Tickets for the Michael Douglas 's L. A. walking tour: ideological disclosures in Joel Schurnacher's “Falling down”

Revista de Estudios Norteamericanos, n! 4 ( 1996), pp. 307 -324 TICKETS FOR THE MICHAEL DOUGLAS'S L.A. WALKING TOUR: IDEOLOGICAL DISCLOSURES IN JOEL SCHUMACHER'S FALLING DOWN J. Jos É CRu z Universidad de La Laguna J oel Schumacher 's fourth film, F alling Down, has been hyped by many critics as a morbid justification of covert fascism. With such prevention I saw the film for the first time to discover that, regardless of the moral Jessons each individual can draw from a fictionalized chronicle o fh ow hard life is in L.A., one could be able to gauge the ideological convolutions present in the story. The main character in the film, D-FENS, seems to behave like a psychopath. Indeed, there is little innovation in manipulating here a psychotic personality into a filter that sieves the failings of society around him or her. Script writer Ebbe Roe Smith dispensed with a phony savior with a messianic mission to fulfil in the social havoc of contemporary L.A. Far from that, we find a naive individual gone nuts because the gap between the promise of America and the fulfilment of his expectations as a «hundredper-cent» American citizen became too wide to bracket. The script itself is sketchy enough as to enable a character to walk down half of Metropolitan L.A. in a few hours (meaningfully, sorne span oftime between 8:00 am . to 5:00 pm). Truly, Falling D own is a positive failure as a neorealist text. But l feel its creators well understood that as a «política! film» it could only expound and confirm the social ills inherent to postindustrial and post-Cold War United States, not provide a remedy for them -if a path beyond the postmodem can be devised yet in order to find the solution to the evils of the time.1 As l. Cfr. Dana B. Polan's argument on lhe utterly in effec tiv e meaning of political films. See «' Above Ali El se to Make You See': Cinema and 1he Ideolo gy of Spectacle .» In JonalhanArac (ed.), Postmodernism and Po/iti cs (Minneapo lis : Uni versity of Minneso ta Press. 1989). esp. pp. 62-63 . 308 J. Jo sé Cruz sorne critic has asserted, one ha s the impression lhat a world bigger than life is created in the film -and one that cannot be controlled but only r evea led with no exten s iv e qualification. However simplis ti c it is at first sight, the microcosm engineered by Schumacher-Smith allows the viewer a grasp of the social stratification of the lar gest and most complex of American cities.2 The first minutes of the film introduce us to D-FENS 's peculiar state of mi nd, as he abandons his car in th e middle of a traffic jam with the alleged purpose of «go in g home.»3 The remarkable tra ve lling that starts the film displays a kaleidoscope ofhuman gregariousness Los Angeles-style and underscores D-FENS 's anxiety in the middl e of the jam. Gradually we discover he is weary. Sorne causes for D-FENS's distr ess are personal and tips throughout the film help us make the pu zz le up. But other causes transcend privacy and directly launch him into the political terrain, more conscious\y than not. Th e traffic stoppage sa ndwiches D-FENS between me ssages concurring wit h the liberal and co nservative consensus. Thus emblematic tokens of co nservatism, lik e bumpersticks inset on the screen calling for fiscal disobedience or proclaiming New Christian truisms (others with obscene remarks shouldnot be di smissed, though). These rightist causes, decried by his per sonal circums ta nces, are contrasted in D-FENS 's consciousness with the sc hool bus that recalls bussing, that liberal crusade. The facile symbol of a big American flag leaning outside the bus suggests that social disintegration, so ce ntral a topic in the film, is partly rooted in the liberal educational policies. In the fo llowing sequences the viewer is acknowledged elements in the soc ial structure ofL.A. that ridicule D-FENS 's outer appearance asan average, homogeni ze d, semi-suburban white and male American citizen. As he abandons his car in search for a telephone booth, the landscape that will surround him for the next 30 minutes of th e story prove that Los Angeles is testing the thesis that the United States undergoes a crucial transformation in its ethnic and demographic struct ur es. Hi spanics and Asians I ca l! Falling Down a 'po litical them e' in the sense that its plot is basically sustained on the di scredit of the consensus id eo logy that has upheld the two-party system in the United Sta t es during the Cold War. In other words, D-FENS/Bill Foster's deranged condition cannot be fully understood without relating it lo the exhaustion of the anticommuni st discourse prevalen! througho ut his life. 2. For a comparison between D-FENS and ot her psychotic characters in America movi es of the last two decades, see Laurent Vachaud 's critique of F alling Down in «Chille Libre: L 'e ffacé» (Positif, July-August 1993, ), pp. 18-19. It is Yachaud too that ascrib es sorne elements of the fantastic genre to the film, so that Dougl as' tour in L.A. shows instances of inner-ciLy decay, violence and bureaucrat ic deadlock in such numbers that th e logical end must be sickness and eventual physical death. 