By: Phil Williams
I’m a child of the ‘80s. I have iconic memories of Ronald Reagan, Pac Man, and seeing Van Halen live in ‘81. It was big hair, big bands, and big times. It was cruising in my ‘68 Mustang with Journey’s Escape album playing in a near endless loop on cassette. The ‘80s were hanging out at the mall when I wasn’t working at the mall. It was high school football, prom dates, and hating Algebra. The ‘80s were just cool.
It was an era of growth and pride in who we were as a nation. America was coming out of the Carter era. The man in the White House was a real leader who really led.
And the movies…wow! There were Top Gun, Iron Eagle, First Blood, Uncommon Valor, An Officer and a Gentleman. But there was also the galvanizing classic that every high school guy wanted to be a part of …drum roll please…Red Dawn.
Director John Milius gave us the flick with everything. It was red, white, and blue; hard-pressed; overcoming odds; courage under fire; stare down your enemies ‘Merica!
Red Dawn premiered in August, 1984, with a cast of teen stars playing high school students from a small Colorado town. When the Soviets invaded the U.S. they took to the hills to survive. Along the way, the group accidentally became guerilla fighters. It was Robin Hood, Green Berets, and The Breakfast Club all wrapped up in one storyline. In the wake of every raid, every Russian vehicle they blew up, every supply depot they destroyed, they painted the name of their high school mascot…Wolverines! Every kid in America pictured themselves as a Wolverine.
Why did we love that movie so much? Why did it become an instant hit and an enduring classic? I think partly because it felt somewhat real. There was always the threat of the Soviet bear on the horizon. The Cold War was in its final years but it was still going, and America was in a resurgence on the world stage.
But it also felt like American spirit. Where good folks, who live normal lives, will rise up and do abnormal things if the times call for it. Red Dawn hit theaters less than a decade after the fall of Saigon and just a few years after the Iran hostage saga. American pride on the world stage had been wounded. We needed a reminder of who we really were. Time Magazine described Red Dawn as a “Pop cultural inoculation against the Vietnam Syndrome of self -doubt about the morality of U.S. foreign policy.” Okay, that’s highbrow talk to say that it struck a much-needed chord.
It also resonated with members of the U.S. military. In 2003, soon after the invasion of Iraq, the capture of Saddam Hussein was codenamed “Operation Red Dawn,” with the prime target location labeled “Wolverine I.” Army Captain Geoffrey McMurray, who chose the name, said, “I think all of us in the military have seen Red Dawn.”
Director John Milius was one of the few openly conservative filmmakers in Hollywood. He wanted a movie that showcased patriotism and a love for the American military. He also embedded warnings in the script about losing liberties, like speech and the right to bear arms. The film was an instant hit. It made waves. It drew the attention of patriots everywhere. Former Reagan Secretary of State Al Haig said, “It captures the stresses of patriotism, the emotions of love, and above all, the futility of war.” In a recent Fox News interview, Amanda Milius, daughter of director John Milius, was asked why the film has resonated for more than a generation. In her words the whole movie is summed up in one line by the character played by Patrick Swayze. Asked why he and the others fought so desperately against steep odds he says, “Because we live here.” Amanda Milius elaborated, “This is our responsibility…It’s like this very American idea of, I’m going to go, and I just know in my bones that if somebody were to invade my land, I would go and protect it in whatever way I could with my high school friends in a truck.”
But Hollywood didn’t go for it. John Milius was told that his work was too political and he “needed to calm it all down a notch.” Movie critic Roger Ebert said the movie was “corrupt from beginning to end” with a “right wing ideology that the picture doesn’t deserve.” It was the first movie in history to receive the new PG-13 rating. The national coalition on television violence decried it as the most violent movie ever made with an average of 134 acts of violence in one hour.
What Hollywood missed was that it was supposed to be right wing. It was absolutely about patriotism. It was liberty and freedom embodied. It was the honor of defending that which is ours from those that would dare try to take it. Hollywood may have hated it but America loved it. Liberals always seem surprised when patriotism is popular, and liberty is loved. Faith, family, and freedom will always be themes that red-blooded everyday folks will pay good money to enjoy.
By and large, we prefer to be inspired. Preachy, you-can-do-better apologetics are so often the theme of the left. If they want to sell tickets, they need to realize that we prefer to be reminded of the goodness and enduring value of who we are rather than the progressive whine-fest that Hollywood so often defaults to.
Red Dawn. An American classic. A movie made to remind a generation that we might take a lick but we’ll give back double.
More of that! Wolverines!
By: Phil Williams
March 21, 2025
