Joel Schumacher’s 1993 film Falling Down has acquired a certain reputation as a cult classic. It’s been discussed from various angles, but most of those discussions have taken for granted that William Foster (DFENS) is a villain. This analysis will challenge that reading, not so much by arguing that Bill is NOT a villain, but by showing how his transformation INTO villain is a manipulation meant to poison the well against certain kinds of social dissatisfaction. In effect, my intent here is to expose Falling Down as a work of political propaganda by discussing its historical context and relating it to some relevant sociological and political works, demonstrating that, even if Bill dies the bad guy, his critique of society still has teeth.
It’s the most divorced movie I’ve ever seen. Nothing did more to turn me off to the reactionary film violence I was raised with, with Falling Down being the wet dream of every right-wing boomer who wears a gun like a security blanket. If Patrick Bateman wrote American Psycho, the protagonist would resemble Bill in how masturbatory the violence is.