3. Joel Sc humacher, Falling Dow11. Warner Bros, in association with Le Studio Canal +, Regen cy Enterprises, andAlcor Films, 1992. Minute 4: 11-19. Hereinafter minute count will appear in the text following footage cit ed or quoted. Tickets for the Michael Douglas's LA. 309 become the human constituents of the gangland D-FENS walks about seeking a way downhill to his final destination, «home.» Accordingly the strata of the population shown in the film so far will eventually account for more than half the growth in the US labor force before the end of the century.4 On top of experiencing being a member of a (white) minority, D-FENS' position as male is resented by the fact that his wife 's managed to take their child 's custody from him, what amounts to denying his theoretical role as head of the home. The subversion of D-FENS' self-identification as a mainstream, law-abiding citizen is offered from the very moment he gets in touch with the minorities -ironically a majority in the area where he decided to continue his route on foot.5 The first non-white person he comes across is an Asian, namely a Korean shopkeeper ata grocery just pulling out ofthe 110 Freeway from Pasadena, where D- FENS lives with his mother. A curious though fleeting identification between text and character takes place when Lee, the Korean grocer, is onscreen for the first time. A low POV shot scans him and nativist connotations are hinted (7:52) so that Lee appears as a cross of a Chinese brigand and a Vietcong sniper. This blur in the grocer's identity follows an iconographic tradition in American popular culture and political history, especially on the West Coast. Hollywood has not been an exception to this nativist construction, andina way Falling Down hoaxes it. The camera promptly transfers the construction of Lee as 'Other' to D-FENS; the exchange between customer and keeper, climaxed by a violent dispute, is permeated by the anti-alien arguments that the latter utters. One assumes that D-FENS's contention goes in line with the reasoning of a majority of white public opinion regarding the demographic and social decomposition of Los Angeles. An important clue in the ideological configuration of D-FENS is given when he knows the shopkeeper is a Korean immigrant (9:40). Then he speaks about the responsibility of the United States in fostering the development of the Republic of South Korea, in clear allusion to the economic and military aid offered by successive American administrations as part of the containment policy of the Cold War. From this moment on one is obliged to look on Falling Down's main character in a different and certainly more complex way. The easy, immediate resort to racist remarks on the ability of «Ürientals» to take jobs from «Americans,» substitutes for a reflection on the domestic adjustments produced by the ideological battles won against communism overseas. 4. For further information and sources on demographic trends, see Robert Hormats: «The Basis for America's Future». In Steven Gillon- Diane Kunz (eds.),America During the Cold War. Fort Worth: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich,1993; esp. p. 405. 5. Although very few actual place nam es are given, a tentative reconstruction ofD-FENS 's joumey in L.A. may follow this route: crossing of Interstate 5 and California 110; Angelino's Heights; MacArthur Park, Al varado Stand 4th; sorne stretch ofWilshire or Crenshaw Boulevards; crossing of Int ers tate 1 O and Venice Boulevard down to Venice bea ch. 310 J. José Cru z The editing of the text te chnically supports the intricate nature of D- FENS 's political outrage well beyond the limits of a supremacist. The seq uence shot presumably in sorne spot in the area between East Lo s Angeles, Highland Park and Atwater, where the clash with the Korean takes place, is followed by a crane ge neral view of a coastline neighborhood in Venice. There we realize D-FEN S's fonner home is located. The neighborhood is not affluent, but quite wi thin the social boundaries of what pa sses as lower-middle to middle class. Once in side the house, the existen ce of appliances requiring sorne