Dirty Harry: A conflicting vision
The conflicting visions of which Peter Lev writes in his book American Films of the 70s are largely the differing world-views of the generations before the Sixties and the hippies and other subcultures that arose during the decade of flower-power and free-love. The former represents all that is conservative and right-wing and the latter all that is experimental and left-leaning. Though a gross over-generalisation, Lev does classify films in favour of the counterculture and those opposed. Don Siegel and Clint Eastwood’s 1971 film, Dirty Harry, definitely falls into the opposition.
Roger Ebert calls the moral position of Dirty Harry fascist. Lev informs us that Pauline Kael slammed the film as “fascist medievalism” and a “right-wing fantasy.” (Lev, 2000, p.35) Lev, himself, says of the film that it “advocate(s) a more-or-less autonomous police power.” And, Daniel Baldwin, writing for Forbes, says of the character at the centre of the film, “Harry Callahan was never really tolerant of anyone, no matter what their gender or skin color was.”
Looking back on Dirty Harry from the perspective of the Twenty-first Century, we might not so readily categorise the film and its protagonist in what are meant to be pejorative terms.
At the time of its release, it would have been a relatively simple either/or – either Harry Callahan is a fascist, or he’s not. Just as easily, one can plainly see that Harry is no counter-cultural hero. On the contrary, it is the killer, Scorpio, who wears the peace-symbol on the belt buckle, thus bearing a more recognisable link with the hippies of the previous decade. And, as Harry asks his famous, “Well, do you feel lucky, punk?” of a wounded black bank robber, clearly he is not of the Sixties and all that they surely wore the flowers in their hair for.
Therefore, QED, Harry is the man and the powerful phallic symbol he holds in his right hand certainly seems to prove it.
It would seem to me, looking back on the film and the decade of the Seventies, that labelling Harry a fascist is too much of a diversionary tactic, a means of escaping the reality he confronts us with – nothing less than having to admit that our biases prevent us from really seeing the consequences of our desires.
The Liberals coming out of the Sixties were bound to be shocked at the prospect of a rogue cop, seemingly taking the law into his own hands, executing his verdicts with a grim smile. Wearing his $29.50 slacks and holding his .44 Magnum in his fist, Harry Callahan is anything but a sharer in the liberal values that brought about the Miranda warning in 1966. From Harry’s perspective, the more rights granted the criminal – or suspected felon – the more difficult his job. Liberal values simply make it easier to get away with murder!
To a certain extent, one has to agree with him.
Whatever the motivation behind the need for the Miranda warning and other expressions of individual rights, the push to Liberalise society and culture resulted only in polarising interest groups, each standing for parochial concerns that almost by definition must transgress the liberties of those who oppose or dissent.
To wander off topic momentarily, in a recent Guardian article, it was suggested that we must simply accept an individual’s right to be referred to by gender-neutral pronouns such as ‘they’ rather than the more traditional – and socially conservative – or usual ‘he’ and ‘she’. There are, we are told, no sound arguments for supporting the continued use of the gendered pronouns and that it is “wrong to use pronouns that deny someone’s identity.”
Obviously, anyone who continues to insist on the gendered ‘he’ and ‘she’ is in danger of being labelled a fascist for the refusal to recognise the rights of others. Just as Harry Callahan is so labelled for refusing to uphold the Miranda warning. Despite the term ‘fascist’ being fairly specific, according to Dr. Paul Jackson (Senior Lecturer in History at The University of Northampton), referring to a person with nationalistic leanings, it is – or was in the Seventies – used for anyone who had the temerity to disagree with the liberal agenda.
Whether a given individual wishes to be referred to as ‘they’ is of no matter – no damage is done to the language and all the planets will continue to spin on their axes. What is important, however, is whether that individual’s rights are more important than anyone else’s. That the writers of the Guardian article claim that it is wrong to go on using gendered pronouns for someone who wishes otherwise leaves little doubt over whose rights are of most importance.
This is the liberal strategy par excellence.
It is also completely fallacious.
An individual with identity issues will only ever overcome them when they are able to come to terms with who they are. As long as the individual is unhappy with their own self, it makes little difference how anyone else may or may not refer to them. Someone who identifies as genderqueer does so as a result of choices and decisions they have made about themselves and their sense of self. Whether this will ever be a healthy identity choice depends entirely upon their own continued belief that it is right for them. Another individual’s choice of pronoun usage has little to no direct impact upon the choices that were made and pose absolutely no threat to the stability of the identity. Unless, of course, the genderqueer individual isn’t quite so convinced of their choices as they might like to appear.
