I am thinking about the racism present in this narrative rather than in the main character.
In his review of the movie (you can read the full version on webpage below), film critic Roger Ebert said the following:
"A lot of the reviews for "Falling Down" are going to compare it to earlier movies about white men who go berserk: "Joe," for example, or "Death Wish." Some will even find it racist because the targets of the film's hero are African-American, Latino and Korean - with a few whites thrown in for balance. Both of these approaches represent a facile reading of the film, which is actually about a great sadness which turns into madness, and which can afflict anyone who is told, after many years of hard work, that he is unnecessary and irrelevant."
"Because the character is white, and many of his targets are not, the movie could be read as racist. I prefer to think of it as a reflection of the real feelings of a lot of people who, lacking the insight to see how political and economic philosophies have affected them, fall back on easy scapegoating. If you don't have a job and the Korean shop owner does, it is easy to see him as the villain. It takes a little more imagination to realize that you lost your job because of the greedy and unsound financial games of the go-go junk bond years."
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/falling-down-1993
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therefdotcom
7 years ago
somewhat interesting read, yet a bit debatable towards the end:
"fall back on easy scapegoating. If you don't have a job and the Korean shop owner does, it is easy to see him as the villain. "
while that statement is absolutely true, it only has little to do with the film, since that is not what angered douglas' character here. it goes out of hand at the end, surely, but the shop owner has been in fact a massive douchebag towards said character right from the very start.
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