skill and purchasing power, the liberally lenient way Adele (D-FENS and Elizabeth 's daughter) is being raised, etc., lead the viewer to revise sorne sketchy ideas s/he had formerly raised on seeing D-FENS asan advocate offree violence, especially against alien immigrants. As new data accumulate in the story, Michael Douglas manages to incarnate an individual whose political commitrnents gradually get clo se r to what used to be known as a «Reagan Democrat.» As far and as long as the text outlines th e last day ofh is lif e, D-FENS fits into the category of what an analyst of the Democratic National Committee described as «a suburbanite, in a house with about $ 35,000 income, younger than 45, wi th a child or two andina marriage in which both partners work.»6 All th ese factors are explicitly or implicitly present in the story. Sociologically, D-FENS belongs to that part of the population whose faith in the American institutions and opportunities had been beli ed by the evidences of social turmoils and economic transformations that presid ed th e 1960s and l 970s in the United States, and whi ch conservatives ha ve so eagerly blamed on the liberal policies practiced then. Besides, two con cems resurface that contribute to make up an initial portr ait of D-FENS as a genuine exempl ar of Middle America. Fi rst, his concem about the right destination of the taxpayers' money ( «D 'y ou ha ve any idea how much money my country has g iv en your country?» he reproaches Lee before their fight (9: 25)); second, his bein g a beneficiary of the massive federal budget earmarked for the Defense Departm en t in the late l 970s and 1980 s. He had worked for the gove mm ent in a missile design plant at Notech (a code name for Caltech, California In stitute of Technology?), for at lea st the last seven years. If we ass um e that the events take place in 1992, it can be eas ily recognized that since 1985 and before his recent disrnissal D-FENS, as his namesake suggests, worked in behalf of President Reagan 's Strategic Defense In itiati ve with the conviction that the federal expenses were being properly u se d. But his political convictions were not those of a reactionary. Not if the Republican administration, ceasing military co ntracts, sends him into unemployment; not if socia l injustice is so pervasive in Republican California. As a member of the white lowermiddle class, he might ha ve resented being shunned by a Dem oc ratic party securing th e 6. Paul Tully, quoted by Joan Didion in «Eye on the Prize.» New York Review of Books. September 24, 1992; p. 62. Tickets for the Micha el Douglas's LA. 311 vote of ethnic minorities and other emerging pressure groups by means of an elitist leftist discourse. 7 Another thing, however, is that he sent overboard his democratic convictions bolting to the party of law and order. In fact he tracks his ideal America back in 1965. He wants time stopped in that year -so he means w hen he pretends that the Korean grocer retail the goods at his store with prices current just before the unravelling of democracy became apparent to the public ( 10:50). The next stop in this weird urban tour takes place in Angel 's Flight (Angelino 's Height?). Here D-FENS encounters a gang of Chicano juveniles. This is the second time he notices his status as member of the white minority in a land that until that moment he had thought belonged to him as well as to the others. L.A. is barely visible from the hill he has arrived at, so heavy is the smog (17:15). Ironically, this otherwise scenic view is not perceived from an affluent suburb but a barrio. The irony goes that the poor have conquered not only the neglected center but the outskirts as well. The short footage that shows this area of the Hispanic neighborhood is meaningful enough to suggest the morphology of a section of the city that digests the continuing trickle in ofhuman beings, who simply do not allow for urban infrastructure to develop. Howeve r, the criticism of urban neglect is offset when the narration deals with the human beings who inhabit the area. Whereas in F alling Down Asian-Americans ha ve been broken down in national ethnic groups (i.e, Koreans, Chinese, Japanese), the Mexican-Americans have been portrayed as faceless examples of the Hispanic, their proper identity as children of wetbacks being dismissed. The way the Chicano gang is homogenized in the film within the Hispanic as archetype of the outcast enables D-FENS' encounter with them to take place in their LA. barrio as well as it could have happened around any block in the Bronx. And this is not the character's fault. Especially in the case ofMexican-Americans many subplots could have been developed as fully