part to play in affecting an audience and partly shaping their experience of and responses to terrorism. If, as Tom Pollard suggests, war movies represent 'barometers of patriotic sentiment' (Pollard, 2002: 138), films that deal primarily with terrorist crimes might serve a similar function: In the global war on terror, films that deal with terrorism are reassuring and cocksure in the face of adversity.

If depictions of terrorism have the ability to construct or influence audience's perceptions of such acts, there is perhaps a responsibility in the hands of film-makers for terrorism to be presented with caution. Suggestions of portraying terrorists in a very bad light (Pech and Slade, 2005: 58) or as so 'beyond the pale' as to not warrant being understood (Dershowitz, 2002: 29) illustrate this. However, despite potential for insensitive and dangerous depictions there is also a cathartic element to terrorism in fictional film:, by airing out issues without attempts at easy solutions. Media depictions will not be interpreted in the same way by every audience and as such, each depiction becomes valid on its own terms. Die Hard, Fight Club and Team America: World Police each represent terrorism in varying ways, encouraging audiences to interpret the discourses and depictions themselves, in their own ways.





References

Baudrillard, J. (2003) The Spirit of Terrorism and other essays. Verso. London and New York.

Ben-Yehuda, N. (2005). "Terror, Media, and Moral Boundaries". International Journal of Comparative Sociology, No. 46. April.

Brottman, M. (2004) 'The Fascination of the abomination: the censored images of 9/11' in M. Dixon (ed) Film and Television After 9/11, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.

Carruthers, S.L. (2003). "Bringing it all back home: Hollywood returns to war". Small Wars and Insurgencies. Vol. 14. No. 1. March. Routledge.

Cloud, D.L. (2004) "'To veil the threat of terror': Afghan women and the in the imagery of the U.S. war on terrorism". Quarterly Journal of Speech. Vol.90. No. 3. August. Routledge.

Dershowitz, A.M. (2002). Why Terrorism Works: understanding the threat, responding to the challenge. Yale University Press. USA

Martin, P. and Phelan, S. (2002). "Representing Islam in the Wake of September 11: A Comparison of US Television and CNN Online Messageboard Discourses"
Prometheus. Vol. 20. No. 3. September. Routledge.

Matthews, J. (2005). " Visual Culture and Critical Pedagogy in 'Terrorist Times' ". Discourse. Vol. 26. No. 2. June. Routledge.

McNee, F. (2002). "Something's Happened: Fictional Media as a Coping Mechanism". Prometheus. Vol. 20. No. 3. September. Routledge.

Muscati, S. A. (2002). "Arab/Muslim 'Otherness': The Role of Racial Constructions in the Gulf War and the Continuing Crisis with Iraq". Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs. Vol. 22. No. 1. April. Routledge.

Morris, R.C. (2004). "Images of Untranslatability in the US War on Terror". Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies. Vol. 6. No. 3. November. Routledge.

Oliverio, A. (1998) The State of Terror. Albany; State University of New York.

Palladino, P. and Young. T. (2003). "Fight Club and the World Trade Center: On Metaphor, Scale, and the Spatio-temporal (Dis)location of Violence". Journal for Cultural Research. Vol. 7. No 2. April. Routledge.

Pollard, T. (2002) "The Hollywood War Machine". New Political Science. Vol. 24. No. 1. March. Routledge.

Rasmusson, S.L. (2005). "Masculinity and Fahrenheit 9/11" International Feminist Journal of Politics. Vol. 7. No. 1. March. Routledge.

Vaughn, B. (2000) "The Government of Youth: Disorder and Dependence?", Social and Legal Studies, Vol. 9. No. 3.

Victoroff, J. (2005). "The Mind of the Terrorist: A Review and Critique of Psychological Approaches". Journal of Conflict Resolution. Vol. 49. No. 3. February.

Wilkins, K. and Downing, J. (2002) ."Mediating Terrorism: text and protest in interpretations of The Siege". Critical Studies in Media Communication. Vol. 19. No. 4. December, Routledge.


Filmography

Black Hawk Down (2001), Directed by Ridley Scott
Die Hard (1988), Directed by John McTiernan
Fight Club (1999), Directed by David Fincher
Team America: World Police (2004), Directed by Trey Parker.
We Were Soldiers (2002), Directed by Randall Wallace

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(c) 2005, Daniel Hedger