As a follow-up to my earlier diary, Top 10 Liberals in Film, I now offer the other side of the coin. There are many great villains in cinema - men and women we pity, loathe, or even guiltily admire - but many of them are nuanced, human characters, or otherwise mythologically ethereal, and therefore do not correspond well to the sort of creature that populates the political right. But there are indeed some characters so astutely, witheringly portrayed, and so accurately channel the basic animus of the right-wing pathology that they deserve specific mention.
First, let me restate my caveat from the earlier list: I do not include films and characters based largely on historical fact, nor those based on TV shows. To this I will add two additional caveats: (1)I am arbitrarily excluding films mentioned in that earlier list, just to make things more interesting and challenging for me; and (2)I will not include any villain who's cool, because wingnuts are by definition not cool.
Warning: Movie descriptions contain spoilers.
- Kitty Farmer (Beth Grant) in Donnie Darko (2001)
Wingnut species: Idiot / busybody.
Description: Kitty is a mindless fussbudget, nosy and judgmental conservative activist parent, and devoted adherent of any superficial gibberish she has an opportunity to follow. At a PTA meeting, she attempts to have a book removed from the school curriculum for utterly trivial reasons, and tries to foist a religious motivational speaker's vacuous bullshit on her health class students (one of whom is the titular main character). When Donnie Darko doesn't like what he's hearing, Kitty speaks to his mother and implies that she isn't doing a good job as a parent.
Later, when the motivational speaker is revealed to be a pedophile, she angrily refuses to believe it and proposes that a conspiracy is at work. She then idiotically insults Darko's mother again just before asking her for a major favor; but when Mrs. Darko hesitates, Kitty impugns her reliability and commitment. This is probably the most broadly applicable portrayal of the feminine side of the right.
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- Senator Greg Stillson (Martin Sheen) in The Dead Zone (1983)
Wingnut species: Narcissist
Description: Stillson has relatively brief screen-time in this film, but Sheen manages to make the performance potent and chilling. He is initially just a corrupt, lying, scumbag politician who extorts money from people and intimidates opponents, but a much darker potential is later revealed. As part of a psychic vision of the future, the main character witnesses Stillson as President of the United States declaring his desire to secure his place in history by launching a preemptive nuclear attack on the Soviet Union - an action, he soon reveals to his shocked advisors, that he has already set in motion. At the end of the film, he wards off an assassination attempt by grabbing the child of a supporter and holding him up as a human shield - an act that ends his political career, warding off the dire future seen in the vision, and leading to his eventual suicide.
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- Sergeant Hartman (R. Lee Ermey) in Full Metal Jacket (1987)
Wingnut species: Sadist
Description: I understand that Drill Sergeants have to be tough, and I've seen enough documentaries about military training to have a vague impression of what that looks like, but Stanley Kubrick was plainly trying to create a character above and beyond that - the sort of diseased mind that would find humiliating people and crushing their spirits personally gratifying. Instead of encouraging team-work, he forces the recruits to turn against each other, encourages them to beat up a weak Private, and generally tries to instill disdain for weakness - an attitude only sociopaths mistake for strength.
When that same weak Private loses his mind and confronts him with a loaded rifle, he actually flies into a tantrum and belittles the guy's family - he's such a piece of shit he would rather die hurting someone else than defuse the time-bomb of hate and madness he had created. The death of Sergeant Hartman is one of the least tragic moments in the film.
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- The Robesons (Everett McGill, Wendy Robie) in The People Under The Stairs (1991)
Wingnut species: Family values
Description: The Robesons are a psychotic brother and sister in an incestuous marriage, and are obsessed with raising the "perfect" child - one who is "clean," silent, perfectly obedient at all times, and never inconvenient or troublesome in any way. It's implied that due to their blood relationship, attempts to have a biological child were "unsatisfactory," so they took to kidnapping children from others. If they decided that their current child wasn't satisfactory, and beatings and tortures had failed to produce the desired result, the child would be dumped into a secure pen under the house in total darkness and fed raw meat.