The same stands for the rights of Scorpio in the film Dirty Harry. Just as we cannot know what might motivate an individual to choose a genderqueer identity, so we cannot know what motivates a killer like Scorpio. But, we do know that he chose to prowl the rooftops seeking unsuspecting and innocent victims through the high-res sights of his hunting rifle. The difference between Scorpio and the genderqueer individual is that the latter poses no physical threat to anyone – certainly not as a direct consequence of the identity choices made.
That Scorpio does choose and that his choices directly impact the rights of others should count for something. Ann Mary Deacon’s life is ended unmercifully with no consideration given to her rights. Her identity is snuffed out at a whim. While he believes she is still alive, Harry Callahan does all that he can to save her. As a true agent of the rights of the individual, Harry is prepared to go further than might be deemed acceptable. Unlike Scorpio, Harry isn’t acting out of self-interest, isn’t inflicting pain on a sadistic killer for the kicks. His objective is the saving of the life of another human being.
Harry Callahan’s methods don’t stem from the personality of a sadist or even a fascist. They stem from the concern one man feels towards the dissolution of all that he has upheld as right and wrong. The truth of Dirty Harry that the likes of Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert are unwilling to face is that Harry cares. In fact, in the film, Harry is almost the only one who does care. He cares so much that he is willing to risk his job – and possibly his life – in order to save Ann Mary Deacon.
Peter Lev, in American Films of the 70s: Conflicting Visions, suggests that Harry is shown to be a Christ-like figure in his taking a beating at the hands of Scorpio at the foot of the concrete cross on San Francisco’s Mt. Davidson. I’m not sure this reading works. The cross, precisely because it is concrete, is just an empty symbol, signifying nothing in particular. It is merely cold and grey and concrete, with no overtly religious meaning attached whatsoever. That Harry takes a beating at its base signifies that this man, this very human and frail person, who can be beaten into semi-consciousness, will, out of his very humanity, do all within his power to save another human being – especially an innocent who in no way deserves what has befallen her.
The Liberal Left would callously let Ann Mary Deacon die a horrendous death in their self-righteous sanctification of the killer’s rights. As with the genderqueered individual mentioned earlier, in the battle for rights there will always be losers and they will always be the innocents that offer no vindication to the ideals of the advocates. Standing for the rights of Scorpio makes far more of a public impact than does the saving of a young girl’s life.
Harry Callahan may not be a member of the hippie generation but nor is he a fascist. Clearly, Harry is not prejudiced against any race or creed or sex. Harry never transgresses the “rights” of a person because of who they are. Let’s not forget that, despite all his station house banter, it is Harry only who we see from the San Francisco Police Department visiting Chico, his Mexican partner, in hospital. The race, colour or creed of the hostages on the bus is completely irrelevant; all that matters is that innocent children are in danger. And Harry will, once again, put his own life on the line to save them.
Roger Ebert calls the moral position of Dirty Harry fascist. Lev informs us that Pauline Kael slammed the film as “fascist medievalism” and a “right-wing fantasy.” (Lev, 2000, p.35) Lev, himself, says of the film that it “advocate(s) a more-or-less autonomous police power.” And, Daniel Baldwin, writing for Forbes, says of the character at the centre of the film, “Harry Callahan was never really tolerant of anyone, no matter what their gender or skin color was.”
Looking back on Dirty Harry from the perspective of the Twenty-first Century, we might not so readily categorise the film and its protagonist in what are meant to be pejorative terms.
At the time of its release, it would have been a relatively simple either/or – either Harry Callahan is a fascist, or he’s not. Just as easily, one can plainly see that Harry is no counter-cultural hero. On the contrary, it is the killer, Scorpio, who wears the peace-symbol on the belt buckle, thus bearing a more recognisable link with the hippies of the previous decade. And, as Harry asks his famous, “Well, do you feel lucky, punk?” of a wounded black bank robber, clearly he is not of the Sixties and all that they surely wore the flowers in their hair for.
Therefore, QED, Harry is the man and the powerful phallic symbol he holds in his right hand certainly seems to prove it.
It would seem to me, looking back on the film and the decade of the Seventies, that labelling Harry a fascist is too much of a diversionary tactic, a means of escaping the reality he confronts us with – nothing less than having to admit that our biases prevent us from really seeing the consequences of our desires.
The Liberals coming out of the Sixties were bound to be shocked at the prospect of a rogue cop, seemingly taking the law into his own hands, executing his verdicts with a grim smile. Wearing his $29.50 slacks and holding his .44 Magnum in his fist, Harry Callahan is anything but a sharer in the liberal values that brought about the Miranda warning in 1966. From Harry’s perspective, the more rights granted the criminal – or suspected felon – the more difficult his job. Liberal values simply make it easier to get away with murder!
To a certain extent, one has to agree with him.
Whatever the motivation behind the need for the Miranda warning and other expressions of individual rights, the push to Liberalise society and culture resulted only in polarising interest groups, each standing for parochial concerns that almost by definition must transgress the liberties of those who oppose or dissent.
