I was watching Die Hard 4.0 yesterday, the one where Detective John McLane takes on cyber terrorists. He does not start getting really violent until after his first phone conversation with the chief villain. In that conversation, he is informed that his 401K account (ie his superannuation fund) has just been wiped out. Immediately after that, he more or less knocks down a helicopter with his bare hands.
I too would be extremely angry if someone did something to my retirement fund, particularly as I am enjoying my defined benefit pension (with 2.1% increase this coming Thursday) right now.
Die Hard 4.0 featured the Vietnam War era protest song ‘Fortunate Son’ prominently, both during one early scene, and during the end credits.
I have been hearing ‘Fortunate Son’ a fair bit in the past couple of days, mostly over Facebook clips celebrating the American incursion into Venezuela to capture the dictator Maduro.
Which does not really seem the right context for playing ‘Fortunate Son’.
Credence Clearwater Revival’s John Fogarty wrote ‘Fortunate Son’ in 1969 in a fit of rage about how the poor and unprivileged were being conscripted to fight in the Vietnam War, whilst those who were sons of powerful fathers were able to avoid that morass. He had one particular fortunate son in mind: David Eisenhower, who was both the grandson of former President Eisenhower and son-in-law of President Nixon. Eisenhower grandfils had been able to avoid conscription by serving as an officer in the Naval Reserve for several years – a far safer path of service than that forced upon sons of poorer and powerless families.
I suppose that, in the course of the intervening 56 years, ‘Fortunate Son’ has become part of the soundtrack of the Vietnam War, featured in movies and TV shows about that conflict, and through that, it has been distorted from a cri-de-cour protest song into a theme song for action scenes.
Which leads us to the present day, where Facebook trolls are posting pro-Trumpist celebratory clips about the Maduro intervention with ‘Fortunate Son’ playing loudly as the backing track.
I guess it could be worse. Led Zeppelin’s ‘Whole Lot Of Love’ used to be played loudly on speakers as US armoured units drove through the Vietnamese jungle – something which I suspect inspired the ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ helicopter assault scene in ‘Apocalypse Now’….
Lost For Words! 