Heroic suicide bombers.

July 6, 2006 6:57 AM

Heroic suicide bombers. I'd like some good examples from western film and literature of suicide bombers being depicted as heroic.

The Randy Quaid character in Independence Day and the rebel fighter pilot diving into the enemy bridge in Star Wars (or one of the original trilogy) spring to mind but I'm sure there are others.

posted by biffa to society & culture (58 comments total)

Bruce Willis' character in Armageddon could technically be considered a suicide bomber.
posted by deadmessenger at 7:06 AM on July 6, 2006

A bad Gene Hackman film called "Uncommon Value" features a character charging into a group of enemy soldiers clutching an unpinned hand grenade at the end to give his pals time to escape.

Vasquez and her pal in Aliens blow themselves up with a grenade in the air ducts, taking out a pursuing alien at the same time.

I'm sure there are loads more...
posted by bifter at 7:09 AM on July 6, 2006

Sorry, I'll clarify that, suicide bombers who kill both themselves and either kill or are attempting to kill other people/sentient lifeforms.
posted by biffa at 7:09 AM on July 6, 2006

Uncommon Valor - sorry.
posted by bifter at 7:09 AM on July 6, 2006

Are these suicide bombers who are killing soldiers or civilians? I think that's really the rub.
posted by Ironmouth at 7:14 AM on July 6, 2006

The A-Wing pilot who crashes into the bridge of the Super Star Destroyer Executor in Return Of The Jedi was Arvel Crynyd. </geek>

Crynyd and the Independance Day guy aren't really "suicide bombers" though in the usual sense - I would describe them more as kamikaze pilots (crashing their planes into stuff in last-ditch attempts to destroy it, as opposed to strapping bombs to yourself and setting out with the intention to blow yourself up and take some enemies with you).
posted by EndsOfInvention at 7:14 AM on July 6, 2006

Return of the Jedi! There's totally that guy who flies his A-Wing into the bridge of the super star destroyer and blows it up.
posted by borkingchikapa at 7:15 AM on July 6, 2006

curses.
posted by borkingchikapa at 7:15 AM on July 6, 2006

Umm...spoiler alert!




Doesn't the guy in Léon (aka The Professional) kill himself and the bad cop at the very end?
posted by inigo2 at 7:20 AM on July 6, 2006

inigo2: Ah yes, that's a good one. He does indeed strap himself with explosives to blow himself and Gary Oldman up.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 7:23 AM on July 6, 2006

There's a bit of a difference between pre-meditated suicide bombing (kamikazes, tube bombers, Viet Cong 'human bombs') and in-the-moment-jump-on-the-grenade self-sacrifice, surely?

What are you going to use these examples for? Are you going to argue that suicide bombing has a cultural precedent in Western fiction and/or military actions?
posted by Happy Dave at 7:27 AM on July 6, 2006

Always a problem with spoilers when you ask a question like this.

Anyway, the ending of Cryptonomicon has Bobby Shaftoe destroying a Japanese fortification with fuel oil and killing himself in the process.

Kamikaze pilots?

Though you will find examples of men and women sacrificing themselves to kill soldiers, I'd be surprised if you'll find any where they're attacking civilians. Watching with interest, though.

More generally that suicide bombing, there are the against-all-odds charges like The Charge of the Light Brigade.
posted by Leon at 7:31 AM on July 6, 2006

How about Empire of the Sun?

The prisoner's camp sits adjacent to an air strip where kamikaze pilots are trained. Jim befriends one during the movie, who he later sees being prepared for his flight. We never see his kamikaze crash, but it is clear that's where he is off to. This may or may not be considered heroic, but we are made to sympathize with him.
posted by poppo at 7:39 AM on July 6, 2006

I believe Han Solo said that atttacking the Death Star wasn't about bravery, "...more like suicide"

[SPOILER for those under rock, yet with AskMeFi access]

and yet he shows up anyway.

