Social Class In John Mctiernan's Die Hard

Social classes and race are some of the main factors of how people treat each other. People in the upper class look at the lower class as poor and violent criminals. People also associate some races as being poor and criminals. John McTiernan 's "Die Hard" is a marvelous example of how Social Class can alter the way one treats another. The main character, John McClane, is a very skilled Policeman who receives an average income. His wife is a wealthy business woman who is in the upper class. Although they are married and have two children, Holly moved to New York with the children thinking John would come with her. John McTiernan does an incredible job showing the relationship between John and his wife. Social class got in between their marriage …show more content…
The opening scene begins with two women, a Latino and Asian, who just got in a car crash. They are both yelling racial slurs at each other and use each others race as reasons for the crash. There are many scenes in the movie that show how race effects the relationships between characters. The Cops in "Crash" discriminate against the black couple and the hitchhiker. After the scene where Officer John Ryan pulls over Cameron and Christine Thayer and sexually assaults Christine, Cameron and Christine 's relationship starts to collapse. Christine is traumatized after the incident and furious that Cameron did not stand up to Officer Ryan. We can tell how negative some people act towards people of different race. In the film it is mainly white people who discriminate hard against people of different races. An example is when the Persian shop owner Farhad goes to buy a gun with his daughter to 'fix ' his security problems. Since Farhad is loud, obnoxious, and paranoid the white gun store owner gets impatient and starts yelling insults at Farhad and calling names like "Osama". Even though Farhad was just the victim of racism he does the same thing the gun store owner did to him. When Daniel, the locksmith, is trying to fix Farhad 's lock he lets Farhad know that it’s the door that’s the problem not the lock. Farhad yells at Daniel and tells him, "You try to cheat …show more content…
Racism is more demeaning than how the upper class treats the lower class. For example in "Crash" when Jean Cabot (Sandra Bollock) and Rick Cabot (Brendan Fraser) get car jacked, Jean starts to become racist against minorities. When the locksmith they hired started working on their door 's lock, Jean pulled Rick aside and told him that she wanted a new locksmith because the one that was currently working on it was a gang member. She told him that he was going to sell their key to one of his gang members. This scene was important because it shows us how racism not only affects how people treat each other but also their ability to find jobs. This is also where social class plays in. Social class is more about who has the higher paying job and has expensive things. John McTiernan film "Die Hard" has many examples of the conflicts between upper and lower class. However the 'bad ' guys in the film do not seem to be poor and from all the equipment and resources they used, they have to be wealthy. This means that the upper class was stealing from the upper class. This film goes to show how the upper class is so unlikeable and tries to take advantage of others. The last film that was mentioned was "Straight Outta Compton" which is a true story. This true story proves the struggles minorities go through. People shouldn’t treat each other differently because of their race or social