The Top 10 Movies to Inspire GOP Insanity During the Debt Ceiling Vote

Since the GOP is so inspired by modern cinema, we've got some suggestions for films that reflect their agenda to vilify the middle class.

August 2, 2011 |

Photo Credit: ScypaxPictures on Flickr

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Last week, Republican Representative Kevin McCarthy attempted to unify his party behind Speaker Boehner's "cut, snip and slash" bill by showing them an inspiring scene from the film The Town, which contains the following exchange between two criminals:

Doug MacRay (Ben Affleck): I need your help. I can't tell you what it is. You can never ask me about it later. And we're going to hurt some people.

James Coughlin (Jeremy Renner): Whose car are we going to take?

It turns out the thing MacRay needs help with is beating and shooting a man. And apparently the screening was successful, inspiring Rep. Allen West to say "I'm ready to drive the car."

Now the Republicans must once again unite and pass a new debt ceiling bill. But they shouldn't compromise! Their way-- all spending cuts, no taxing the wealthy-- or the debt default highway! Here are the top 10 movie scenes the GOP should be required to watch before they vote on any bill!

1) Animal House: When John Blutarsky (John Belushi) rallies his own frat brothers, saying, "Did you say 'over'? Nothing's over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?"

2) Network: When Arthur Jensen (played by Ned Beatty), the chairman of a media conglomerate, explains,

"There are no nations. There are no peoples.... There is only one holistic system of systems. One vast, interwoven, interacting, multi-varied, multi-national dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rands, rubles, pounds and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today."

3) Trading Places: All the scenes showing how the owners of a stock brokerage firm (Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy) screw over their managing director (Dan Ackroyd) by framing him, freezing his bank accounts, shunning him and turning a successful wealthy businessman into a poor, suicidal, semi-homeless man taken in by a prostitute (Jamie Lee Curtis).

4) Red Dawn: The scene in which the gung-ho, overly confident and overly zealous Robert Robert Morris (C. Thomas Howell), armed with nothing but one AK-47, tries to take on several Soviet (read socialist) helicopters. He winds up getting killed but that doesn't need to be shown or known. That's what the pause button is for.

5) Aliens: When Pvt. Hudson (Bill Paxton) responds to the ship crash by saying:

Well that's great, that's just fuckin' great, man. Now what the fuck are we supposed to do? We're in some real pretty shit now man... That's it man, game over man, game over! What the fuck are we gonna do now? What are we gonna do?

(This is more of a warning of what is to come than a pep talk, but it's part of the preparation.)

6) The Grapes of Wrath: When Tom Joad (Henry Fonda) delivers his memorable speech:

I'll be all around in the dark. I'll be ever'-where - wherever you can look. Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there.

The Republicans will not be inspired by Joad's commitment to justice but they will be inspired by the dark, people going hungry, and social upheaval and violence.

7) Thelma and Louise: The scene in which Thelma (Geena Davis) and Louise (Susan Sarandon) drive their car into the Grand Canyon. President Obama can be seen in the character Detective Hal Slocumb (Harvey Keitel), who is reasonable and sympathetic, and runs after the car in a failed attempt to stop them from driving over the edge.

8) The Wicker Man: The final scene, when Sergeant Howie (Edward Woodward) is sacrificed by being placed inside a huge wicker figure, which is set on fire. As the wicker man burns, the locals surround it and sing the Middle English folk-song "Sumer Is a'cumen In." Howie can be seen as entitlements or even the American people who are not billionaires, the locals as the Tea Party Republicans, and the folk song they sing as the Grover Norquist pledge.

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