What Are We Falling Down Essay

FALLING DOWN (1993) WHITE
MASCULINITY CRISIS

Falling Down (1993) The Plot
He’s Divorced engineer in the defence industry who 's reached his anger point
Unemployed defence worker
Frustration and loss of identity
He’s identified by the name of his vanity License plate
D-FENS his truly identity is unknown through out the whole movie
He aggressively threats others blames society for all his problems

Similarities between D-fens &
Prendergast
Loss of family
Loss of job
Loss of identity
White people have a colour but it is a colour, that also signifies the absence of the colour itself a characteristics of life and presence (Richard Dyer 1997)
Trying to rediscover manhood

Representation of White Male and Loss of
Identity
‘The film may very easily be read as an allegory of the death of white man, or at any rate, the white man as endangered species’ (Dyer,1997:217)
‘White people chomping away at white people.’ (Dyer 1997:211)
‘His death is the only possible logical outcome…because there isliterally, figuratively, historically- nowhere else for the story to take him.’ (Dyer 1997:210)
‘There is no difference between whites, living or dead; all whites bring death and, by implication, all whites are dead (in terms of human feeling)’ (Dyer 1997:211)

White Male as Victim
An ‘Everyman Tale’ where D-Fens is portrayed as an ‘average citizen’.
(Clover 1993:8)
‘Things that can affect and offend anyone,’ such as the traffic jam, annoying bumper stickers and general rudeness of all towards all. (Clover
1993:8)
‘Guy who theoretically owns the world, but in practice, In this account, not only has no turf but has been closed out of the turf of others’ (Clover
1993:9)
‘This is not a bad guy.’ ‘But he’s had it.’ Joel Schumacher describing DFens

Neo-Nazi clip
The purposes of this scene the director tries to differentiate D-fens from the white supremacist. Joel Schumacher shows audiences that D-Fens may be white but he’s not a racist, homophobe and fascist.
In this scene whiteness is also taken into an extreme through
with homosexuality. There are two gay white men in the store , suddenly the store owner uses abusive terms to the two gay men to try and impress D-Fens while audiences know D-Fens does not acknowledge and is indifferent.
Murray Pratt (1995) observes, at this point of the film loses its grip momentarily,
Shifting focus to a blurred shot of Nazi’s mouth repeating “Give it to me, give it to me” Pratt (1995:100). This scene is trying to deliver a liberal message to audiences but as we see D-Fens is not homophobic, the store owners homophobia is evidently repressed homosexuality.
Here is the clip to show that D-Fens is indifferent to Nicks behaviour towards race and homophobia .
Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0-tMiWTEsI NEO NAZI CLIP 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFQ2xCeA2E&feature=relmfu Discrimination
Both Prendergast and D-Fens show discrimination through ignorance where the ‘new’ are concerened.
• D-Fens’ victims:
• Korean shopkeeper
• Homeless people
• Latino gang
• Gay men
People of different race, social class and sexuality are targeted.
(Insert quote about audiences clapping shopkeeper scene)

Conclusion
“white masculinity is under threat”
Or
“resecuring the culturally stronger, but now harder to maintain the position of ordinariness, the subject without properties.”

“whites are nothing and have had their day, that we are and always have been, the dead.”

Bibliography
Carol J, Clover (1993) ‘White Noise’, Sight and Sound, 3,5 (May)
Richard Dyer (1997) ‘Chapter 6 – ‘White Death’ in white London:
Routledge, pp.207-223