Little did Aaron Sorkin suspect, when he wrote the lefty drama “A Few Good Men,” that the only thing anyone would ever remember about it was Jack Nicholson’s Col. Jessep speech, which Sorkin accidentally made more convincing than any liberal argument he ever offered: “Son, we live in a world that has walls and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. You want me on that wall — you need me on that wall. My existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives.”
Col. Jessup, shake hands with your 21st-century equivalent: Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark.
In “Iron Man 2,” not only is Stark’s existence grotesque to a prosecutorial senator in Washington even as he protects American lives, but the movie shows how much we need Tony Stark on another crucial wall — the wall between private industry and statism. The movie is written by Justin Theroux, but ideologically it brings to mind a slightly older screenwriter — Ayn Rand.
“Iron Man” shows its mettle early on when Tony is hauled before Congress to face down a snotty senator (Garry Shandling) who demands that he surrender his rights to Iron Man technology. Tony jokes that he isn’t interested in “indentured servitude or prostitution,” echoes Col. Jessup when he notes, “I’d love to leave my door open, but this ain’t Canada” and sternly informs the senator, “You want my private property. You can’t have it.” He adds, “I’ve successfully privatized world peace … what’s wrong with these assclowns?”
Stark is threatened by the only force on earth comparable to his — what Rand’s John Galt called “the unpredictable power of the arbitrary whims of hidden, ugly little bureaucrats.”
“Iron Man 2” is thrillingly aware that today’s disputes about the role of government in business are as critical as Cold War arguments ever were. The film is to economics what “The Dark Knight” is to national security.
It even features the best Barack Obama joke yet to appear in a movie: A spoof of the “iconic” (to liberals) Shepard Fairey “HOPE” poster. This one has an illustration of the heavy-metal superhero with the simple legend, “IRON MAN.”
Liberals may read this as an homage to their idol, but it’s a wicked takedown — because Iron Man is so obviously everything Obama isn’t. He represents the profit-hungry corporation heedless of “responsibility,” military saber-rattling rather than soothing placation, America first rather than just one of the pack, individualism rather than the committee and the community, the super-rich spending their money on toys rather than spreading the wealth — and impish wit instead of sonorous self-importance. (Quick: Name the five funniest one-liners Obama ever delivered off the cuff. Okay, name even one.)
The way the senator played by Shandling denounces Stark for developing what he calls an “obviously offensive” (in both senses?) weapon showcases classic liberal thinking: Throughout the 1980s, the left argued that the US was making all-out war more likely — because we were increasing military strength. How dare the US install nuclear missiles in Europe to counteract the Soviet missiles that were already there? Wasn’t that just warmongering?
Tony Stark is a sort of Silicon Valley Rambo — a guy who takes it upon himself to ignore his superiors and destroy American enemies, not so much with physical courage (though he does have that) but with engineering.
Senator Shandling huffs that Stark’s technology is too important to belong to just one man. So (since anything important must obviously be government-run) he must share it. That means doling out secrets to the government’s chosen contractor, Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell). Hammer is glib and flashy, but if he’s our best hope to defeat our enemies on the battlefield, we all might as well start learning Arabic. His most successful product line is lobbyists.
Like Rand, “Iron Man 2” exalts the great man theory of history, and this is precisely why it’s such an unusually exciting movie.
One of Hollywood’s most enduring memes is what Jacques Barzun labels “primitivism” in his monumental work “From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present.”
Primitivism — an outgrowth of the cultural self-loathing, boredom and guilt of urbanized Western elites — is a recurrent faddish belief in the supposed superior wisdom of simpler, poorer or less sophisticated peoples. In the 1890s, when painting was as big as movies are today, Paris stockbroker Paul Gauguin vowed to “escape everything that is artificial and conventional” by going to Polynesia and capturing on canvas the “noble savage.”
In the 1960s, the culture of Crosby, pills and hash murmured, “We’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.” Groovy. Welcome, “Woodstock,” “Hair” and “Easy Rider.”
After hippies and hallucinogens started to be associated with OD’ing and the Manson family, the culture turned to poor and/or black and/or homeless and/or rural people as sources of wisdom and redemption for well-heeled whites. “Driving Miss Daisy,” “The Legend of Bagger Vance” and other “magical negro” movies (an apt phrase of Spike Lee’s) fought for space at the multiplex with hobo-wisdom flicks like “The Fisher King” and “With Honors” and the occasional hymn to Indians like “Dances with Wolves” (recently remade in blueface under the title “Avatar”). “The Visitor,” which got Richard Jenkins an Oscar nomination for best actor in 2008, is about a well-off but depressed man who learns to live again thanks to (I’m not kidding) the bongo lessons he gets from an illegal Middle Eastern immigrant. (Who gets deported, but the important thing is that the white guy gets his groove back.)
Does any of this ring true? Raise your hand if you’ve ever received philosophical tutelage from a homeless guy. (“Spare some change?” “Only if you can spare some wisdom, my good man.”)
Rand’s Galt said, “The competent have nothing to gain from the incompetent.” Great-man theory is the opposite of primitivism: It celebrates the smartest, richest, most successful and most sophisticated among us because even when they pursue selfish goals, we benefit.
Tony Stark is a great man in the same way that Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are great men. They create excellent things — jobs, wealth, iPods. In return, all three get called abrasive, arrogant, hard-nosed. None was initially motivated by the public good. They wanted to stretch their brains, do cool things and get rich.
Washington grows nervous and/or greedy at the sight of such entrepreneurs — so it replies by playing let’s-make-a-rule. Ask Bill Gates. Remember how the feds spent 11 years pursuing Microsoft on grounds that its browser and operating system were too well-integrated?
Something as ridiculous as that assclown rodeo could never pitch its camp in Cupertino, though, right? (Headline from Monday’s Post: “Apple may be in eye of regulatory storm”).
In “Iron Man 2,” Tony Stark’s fiercely defended self-interest is very much in our interest, and it’s the lawmakers acting for “the common good” (or at least the good of whoever most commonly donates to their campaigns) who threaten peace. He vows to continue to “protect the world at the pleasure of — myself. And if there’s one thing you can count on me to do, it’s pleasure myself.” Now there’s a fresh American movie hero for you: a little Jack Nicholson, a little John Galt, and a pinch of Howard Stern.