as other episodes and themes that show up in the story. Most explicit of Hollywood's simplistic icon of the Hispanic-as- crook type is the shot (23:20-35) that glares at the gang from the inside part of the ca r windshield. We know they are driving around the barrio in search of the white Ang lo; but they ar e not Mexicans, they are Puerto Ricans. One might be tempted to charge the 7. As Patrick Garry affirms, the politics of group-interest rendered liberals unable to clarify their opposition to radical leftist notions, denounced by the right and distrusted by their traditional political clientele. Consequently, the liberal identity was articulated by spokespersons «who were so leftist that neither FDR nor JFK would have considered thern to be within the American liberal tradition.» See Garry, Liberalism and American Id entity (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1992), p. 33. Contrast with Alanzo Harnby's contention that «Reagan assuredly did not achieve a broadly-based ideological revolution ,» explaining that way the Pr es ident's inability to recast his personal victories into a long-standing partisan realignrnent. See Harnb y, Liberalism and Its Cha/lengers: From F.D.R. to Bush (New York: Oxford University Press, 199 2), esp. pp. 386-388. Quotation taken from p. 388. 312 f. José Cru z film with expounding a rabidly nativist assumption that Michael Harrington once worded accurately, as «there could well be an anti-Hispanic prejudice, even though there is not a unified Hispanic consciousness. »s But the way Hispanics in Falling Down are constructed obeys more to the cultural dislocations engendered by the Hollywood Esta - blishment. As Albert Menuni puts it in a different context but perfectly valid for this one, the members of the Chicano gang are stigmatized by the «mark of the plural.» It should not be forgotten, anyway, that the Chicanos are not supposed to control the diegetics of the film: they are experienced by a white, male, middle-ag ed inhabitant of metropolitan Los Angeles.9 Since he left his car in the jam, the human beings D-FENS comes across in his adventuresome trip speak English with an accent. His violent sally at the grocery was triggered by the inability of the shopkeeper to utter the prices properly ( «eity-fie cents,» [8:50]). In the tension aroused during their exchange it was not surprising that the linguistic issue appeared, and D-FENS became an unwilling representative of restrictionism -such powerful totem of Americanism-reproaching the grocer his inability to speak intelligible English (9: 10). D-FENS's advocacy for English as the sole language ofthe land is repeated later on, when he «trespasses» the territory of the Chicano gang. Graffiti allegedly wam of their area. But it is the use ofEnglish ofthe bullies, with their slang and their accent that compels D-FENS to renew hi s defense of English: « if you wrote it in fucking Engli sh I'd fucking understand it» (18: 14). D-FENS's insistence on English as official language echoes in fact a bipartisan issue that has been distinctively relevant in California politics. Far a majority ofAnglos , as is the case of D-FENS, the proliferation of alíen cultures and languages must be stopped if the chimera of the melting pot is to be kept alive. Such reasoning is catalized by organizations like U.S. English, with the acquiescence of moderate and conservative partisans alike, apart from a lesser number of liberals. Regardless of the ideological connotations that might be lying in the obligatory use of English, F alling Do wn reflects the preoccupation that «hundred-per-cent» Americans experience in California on an issue that transcends linguistics and has been taken to the polls twice in the last decade : first in 1986, when English was ruled as the official language of the state by a wide margin; more recently in the mid-term 1994 election, when proposition 187 was passed that barred illegal aliens or their dependents from access to medica! and educational 8. Michael Harrington, The New American Po verty. New York: Penguin USA, 1984; p. 15 7. 