To wander off topic momentarily, in a recent Guardian article, it was suggested that we must simply accept an individual’s right to be referred to by gender-neutral pronouns such as ‘they’ rather than the more traditional – and socially conservative – or usual ‘he’ and ‘she’. There are, we are told, no sound arguments for supporting the continued use of the gendered pronouns and that it is “wrong to use pronouns that deny someone’s identity.”
Obviously, anyone who continues to insist on the gendered ‘he’ and ‘she’ is in danger of being labelled a fascist for the refusal to recognise the rights of others. Just as Harry Callahan is so labelled for refusing to uphold the Miranda warning. Despite the term ‘fascist’ being fairly specific, according to Dr. Paul Jackson (Senior Lecturer in History at The University of Northampton), referring to a person with nationalistic leanings, it is – or was in the Seventies – used for anyone who had the temerity to disagree with the liberal agenda.
Whether a given individual wishes to be referred to as ‘they’ is of no matter – no damage is done to the language and all the planets will continue to spin on their axes. What is important, however, is whether that individual’s rights are more important than anyone else’s. That the writers of the Guardian article claim that it is wrong to go on using gendered pronouns for someone who wishes otherwise leaves little doubt over whose rights are of most importance.
This is the liberal strategy par excellence.
It is also completely fallacious.
An individual with identity issues will only ever overcome them when they are able to come to terms with who they are. As long as the individual is unhappy with their own self, it makes little difference how anyone else may or may not refer to them. Someone who identifies as genderqueer does so as a result of choices and decisions they have made about themselves and their sense of self. Whether this will ever be a healthy identity choice depends entirely upon their own continued belief that it is right for them. Another individual’s choice of pronoun usage has little to no direct impact upon the choices that were made and pose absolutely no threat to the stability of the identity. Unless, of course, the genderqueer individual isn’t quite so convinced of their choices as they might like to appear.
The same stands for the rights of Scorpio in the film Dirty Harry. Just as we cannot know what might motivate an individual to choose a genderqueer identity, so we cannot know what motivates a killer like Scorpio. But, we do know that he chose to prowl the rooftops seeking unsuspecting and innocent victims through the high-res sights of his hunting rifle. The difference between Scorpio and the genderqueer individual is that the latter poses no physical threat to anyone – certainly not as a direct consequence of the identity choices made.
That Scorpio does choose and that his choices directly impact the rights of others should count for something. Ann Mary Deacon’s life is ended unmercifully with no consideration given to her rights. Her identity is snuffed out at a whim. While he believes she is still alive, Harry Callahan does all that he can to save her. As a true agent of the rights of the individual, Harry is prepared to go further than might be deemed acceptable. Unlike Scorpio, Harry isn’t acting out of self-interest, isn’t inflicting pain on a sadistic killer for the kicks. His objective is the saving of the life of another human being.
Harry Callahan’s methods don’t stem from the personality of a sadist or even a fascist. They stem from the concern one man feels towards the dissolution of all that he has upheld as right and wrong. The truth of Dirty Harry that the likes of Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert are unwilling to face is that Harry cares. In fact, in the film, Harry is almost the only one who does care. He cares so much that he is willing to risk his job – and possibly his life – in order to save Ann Mary Deacon.
Peter Lev, in American Films of the 70s: Conflicting Visions, suggests that Harry is shown to be a Christ-like figure in his taking a beating at the hands of Scorpio at the foot of the concrete cross on San Francisco’s Mt. Davidson. I’m not sure this reading works. The cross, precisely because it is concrete, is just an empty symbol, signifying nothing in particular. It is merely cold and grey and concrete, with no overtly religious meaning attached whatsoever. That Harry takes a beating at its base signifies that this man, this very human and frail person, who can be beaten into semi-consciousness, will, out of his very humanity, do all within his power to save another human being – especially an innocent who in no way deserves what has befallen her.
The Liberal Left would callously let Ann Mary Deacon die a horrendous death in their self-righteous sanctification of the killer’s rights. As with the genderqueered individual mentioned earlier, in the battle for rights there will always be losers and they will always be the innocents that offer no vindication to the ideals of the advocates. Standing for the rights of Scorpio makes far more of a public impact than does the saving of a young girl’s life.
Harry Callahan may not be a member of the hippie generation but nor is he a fascist. Clearly, Harry is not prejudiced against any race or creed or sex. Harry never transgresses the “rights” of a person because of who they are. Let’s not forget that, despite all his station house banter, it is Harry only who we see from the San Francisco Police Department visiting Chico, his Mexican partner, in hospital. The race, colour or creed of the hostages on the bus is completely irrelevant; all that matters is that innocent children are in danger. And Harry will, once again, put his own life on the line to save them.
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