Look, Die Hard is a Christmas movie. I know people say it isn’t, even though it takes place on Christmas Eve, there are running Christmas jokes and nearly every character who isn’t a terrorist or a jerk wishes another character a Merry Christmas. Those who say it is not are wrong. But this is not about that debate, as it is over, this is about the relationships between the characters (who aren’t terrorists).
I just have to say this at the jump: Holly McClane is a bad wife. That fact didn’t always jump out at me; I used to think she was just a wildly unlucky person who happened to be ensnared in two of the biggest pre-9/11 terrorist plots on US soil. Then I looked at her deeper.
Sure, she is unlucky. Only she and local LA television reporter Richard Thornburg, along with her husband John, were victims of both that assault on Nakatomi Tower and the terror plot to free captured drug lord General Ramon Esperanza from the Republic of Val Verde. That’s an exclusive club no one would want to be a member of.
More than that, however, Holly “Gennero” McClane is very lucky, actually. She has a dedicated husband – twice tempted to stray, once by the stewardess upon his arrival in LA and again by limo drive Argyle with a corporate account and the wild women of Hollywood. And again, two years later another airline employee tried to pick him up at Dulles Airport, and again he passed. (This is without even mentioning how he saved her life twice, without even a thought to his own safety or holding it over her head, and a large part of the city of New York.)
Yes, being married to an honest police officer is no walk in the park, but there is no way someone in Holly’s business world, someone like the cocaine-abusing Ellis (RIP), would have stayed loyal.
Beyond John McClane taking his wedding vows seriously, he genuinely cares for his wife. We always see him making an effort – flying across the country, traversing holiday traffic to go to the airport, putting in the work to make the phone calls. We do not see the same from Holly.
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What we do is someone who sets up a new life 3000 miles away from her husband, then drops his name “for professional purposes” without telling him. Who would humiliate someone they love to the point that they did not even know how to refer to their spouse or search for them in the corporate directory. No heads up whatsoever shows Holly was already checking out of their marriage.
Long after hope had been lost that Holly would come back to him, John still wears his wedding ring. Sad.
The Die Hard movies, at least the first three, are a testament to the dedication of one police officer to his wife and family, a commitment John McClane maintains long after his wife finally forsakes him after years from abuse and neglect. The other sequels are about a father’s love for his children, which leads audiences to conclude that he is still, deep down, in love with their mother, too, who has taken him for granted and abused him for years.
Even though he always survives and manages to protect his loved ones, John McClane is a tragic character who forever pines for the one thing he simply cannot get: the love of his wife.
Holly McClane, who likely legally switched back to Gennaro after the divorce (since she’d done it professionally beforehand), is an abusive woman who ultimately has no regard for the man who kept herself and her children alive against all odds.
Some might say that John had a drinking problem, but who wouldn’t after having to take dozens of lives while almost losing your own, on two separate occasions in two years? You’d think Holly, of all people, would understand that. Compassion is what’s needed, not judgement. But judgement is all she gives.
Hans Gruber, Simon Gruber, random corrupt military men, drug dealers, cyber criminals and Russian mobsters may all be terrorists on the surface of the Die Hard franchise, but the real villain was Holly Gennaro. John McClane deserved much better.
This column is dedicated to the memory of those who died in the assault on Nakatomi Tower, the crash of Windsor Flight 114, the attempted robbery of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, the crimes of Thomas Gabriel and the innocent lives lost in Russia in the attempted theft of more than $1 billion in uranium. A donation has been made in their name to The Human Fund: Money for People.
Derek Hunter is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses, and host of the weekly “Week in F*cking Review” podcast where the news is spoken about the way it deserves to be. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.
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