9. Albert Memmi, quoted by Ella Shobat in «Ethnicities-in-relation: Towarda Multicultural Reading of American Cinema. » In Lester Friedman (ed)., Unspeakable Images: Et hnicity and the American Cinema (Urbana: University of lllinois Press, 1991 ); p. 227. See also An a Lóp ez, «Are All Latins from Manhattan? Hollywood , Ethnography, and Cultural Co lonialism,» in ibid., esp. p. 405. Ticketsfor the Mi chael Douglas's L.A. 313 services provided by public funding. lt is not difficult to infer that those most affected would be immigrants with the poorest command of English. Obviously the linguistic issue is only one side of the social tensions created among the different cultures that share the territory ofL.A .. Schumacher's film provides a political stand ambivalent enough to permit its main character to swerve in his appreciation of the incompatibilities coexisting in the city. In this sen se it is relevant that a long-time footage be devoted to the behavior of the juveniles as final products of a failed education, and in a wider sense, a rigid social structure that hinders upward mobility. There is no direct mentían in the film to bilingual education as an experiment directed towards the integration of the children into mainstream American society. But there is the inference in the film that those kids loitering at midmoming in a working day were representative of the staggering number of school dropouts among Mexican- American teenagers.1º The reasoning of the nativist goes that if immigrants or their offspring are unproductive or even not producti ve enough, they representa net burden on the community. Thus the logic of passing proposition 187 by a 3-to-J margin, advanced by previous polis favoring immigration restriction on socioeconomic grounds. 11 Not too long before these polling results carne out, and in the context of the riots of May 1992, D-FENS clashes with the Chicano outcasts at Angel's Point. But the ambivalence with which the ethnic problem is assailed empowers an anti-Establishment rhetoric that although it does not celebrare multiculturalism, ridicules the ideological projections of an elusive melting pot. The Chicano kids rankle D-FENS to the point of provoking a fight from an otherwise law-abiding citizen who even apologizes for trespassing their territory. In their trouble-raising, the youngsters are recalling D-FENS of sorne values inherent in the American promise that neither is enjoying at that moment. «You're trespassing a prívate property [and] you're loitering too» (17:40-45). Two tenets are being mocked by them. One, the sacredness ofprivate property (the pursuit ofhappiness that had led their parents north of the border); two, loitering as anathema to the puritan pattem ofbehavior, a trait exclusive of Anglos and the assimilated. Finally, theirrequiring D-FENS a toll to get out safely from their territory is an absurdly ex tr eme example of free enterprise in action. The kids of the gang are expressing their critique of American 10. MaldwynAllen Jones points out arate ofhigh school dropout of 35-50 percent among the Mexican-Americans in Los Angeles forthe year 1982. See hisAmerican lmmigration (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992) p. 277. In a more recent work, Ramó n Morales Sánchez offers a gloomier number referred to the late l 980s: 60 to 70 pe r cen t. See Marilyn Davis: Mexican Voices!American Dreams: An Oral History of Mexican Immigration to the United States. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1990; p. 282. 11. A study by LA. County, for instance, found one year after F alling Down was released, that recent immigrants accounted for almost a third of the county's net costs. See Margaret Usdansky, «Price oflmmigration Alienates Taxpayers.» USA Today, July 14, 1993; p. 6A. 3 14 l. José Cruz capitalism, in the only way they can articulate their anomic sprees. From this standpoint we can assume their resort to violence as the only way they ha ve to express their p rot est as a collectivit y, neve ra s a class. D-FENS 's former stand as a citizen of Middle America is more difficult to sustain from then on: he leams that the values he respects and his antagonists despise have passed him by as well as them. It is not for nothing t ha t as one inset shot in this sequence shows, D-FENS is seeking a job. From a practica! point of view, hi s apology for the values he was taught to r es pect is to no avail any longer. Only as the film proceeds does the viewer understand D-FENS 's evolution from law-abi ding subject to an individual Iost in the re cession of the early l 990 s - and experi encing the kind of discontent Ross Perot and other latter-day demagogues would cash in on. Al so his progressive despair will show the liability of a person hooked on principies da te d by a postmodem civilization. His inability to keep up with the new mores runs parallel to the improbable odds that multinational, post-Cold War capitalism provide ajo b for him or for the Chicano kids. When finding a way out of Angel's Flig ht , D-FENS acts as a sensibly cha nged man; as he will confide to his wife on one of his last calls home, he 's on the «dark side of th e moon» ( 1: 07:30). As a suburbanite safely sealed off from the others by th e isolation ofhi s ai r-conditioned car, he barely noticed the human decay that mushr oomed in the ri chest part of the most powerful country on earth. As bis old convictions crumble he searches for altematives to digest, assimilate successfully his new rapport with Los Angeles. The display of decay he left behind is repeated, enlarged and compacted whe n he arrives at central L.A. There líes the hub ofthe c it y's bureaucratic network; but what D-FENS sightsees in sorne spot around L.A. 