Hollywood's Bad Guys

The incomparable Mark Steyn was recently taken to task (on his own website, no less) for referring to Muslims as Hollywood's "preferred villains of the 80s and 90s." Bob Armstrong (yes, that Bob Armstrong... I'm kidding, never heard of him) of Winnipeg notes:

A cursory glance at the big-budget action films of those decades suggests that the preferred villain, even before 9/11 brought about the current mania for not scapegoating [Islamic Terrorists], was anybody but: Bruce Willis films: Die Hard (German Marxists turned mercenaries); Die Hard 2 (mercenaries working for a Latin American right wing general/drug lord); Die Hard 3 (the brother of the lead German from DH1); Mel Gibson films: Lethal Weapon (rogue CIA agents working for drug dealers); Lethal Weapon 2 (South African diplomats); Lethal Weapon 3 (corrupt LA cops); Arnold Schwarzenegger films: Red Heat (Russian mobsters in America); Commando (right wing Latin American general/drug lord with corrupt CIA/U.S. Special Forces help); True Lies (Muslim terrorists) Harrison Ford films: Patriot Games (IRA); Clear and Present Danger (Latin American drug lords); Air Force One (rogue Russians); The Fugitive (drug company, German-accented doctor, corrupt Chicago cop); Witness (corrupt Philly cops); Eddie Murphy films: Beverley Hills Cop (drug dealing LA art dealer); Beverley Hills Cop 2 (German-accented robbers) 48 Hours (California bank robber/cop killer) Sylvester Stallone films: First Blood (nasty small town cops/hypocritical military officers); Rambo (Vietnamese communists/hypocritical U.S. military officers); Rambo 3 (Russians – with Muslim Afghans as the good guys); Various others: The Peacemaker (rogue Russian general); Proof of Life (Latin American guerrillas); Speed (rogue LA cop); Red Dawn (Russians, with Cubans as bad guys with a conscious). So there’s one crew of [Islamic] terrorists in a sea of corrupt cops and CIA agents, Latin American generals and drug lords, smooth-talking Central Europeans and gruff Russians. And yet, how many people, through... constant repetition... have come to believe that Muslims have been targeted by Hollywood? After reading the above list, the only thing more obvious to me than the bogus nature of that complaint is my need to see some better quality movies...

Actually, Bob did miss a Bruce Willis movie -- "The Siege" -- that featured a bad guy named Sheikh Achmed Bin Talal. However, just to even things up, an FBI agent of Arabian extraction is definitely a good guy. And Bob also missed "Wanted: Dead or Alive" -- the Rutger Hauer action flick featuring Gene Simmons as homicidal terrorist Malak Al Rahim.

And how could he forget "Back to the Future" and Marty McFly's frenzied escape from terrorists seeking nukes (in a DeLorean, no less)?

But we get Bob's point.

Steyn's reply? "...Hollywood gave us far more [Islamic] terrorists in the Eighties and Nineties than it has since 9/11."

Anything but Bad Guys