Why it’s the most libertarian Hollywood blockbuster of all time:
How many Hollywood blockbusters involve private businesses as the heroes and government regulators as the villains?
Dickless would certainly fit in well with the current EPA.
17 thoughts on “Ghostbusters”
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I suppose the “great escape” caper described at the link below doesn’t count because:
A) the government was not the _US_ government
B) the private business was not a dinky 4 man “start-up” and
C) it’s NOT fictional…
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090491/
Pouncer, I’ve read the book (though not seen the movie) and I highly recommend it.
One quibble though; the US government was indeed one of the issues that caused them to decide to go it alone; it wasn’t getting the job done, and was more hindrance than help. (and had the US government been aware of this rescue mission, they’d have surely tried to stop it). Thus, the US government wasn’t the main problem, but it was a secondary one.
It’s also well worth noting that a private company got its hostages out while the US government couldn’t get its own hostages out.
Back off, man. We’re libertarians.
“Hollywood blockbuster” generally does not refer to an obscure (made for TV?) movie which almost no one remembers.
I think Destination Moon has far more elements of Libertarian thought, as well as astonishingly realistic special effects for 1950.
Was it a blockbuster?
That’s hard to say. According to IMDB, Destination Moon grossed $5 million in domestic box office, and yet it is not listed on Wikipedia’s table of the top ten grossing movies of 1950 ($5M would put it in third place behind Cinderella and King Solomon’s Mines).
$5M likely includes re-releases, which add up (especially with inflation).
I’ll cast a vote for “The Incredibles.”
Although, like the Oscars, I expect animation won’t get much respect.
When governments or corporations are involves it’s them that are usually the villains, with the hero being the individual battling for justice against state or corporate power.
Perhaps it’s appropriate that Ghostbusters is a fantasy comedy, as the
precondition to making it a libertarian saga.
Sure, Einstein, because in real life the State is never intrusive and is the best friend a business can have!
I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and Star Wars could be considered in many ways a libertarian movie; Bill Whittle has even suggested renaming the Tea Party as the Rebel Alliance. Serenity wasn’t a blockbuster, which is a shame. V for Vendetta is certainly an inspiration of Anonymous.
There’s rather a lot of libertarian-themed movies, actually, it’s just that they don’t go pounding people over the head with it (like Atlas Shrugged) but show it more subtly.
Can anyone think of a big-government Western, or were they all libertarian?
I can’t think of any. “High Noon” was by a black-listed director and meant to be a left-wing parable. Yet, it comes across as the struggle of one rugged individual who’s abandoned by the communitarian masses.
True. And in the Sixties HIGH NOON came across as a support-your-local-police parable–not what the Left of the time would have endorsed. Another such work of agitprop that morphed into something the Left didn’t intend is SPARTACUS: screenplay by blacklisted comsymp Dalton Trumbo, based on a novel by fellow traveler Howard Fast. Today the movie seems more like libertarian propaganda than the revolt-of-the-underclass agitprop its creators intended. “When one man says ‘No!’ all Rome trembles,” reminds me of the Hive elite to the Tea Party.
“V for Vendetta is certainly an inspiration of Anonymous.”
How did anyone make it through that terrible movie?