's Civic Center is a concentration of the ills that affectAmerica the Beautiful. At a bus stop he glances ata human flood; in no t enns can th e flotsam the re be considered res pe ctable Americ an citizen s. Amidst M ex ican immigrants peddling produce, black men passing th e booze around, and «white trash» freaks pleading fo r a job , D-FENS' anxiety to «go home» is increased (31:20-32:10), only to reach a peak point when he arrives at a park. There D-FENS is at the center of the capital city of th e Third World. A melting pot in reverse congregates in the park (MacArthur?): Rastafarians playing, a vagrant displaying a placard revealing hi s HIV infection; an atemporal Vietnam V et on a wheelchair. Also the homeless are present in this apocalyptic chronicle of post-Reag an 's L.A. The recurrent presence of unemployed idling in these areas recalls the declining job market for the unskilled, the kind of job s that provide entry into employm en t for the native poor. Thus the young white man who implores to «work for food» (31 :3 8) is less a gross caricature of West Coast freaks than an expressionist evocation of the social consequences of the stabilization of a service-ba se d economy in the postindustrial city.12 12. A ccor ding to T homa s Byme Edsall, the decline of low-skill job s were more obvious in th e I 970s and mid 1980s in northem cities. This readjustment delayed its appearance in California Tickets for the Mi chae/ Doug/as 's LA. 315 The ironical twist in this stretch of D-FENS 's walk is that in that moment he is socially (not ideologically) approaching them , whereas until that moment, the economic foundation of his wellbeing depended on the exclusion of the supemumerary. The budgetary rearrangements that closed down centers for the mentally handicapped and cut back or suppressed other social services, simultaneously allowed the Department of Defense to fund more projects to «protect us from the communists,» (79:20) as his mother would say later in the narration. So, it may be assumed that D-FENS 's social position becomes a parody of what it u se d to be during the expanding l 980s. In America 's postmodem c ity par excellence, he is seeing through the structure of his system of beliefs up to now. In a classless society the identification as consumer becomes a feasible substitute for class consciousness. The polemical sequence at the Wharnburger works as the stage where D-FENS discovers the pervasiveness of capitalism as a socioeconomic system based on exploitation on multiple levels. At the same time , the text utilizes the Whamburger as case study of what Jarneson coined as the cultural logical of late capitalism. In our altemative map to actual L.A., the Wharnburger is placed somewhere on 4th Street, not too far from that temple of postmodemism, the Westin Bonaventure Hotel. A crane long shot frames D-FENS going into the Whamburger. The length ofthe take permits us a glimpse of trompe l 'oeils, pseudo-Oriental decoration that makes up the firm 's lago , Al pi ne roof , etc., and a flapping American flag towering the premises (this is the fifth time that patriotic cloth has been onscreen so far). The hodge-podge of styles and elements in the building acts as a visual correlate ofthe multicultural landscape of L.A. see n until now in the film. As Fredric J ameson suggests, the «populist priorities» in these kinds of civil constructions, insert the heterogeneous fabric of the city.13 But the area of Los Angeles sightseen until now is one not merely heterogeneous, but crumbling under the contradictions brought forth by a liberal-moderate theory and a as it entered an expanding process that was exhausted in the Rust and Frost Belts. In his study of poverty in the United States in the early 1980s, Michael Harrington offers fewer exarnples of destirution in California than in other areas of lhe nation. See Edsall, «The Changing Shape of Power: A Realignment in Public Policy.» In Steve Fraser and Gary Gerstle (eds. ), The Rise and Foil of the New Deal Order (Princeton, NJ: University Press, 1989), esp. p. 287; Harrington, op. cit. passim. Schumacher's and Smith's thesis in the ir portrait ofL.A. in the early 1990s tentatively confirms that the stabiliz.ation of the economy goes hand in hand with the social decomposition of the least skilled. It partly explains the ideological amorphousness ofthe 1992 riot; also, it projects the overstock of lumpen population present on the weekly toll from urban violence. 