Hollywood has a lot to offer in terms of anti-American movies. Filmmakers sometimes do the right thing and make movies or TV shows that reflect our best qualities. NewsBusters has compiled five patriotic TV or movie scenes in honor of Independence Day.
These classics can also be serious, such as the Academy Award-winning Patton. But even schmaltz-y popcorn movies like movies Red Dawn and Rocky IV captured a time when Hollywood actually portrayed the U.S. as a force for good not evil.
Here’s where to begin if you want to make a marathon of patriotic movies/TV shows for the long weekend.
Rocky IV
“Ludmilla,” (Brigitte Nilsen): People call him a killer. He’s not a killer, he is a professional fighter. There are death threats. Our involvement in politics is not our concern. My husband should be secure and treated fair. It is your belief that you’re better than we. It is your belief that our country is superior to you. This belief holds that we are unfair and you are fair.
“Nicoli Koloff (Michael Pataki). : This is all false propaganda and lies to help this violent and antagonistic government.
“Paulie” (Burt Young): Whoa. Violent? We don’t put our people behind walls with machine guns.
“Koloff: Who are YOU?”
Paulie: Who are you? Bigmouth, I am the silent majority.
Red Dawn
“Robert” (C.Thomas Howell) [After stopping the attempted slaughter of Americans by Soviet Union troops.]: Wolverines!
Independence Day
Bill Pullman: “President Thomas Whitmore”: Good morning. Aircraft from this area will soon join those from other parts of the world in less than one hour. You will also be part of the biggest aerial conflict in human history. “Mankind.” This word needs to have a new meaning today. Our petty disagreements cannot consume us. We will all work together for our common good. It’s possible that it is fate that today marks the Fourth of July. You will be once more fighting for freedom… not from oppression or tyranny… but from total destruction. We fight for the right to exist. To exist. We will win. And if we do, Fourth of July won’t be a holiday in America, but a day when the whole world declared: “We will never go silently into the night!” We won’t give up without fighting! We are going to survive! We are going to live! Today is our Independence Day
Patton
Patton (George C. Scott). Men, the whole thing about America wanting to avoid war and wanting to remain out of it is horse dung. Americans love fighting. The thrill of fighting is what all Americans are passionate about. You all remember admiring the most skilled runner, champion marble shooter and the hardest boxers as children. Americans are proud of the winners and won’t tolerate losing. Americans love to win. A man who loses and laughs would be a fool to me. Americans will not lose and have never lost any wars. Americans are hateful of the idea of losing.
John Adams
“Abigail Adams” (Laura Linney): [Reading the Declaration of Independence.]We pledge our mutual support for this Declaration, with firm faith in the protection of Divine Providence.
[Editor’s note: This article was first published July 4, 2014.]
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