Episode notes
Yippee-ki-yay, podcast listeners! In this special holiday episode of Reel Lit, Stephen and McKenzie take on the ultimate Christmas controversy: Die Hard. Is it a Christmas movie, or is it just an action flick with tinsel on the side? While McKenzie grapples with the gritty prose and cynical tone of Roderick Thorp’s Nothing Lasts Forever, Stephen unpacks the Reagan-era geopolitics, cowboy archetypes, and capitalist critiques that make Die Hard a cultural touchstone.
Together, they explore how the film adapts and transforms the novel’s nihilistic antihero into the wisecracking, everyman John McClane. McKenzie’s close read dives into Joseph Leland’s Straw Nihilist archetype, contrasting it with McClane’s relatable antiheroism. Meanwhile, Stephen connects Hans Gruber’s greed to 1980s anxieties about globalism ...
Keywords
filmnovelClassicFilm StudiesLiterary Adaptationcult classicChristmas FilmDie HardBruce WillisAlan RickmanJohn McClaneHans GruberWesternsThe Cowboy in American CinemaArchetypal Criticism1980s1980s Films