I have noticed a trend in 90s cinema where a disgruntled middle-aged white office worker takes revenge on society by becoming le epic sociopath and/or apathetic dissident.
I feel like it gives extreme license to the middle class fantasies of a recently politically-dispossessed population to start to become terrorists a la "hunter" and "the turner diaries", which is extremely prophetic of today's largely unhappy-young-white-man school shooters, beginning with columbine that shares galring comparisons to the matrix and the "trenchcoat mafia" motif in that whole scenario.
The fims i thought of were:
Office space - a disgruntled middle-aged white office worker decides to steal money from his boss, gets hypnotised into becoming le epic apathetic guy, falls for anti-intellectualism from his neighbour's "simple ways". The office is burned down in a political symbol that returns man to hard labour, where our protagonist is now happy being a beer-drinking idiot. Its ironic since mike judge also made "idiocracy" but idiocracy itself is an extremely elitist criticism of democracy. So we can see a fascist connection.
Fight club - a disgruntled middle-aged white guy decides to destroy society because modern society is bullshit, so he becomes le epic based terrorist who smashes the credit system to return mankind to hard labour and suffering, because at least that's "real".
The matrix - disgruntled middle-aged white office worker becomes part of a crew that helps destroy the system by shooting up banks, fighting homeless people who are "agents of the system", where anyone can be an agent and by esteeming to litersl super powers from this cyber-misanthropy.
American beauty - disgruntled middle-aged white office worker fantasises about having sex with a high school student, so starts to "sepf-improve". He leaves his job and becomes le epic based apathetic guy who sees through all of society's bullshit.
Falling down - disgruntled middle-aged white office worker becomes a terrorist who starts fucking with people because he has a gun (he just becomes a nazi stormtrooper basically), he has no class enemy, but just hates everyone, from public sector workers to rich golfers. Here we see a populist message thst just gives license to mindless angst, where the system is not blamed but the actors within the system are scapegoated.
Like i say, i think the political dispossession of white people, particularly white men has become a very touchy neurosis
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