They have run through about a dozen children before the events in the film, when their current child is an adolescent girl whom they end up punishing with scalding-hot baths and body-punches. The Robesons are filthy rich, but are so paranoid about anyone else getting to their money that their house is a labyrinth of death traps. Mr. Robeson is a gun nut, and trains attack dogs to kill people. Mrs. Robeson is bitterly greedy, miserly, and puritanical. They're both racist and contemptuous of anyone with less money than they have.
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- Mrs. White (Piper Laurie) in Carrie (1976)
Wingnut species: Fundie
Description: Carrie White's mother is a Christian fundamentalist lunatic living in a constant state of religious terror, and due to the circumstances of her daughter's conception (rape) she bears extreme ill-will bordering on hatred toward Carrie. Upon seeing that Carrie has telekinetic powers, she decides that her daughter is a demon, and tries to murder her by stabbing her with a butcher knife - all with God on her lips. What's most disturbing is that this caricature is not entirely the invention of Stephen King. For people obsessed with ending the "murder" of zygotes, fundie personalities do seem rather uniquely prone to murdering their own children the minute they begin to display actual human characteristics - like having independent thoughts, or being interested in sex.
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- Cadet-Captain David Shawn (Tom Cruise) in Taps (1981)
Wingnut species: Necrophiliac
Description: Shawn doesn't understand or care about duty, honor, courage, or any of the buzzwords he regurgitates from his years at Bunker Hill military academy - he just likes the visceral experience of power, and military culture affords him the best opportunities. At first this is limited to bellicose rhetoric and macho displays, which he gets the chance to indulge in when a misguided fellow cadet-officer orchestrates the armed seizure of the school to prevent its closure. But as the situation escalates, we begin to see that he clearly yearns for havoc. While other cadets are scared out of their minds, or are convinced they are doing the right thing, he is simply getting high off the violent atmosphere and potential danger.
When the leader of the cadets finally decides to surrender and tells his subordinates to lay down their weapons, Shawn is bitterly disappointed. No longer willing to obey orders that don't suit him, he runs up to a belt-fed machine gun and begins wildly firing, killing or wounding several, and saying "It's beautiful, man!" and grinning broadly before being swiss-cheesed by return fire.
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- Col. Frank Fitts (Chris Cooper) in American Beauty (1999)
Wingnut species: Homophobe
Description: A savagely abusive, controlling father and distant husband, Fitts takes great pride in his former military service, going so far as to mention it when introducing himself. His wife is a silent, mousy basket-case who just sits alone in a spotless house staring into nothing, and apologizes for how "messy" it is the minute a guest shows up. Fitts is contemptuous of gay people and paranoid that his teenage son might be gay, and this causes him to misinterpret a scene he witnesses involving his son and a neighbor. He responds by savagely beating his son, who - correctly perceiving the source of his father's rage - goads him with a sarcastic false confession. When Fitts goes to confront the neighbor, he misinterprets the man's belittling of his own marriage and tries to kiss him, but is rebuffed because the neighbor is actually straight. Fitts, apparently terrified that people will find out he's gay, later murders his neighbor in cold-blood.
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- Eli Sunday (Paul Dano) in There Will Be Blood (2007)
Wingnut species: Theocon
Description: Eli is not really a fundie, but is rather a mendacious sociopath (hence the "theocon" categorization) and evangelical preacher who doesn't believe a single word he says. Despite lacking the slightest bit of sincerity, he also lacks the slightest bit of conscience, so he never betrays even a moment of self-doubt during his full-throated sermon theatrics.
What exactly motivates him is never quite clear, but he seems to greatly enjoy his status as a revered Holy Man in his community, and an increasingly bitter rivalry ensues when he meets Daniel Plainview - an even bigger sociopath than he is, but more honest about it. It is this rivalry that fuels the film, and part of what makes it so unique - it's a battle of demons racing each other into the Abyss, and whatever slight glimmer of light ever penetrates is soon extinguished.