13. See Fredric Jameson's Postmodernism. ar, t/Je Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Durham, NC: Duke U.P, 1991). His now classic article bearing the same tille as the book is reprinted here as the first chapter. The crane shot on the Whamburger premises proves an example of Jameson's funher political explanation of Baudrillardian 'simulation .' See. ibid., p. 18 . 322 J. José Cruz conclusion is that once the outer politically adversary has been defeated, what remains to save is capitalism from itself. This line of argument is subsequently explained in the scenes at the golf course and the mansion ofthe plastic surgeon (76:18-79:02 and 81 :37-85:26). This is the second time Bill trespasses alíen property. His breaking into a high-standing golf course that averts trespassers in correct English, is sharply contrasted with the episode at the Angel 's Flight barrio to the point ofparody. It is now Billhimselfwho ridicules tenets hallowed by the American political tradition: he excoriat es prívate property and demands opening up the course as a People's Park. Also the scene at the mansion pool gauges powerfully the transformation of the character, especially because there the emotional breakdown in Bill is more apparent. But the sequence also gives him more chances to continue bis criticism of the United States as the Republican administrations left it. He gives a lie to the «trickle-down» mirage of the l 980s: the low-tax economic environment it fostered created an inadequate social safety net that l eft many people in difficulties, as has been shown Lhroughout the story. The same powers that bonus the pressure groups like doctors , and subsidize strategic spending, have dispensed with him on account of his obsolescence. Like so many other individuals (and not only the black protester outside the bank, the viewer can realize by now) he becomes «not economically viable.» In Althusserian fashion, Bill intends to bridge his formal ideological principies and hi s actual socioeconomic situation with his last refuge, home, «and everything could be just as it was before» (85:00). At this point of the story Bill has walked through central L.A. and is quite near his final destination, Venice, where his former home is. So far from the indifference and alienation of the beginning, the day 's experiences ha ve enabled himselfto remap his city, and in so doing, to challenge the social and political structures that have made of Los Angeles that undesirable place to live.24 It is true that wishful thinking cannot change in one stroke the foundations of multinational, postindustriaJ capitalism, and Bill's formidable feats will be pointless in the end. But his «articulat ed ensemble» of a priva te L.A . is an emotional offshoot of the more rational criticism of the Establishment he has produced throughout. As Garry Wills stated roughly by the time the film was being produced, «the question is not h ow much govemment, but where one uses government,» in reference to the schizoid way the Reagan and Bu sh 24. Bill's renewed though fleeting hopes on a second c hance for hi s fam il y life have ideo logical implications prese nt in th e American gra in. Probably as a reaction to the shift leftward implied in the «interest-group» politics so def tl y exploited by conservative forces in the l 980s, the Democratic party has tried in th e last years to seek mainstream liberal const ituencies under the umb rella of local-community pol it ics. It s agenda has give n strong attention to vindicating a pro gress i ve approach to in s titut ions monopolized by the conservative Republicans: family, Church- State relation s, etc. James on derives the pers onal remappin g of a city asan act of «dealienation» from Kevin Lynch's The Image of the City. See Posrmodemism, p. 51. Tickers for the Michaef Douglas's L.A. 323 administrations interpreted gove mme nt regulation.25 As far as hi s emotional balance permits him to do so, Bill is seeking an answer to th e question posed by Wills: one that ma y restructure the nation within the worldwide change euphemistically known as New Intemational Order. That both terms ofthe global transformation are incompatible with each other is another question that goes beyond th e focus of Falling Down. lt adds to Bi ll Foster 's subversive mes sage that he should pronounce his vindication of effec ti ve public policies in the most affluent area scr ee n ed in the story; it is more than a twist of fate that when he articulates his