50 GREATEST FICTIONAL BADASSES

#13 – DETECTIVE “DIRTY” HARRY CALLAHAN.

Some of my earliest memories of movies come from my Dad loving Dirty Harry movies. Which is odd, because he can’t tell any of them apart now, but when you’re a small kid and you see your father praising a scowling man firing off a very large, very intimidating hand-cannon it sort of makes an impression.

I don’t consider myself a political person by any definition of the word. I tend to believe in what I believe and not label it. I don’t really understand the labels entirely myself. For instance, I believe no human should tell another how to spend his days (a libertarian thought), yet think we have societal obligation to treat our wounded and sick equally (whether that’s a Karl Marx view or an idea I took away from Sunday school — all two times I went — is a debate you can have with yourself, thank you very much). But I guess if pressed, I’m more pinko than cowboy — except in a few topics, prominently my views on crime, criminals, and punishment. My heart doesn’t bleed too much on the sleeve with those ones. And I think I can play horror film defending-hypocrite for a moment and say media did influence me on that outlook, especially Dirty Harry and his .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world.

Harry is a great character. We don’t know much about his past (other than he was in the Marines, had a wife that tragically died in a car wreck and has a penchant for shooting sexual predators in the park). I think everything we need to know is written in the crow’s feet on Eastwood’s face (lines that, like a sin-eater’s belly, get more prominent as the series goes on).

Harry was the first of the “vigilante cops”. He ignores the very thing he upholds to get the thugs, rapists and murderers off the street — meaning, he gets them the hell away from us. All of this would be unacceptable of course in the really real world (cops above the law is a pretty harrowing subject), but we can side with Harry on this; we believe it when he says “what about the rights of that little girl?” when talking of a child who died at a psychopath’s hands. 

To me, this is why Harry’s important, why he’s a Bad-Ass. He’s the symbol of being a servant to an idea that’s lost sight of its original purpose, and not just accepting it, but railing against it with fury. He’s not a fascist (as some critics have decried him); he’s the spirit of the outraged that can’t be corrupted or dismissed, the guardian that says “we are here to protect and serve you”, and believe it unequivocally.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y-_-6sxXRI

“A man’s got to know his limitations.”