As Eli's hold on the minds of the community is profound, he attempts to extort both money and PR support from Plainview in exchange for blessing his oil works. Plainview agrees, but then - with obvious pleasure - snubs him at the rig-commissioning ceremony, and stiffs him on the money he promised. Eli later confronts him, and not getting a satisfactory answer begins behaving arrogantly and self-righteously - a persona whose falseness Plainview can clearly see, and easily dispells by beating Eli to the ground. At some point, years later in the story, Plainview is forced by circumstances to seek the help of Eli's church, and the price he exacts is a humiliating spectacle where the aspiring oil baron - who doesn't believe in God - has to pretend to join the church, "confess" his sins, and mirror the hypocrisy he so despises in the preacher.
Plainview gets his revenge for this at the conclusion of the film: The famous "I drink your milkshake" scene, where a now-destitute Eli attempts to extort money from the now-wealthy oil tycoon by offering what the latter had already (unbeknownst to him) legally stolen. Plainview strings him along, making him think that he's interested, and finally offers to agree on one condition: That Eli admit he's a false prophet, and that God is a superstition - which he does, only to be enlightened about "drainage" and the fact that Eli has nothing to offer.
An increasingly manic Plainview then harangues him more and more savagely, taking Satanic delight in vengefully castigating the preacher's hypocrisy and weakness, and ultimately ends up murdering him. Eli doesn't deserve to die, but he is still the more vile of the two: Plainview is a force of nature, almost innocent in the purity of his avarice and contempt, whereas Eli is just a piece of shit who apes religious piety to leech off of other people's gullibility.
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- Bob Roberts (Tim Robbins) in Bob Roberts (1992)
Wingnut species: Rovean
Description: Bob Roberts is a Limbaugh conservative and Rove Republican who responds to the slightest trace of skeptical questioning by accusing his interviewer of being a Communist; uses innuendo, slander and smears to defeat his Democratic opponent; and relies on silly publicity stunts, gimmicks, and fatuous slogans in his campaign to establish an image. He engages in constant, head-explodingly egregious media manipulation and lying propaganda, and his hapless critics are left gasping for breath trying to deal with the sheer absurdity of his behavior. He is exposed by an investigative reporter as a thief, a fraud, an embezzler, and a participant in CIA drug-dealing operations, but nothing comes of it. Roberts ultimately orchestrates a fake assassination attempt on himself in order to win sympathy votes, and portrays himself as an American martyr, winning the election. The reporter who exposed him is later murdered by a wingnut.
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- General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) in Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb (1964)
Wingnut species: Eliminationist
Description: "Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk, even ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children's ice cream! [...] Fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face." Utterly delusional, paranoid, fanatical, genocidal, and even misogynistic, Jack Ripper is what happens when the military mind starts seeking "purity." He believes sex is the means by which women try to steal his "essence," and fluoridation is how Communists try to pollute his "precious bodily fluids."
In order to thwart these endlessly complicated and devious plots, Ripper has decided to "purify" the world by ordering Strategic Air Command bombers to deliver a total nuclear strike on the Soviet Union, and prevents the order being recalled by telling his men that the Russians have already invaded and will be trying to take over the base to stop the attack. He personally resists the American forces attempting to retake the base by firing a heavy machine gun out his window, but when it's clear the base will be taken he seems to briefly reflect on his actions - speculating on what God will think of his actions - before committing suicide.
Dr. Strangelove is one of the greatest films ever made, with a vast litany of quotable lines, and Jack Ripper is a work of satiric genius written and performed flawlessly. His madness is perfect, and just human enough to reveal a shocking truth - it stems from fear. The man is in a state of utter, unreasoning, psychotic terror, which his weak personality and gnawing insecurities have progressively built up over time. Being a military man for whom control is a personal necessity, he has no other way to respond but to unleash destruction as widely and totally as he can. He is both the most monstrous of wingnuts in film, and the most terrifying in his human reality.
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Update: Dammit, I can't believe I forgot Percy from The Green Mile.