thoughts in an unequivocal way the law-enforcing circle doses in upon him. Ultimately the fishing pier in Venice beach stages the double elimination of Bill Foster: legally as a criminal and politically and socially as an expenda ble whose alternative to the status quo is as unreliab le as his emotional balance. When Prendergast orders him to surrender, he can hardly believe he is the bad guy; neither did he believe bis wife when she called him sick: it is L.A. that su ffers frorn insanity. «How 'd that happen? I did everything they told me to» (89:54-59). He cannot understand he has been a victim of the principies he was raised in and he defended bis w ay. It is above hi s understanding to assume that he is one casualty ofthe imperial overstretch he cooperated in spreading -an d he is convinced he had been doing a go od job : «l should be rewarded, but the pla stic surgeons took the medals.» Yes, Bill, actually it has been so since shortly af ter your beloved 1965 .26 Actually it could be said Bill has signed bis own death sentence, since the legal branch of corporate democracy offers him the altema ti ve of a prison sentence. He decíded to finish this doomed journey off in th e most expedient way, but with a ve ngeance. If his life ha s been a parody of the pursuit of the American dream, he will use up his Jast minute of life to perforrn a toxic takeoff of the most genuine, native American myth: a duel in the California sun; Prendergast as the sheriff, and William Foster as the bad guy. The most dramatic teaching from the patriotic pageant is that he aimed at law and order with the water pisto! hi s daug ht er had been playing with befor e.27 That way, the Third Amendment and rap caUs-to-action go hand in hand, daily toll after daily toll. 25. See Garry Wills, «The Born-Again Republicans.» New York Review of Boo ks, September 24, 1992; p. 13. Also of relevant interest in the discus sio n on the reforrn of capitalism, see Felix Rohatyn, « What the Government Should Do.» New York. Review of Books , June 25, 1992; p 27. 26. Thomas Edsall tracks back the antiliberal political change in American politics since the late 1960 s. Two central factors mark this shift: first, the gradually diminishing political representation of the bottom of the so cial sp ect rum; second, the manipulation of the body poli tic by PACs, the growing aggressiveness of Jobbies, etc. See Edsall, in The Ris e and F all of the New Deal Order, op. cit ., p. 269. 27. In a way Adele's water pisto! climaxes the effects produced by the weapons Bill had su c.:cessive ly handled: from the baseball bat at the Korean's grocery, through the knife and the gym bag ful! of light weapons he t ook from the Chicano juveniles, through the bazooka Nick com pliment ed him with. Beyond th e sequence's diegesis, the toy alludes to the vi olence th at 324 J. José Cruz As a conclusion, I think Schumacher's film should not be seen as a homage to the Silent Majority -and its totalitarian derivations. Such reading can be upheld only if the deterioration portrayed in the film of 'consented' American myths is ignored. D- FENS/Bill Foster's estrangement is clearcut when he refers to the Establishment collectively as «they,» thus tuming upside down the center/margin conventions focalized on the WASPs. His final resolution, then, is too far from the principies of law and order proclaimed by the Nixon-Agnew dique . The Silent Majority allegedly had wearied of the liberal eccentricities of the Great Society, which left a blurred composite of strife at home and stalemate abroad. Bill Foster 's fateful tour in L.A. shows a different landscape: that left by the new social Darwinism practiced in the 1980s that did not necessarily follow sinister designs but accommodated to a political and economic structure previously laid out. On a wider sense, the ideological guidelines disclosed by this irate citizen go in line with the social scenery of a city where the melting pot tumed into a salad bowl. In The End, it has culturally engulfed the products of Hollywood, and in a synecdochical relation it has become a huge studio with millions of extras and stunts, anonymous, replaceable and expendable, as the political economy oflate capitalism so presupposes. pervades the community throughout. Des pite what has gone on in the neighborhood, lif e g oes on, and Adele will have her birthday party. This is food for thought for another interpretation of the multiple and replaceable vignettes that make up life in contemporary (urban) civilization. This bleak perspecti ve that story underwrites, as the last takes el ose up on Bill happily reunited w ith his own family -on a domestic videotape recording no one is watching.