Falling Down
Unclear and Present Danger
Jamelle Bouie
4.7 • 660 Ratings
🗓️ 25 June 2022
⏱️ 70 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jamelle, for one, has been very excited about this episode, an analysis of Joel Schumacher’s 1993 film “Falling Down.” In the conversation, Jamelle and John discuss the populist moment of the early 1990s, the discourse around the “angry white man,” the class politics (or lack thereof) of the film, and the erosion of the post-war anti-fascist consensus.
Connor Lynch produced this episode. Artwork by Rachel Eck.
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Links from the episode!
New York Times front-page for February 26, 1993
Carol Clover on “Falling Down” in Sight and Sound magazine.
A New York Time story on the “race to win over the angry white male” from 1995.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Bill Foster is an ordinary man living in the everyday world, a patient man. |
| 0:07.0 | Can I help you? |
| 0:08.0 | Yes, I'd like a ham and cheese omelette and worm fries. |
| 0:11.0 | I'm sorry. |
| 0:12.0 | We stopped serving breakfast at 1130. |
| 0:15.0 | Who's running out of patience? |
| 0:20.0 | Somebody in a white shirt and tie gunned down a phone |
| 0:22.0 | to be three blocks from the Whammy Burger. |
| 0:23.6 | Michael Douglas |
| 0:24.6 | In America, we have the freedom of speech. |
| 0:27.6 | They're right to disagree. |
| 0:29.6 | Robert Duval in a Joel Schumacher film. |
| 0:31.6 | What are you doing to the street? |
| 0:33.6 | We're fixing it. What the hell does it look like? |
| 0:35.6 | See, I don't think anything's wrong with the street. |
| 0:38.0 | I think you're just trying to justify your inflated budgets. |
| 0:44.3 | Falling down. |
| 0:46.3 | Let's call it a day. |
| 0:48.3 | Come on. I'm the bad guy? |
| 0:50.3 | A tale of urban reality. A politics of that decade. |
| 1:30.3 | I'm Jamel Bowie. I'm a columnist for the New York Times opinion section. |
| 1:34.2 | My name is John Gans. I write a substack newsletter called On Popular Front, |
... |
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