Ever since an unfortunate series of incidents effectively killed off my love for film, there’s been something of a void in me that I’ve struggled to fill. I still read film websites and follow celebrity gossip, but not in the same way that I used to. I had had a deep interest in the Russian Revolution for years and neglected almost all other aspects of history for the longest time, but now with a vacuum of interest to fill and my increasing interest in other areas of history has led to me starting read and think a lot more about general modern world history.

Thus, today while I was at work in the place where time stands still, dying a slow office-based death, I had the epiphany of:

It had previously occurred to me at points in class, learning about Mao Zedong and his peasant armies that I had heard this story before. I couldn’t place it, but I had definitely heard it somewhere, I could remember, the black guy dies at the end, right?

Today I was hit with it; the Sylvester Stallone film DEMOLITION MAN is a representation of Mao Zedong vs. Chiang Kai Shek in early twentieth century REVOLUTIONARY CHINA. I’m sure you’re skeptical, so I’ll prove it.

The first thing we realise about this movie… Actually the first thing we realise about this movie is that Wesley Snipes cannot dress. But the second thing we realise about this movie, is that Future America is populated by passive individuals who have been numbed so far by cultural revolution that aggression is now unheard of. This is possibly best depicted in the scene about half an hour into the film after Simon Pheonix (Snipes) kills a few people and then the police converge on him and attempt to apprehend him. He finds himself able to kill all of them with barely controllable gusto (he is used to have his head smashed into a car-windshield by NYPD cops) and subsequently drives off in a future car with one of their weapons.

Juxataposed with the social realities of turn of the century China and the similarities are clear. China was characteristically docile, given their Confucian values, it was precisely for this reason why the revolution happened. They welcomed the sterner face of Communism because they felt their current leaders (the Manchu dynasty) were not strong enough. They took part in World War 1 but they didn’t fight, they were helping by digging trenches for fucks sake.

Subsequently, John Spartan (Stallone) is welcomed because he IS strong. Similar?

Past the obvious social similarities, the underlying theme of revolutionary China is harder to see, but it’s still there I promise you, championed by both Sly Stallone and Wesley Snipes’ characters;

Stallone’s character clearly represents revolutionary leader MAO ZEDONG. His character, “John Spartan” even drops clues through his name. Communist theory is all about the little people, the average joes rising up against authority and establishing a society without classes. Clearly, ‘John’ is the definitve everyman name, and I assume that the second name ‘Spartan’ is a less than subtle play on ‘Spartacus’, the Roman slave who led the slave uprising in 73 BC.

Snipes on the other hand plays “Simon Pheonix” or CHIANG KAI SHEK, the leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party. Why does he ultimately lose in Demolition Man? Because he is confused as to what to do, misdirected, overawed with the power he finds he holds, and ultimately because he has no friends in the future. The EXACT same thing could be said of CHIANG KAI SHEK’s loss to MAO ZEDONG if we substitute the word ‘future’ with ‘revolutionary china’. And he had some friends, but nowhere near enough to deal with MAO’s peasant armada.

The police force that brings Spartan to the future is the film’s representation of Communist Russia. He wants to adhere to their principles but he wants to bring down Pheonix his way. Similarly, Mao felt bound by Russian Communist lore, first that the revolution must come from a worker’s proletariat as Marx prophecised (to which Mao argued “proletariat” related to a revolutionary mindset rather than merely a social class [Michael Lynch]) and second, that MAO should form the United Front with the Nationalists.

The second of these almost decimated the Communist party, and they ultimately had to go into hiding to survive.

Coincidently, Spartan is getting his ass kicked by Pheonix whenever they run into each other until he realises that to get anything done he needs to do things his way. Why? Because listening to the Police Force was killing him. Ultimately, no-one could appreciate that times were changing. Exactly like the backward Chinese government and the fiercely orthodox Russian Marxists.

There’s a beautiful scene in a museum, where Pheonix gets his hands on a futuristic weapon (just after perhaps the greatest line ever: WHAT’S YOUR BOGGLE??) and he and Spartan engage in trench warfare and catch up with each other while zinging off one liners. In this scene, Snipes has an immensely powerful projectile weapon but he is eventually overcome by Spartan even though all he has is a stick that lights up and goes WOOOME for no apparent reason.

He overcomes Snipes through better application of resources. The parallels here with Revolutionary China are uncanny. The disparity in firepower here is clearly a representation of the Chinese Nationalist force’s military advantages over the largely peasant based Communist army. However, despite being poorly equipped, the Chinese Communists were able to defeat CHIANG’s Nationalists through superior tactics and application of resources, waging effective guerilla warfare, perfectly depicted in this scene as Spartan defeats Pheonix with just his stupid stick, in a Museum of Natural HISTORY.

Obviously, the end of the film is the victory of MAO/Spartan over CHIANG/Pheonix and the parallels are complete. The significance however is wtih the kiss between Spartan and Lanina Huxley (I dont know if I spelled that right but its Sandra Bullock so who gives a shit right);

From their inception the Russians had told the Chinese Communist to merge with the Nationalists, and clearly chosen to support the Nationalists instead, feeling that the CCP was not strong enough to survive. Try as he may, MAO could not get himself recognised by the Russians as the leader of a Communist party.

In the movie, Stallone spends the better half of the film trying to bang Sandra Bullock, but she prefers “non-contact” or not “transferring fluids” - negligence like the Russian Communists had shown MAO. But by the end of the movie however, Spartan has won, doing things his way and the revolution is complete. The Russian Communists can no longer refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist party and the film illustrates this with a metaphorical kiss.

Peace.