/sevenyearoldself
posted by blueberry at 7:44 AM on July 6, 2006

Wasn't there a movie about WW2 pilot Colin Kelly crashing his B17 into a Japanese carrier that Reagan used to talk about ?
posted by rfs at 7:46 AM on July 6, 2006

Jan van Speyk (more), a Dutch naval commander who in 1831 blew up his ship ('Cannon Boat Nr. Two') to prevent it from falling into the hands of rebellious Belgians. He killed himself, his crew and an unknown number of Belgians. It promoted him to national hero, and inspired a whole list of naval ships to be named after him.
posted by Harry at 7:46 AM on July 6, 2006

Terminator 2...Miles Dyson with the deadman's switch and the room-full of explosives. He did it for the future!
posted by Thorzdad at 7:50 AM on July 6, 2006

Thorzdad: his intention was to give people enough time to get out before he blew up the hardware. He wasn't trying to take lives.
posted by Leon at 7:53 AM on July 6, 2006

I was going to mention Colin Kelly.... to elaborate on rfs' post, he was a B-17 pilot who was shot down early in the war; he stayed at the controls to allow his crew time to bail out, and then died when the plane exploded. But since there wasn't a lot of good news at the time, the story mutated in the press so that now Kelly intentionally dove his plane straight down the stack of a Japanese ship, sinking it.
posted by COBRA! at 7:55 AM on July 6, 2006

Arash in Syriana? He's certainly portayed in a sympathetic light.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 7:59 AM on July 6, 2006

Leon, does a suicide bomber necessarily have to take lives? Willful destruction of property should count, too.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:59 AM on July 6, 2006

Maj. T.J. 'King' Kong in Dr. Strangelove

The entire crew of CSS Hunley
posted by Kirth Gerson at 8:02 AM on July 6, 2006

Slim Pickens's character from the end of Dr. Strangelove.

You know the one: he deliberately rides a falling nuclear missile (yeehaw!).
posted by slimepuppy at 8:04 AM on July 6, 2006

Throzdad: Mmm... maybe. I suppose. Technically. But biffa did ask for deaths and bloodshed.
posted by Leon at 8:06 AM on July 6, 2006

There's a long history, in fiction and reality, of overrun ground troops calling in artillery or air strikes on their own position. Good way to get a posthumous medal.
posted by NortonDC at 8:30 AM on July 6, 2006

The Battle of Algiers isn't about suicide bombers but about bombings which were the prototypes for Palestinian bombings and others. The film deals well with both sides of the conflict and the issues involved in using terrorism (and torture, for the other side) as a tactic.
posted by beerbajay at 8:34 AM on July 6, 2006

The soldier in the Alien movie (was it 3?) who stays behind in the tunnel with the Thermite grenade.
posted by Meatbomb at 8:36 AM on July 6, 2006

At the end of Heathers Christian Slater's character blows himself up for what (seems to me) an uncharacteristically altruistic reason: ridding the world of one more psychopathic high school hater. Never seemed consistent to me that JD would give up his reign of mayhem.
posted by Sara Anne at 8:41 AM on July 6, 2006

Almost none of these people count as suicide bombers. As people have said, a suicide strike during a battle (as in the many kamikaze scenarios people have been listing) is a far cry from suicide bombing, which targets civilian populations during periods of relative calm.

The OP's two examples (ID4 and RotJ) don't really count, either.
posted by BackwardsCity at 8:43 AM on July 6, 2006

Suicide populations target civilian populations or occupying military, I guess. In any event, you can't suicide bomb during a battle, is what I'm saying.
posted by BackwardsCity at 8:45 AM on July 6, 2006

Oh ack. Heathers
posted by Sara Anne at 8:46 AM on July 6, 2006

he deliberately rides a falling nuclear missile

That was not deliberate. He was trying to unstick it.
posted by sonofsamiam at 8:56 AM on July 6, 2006

I would try to look for science-fiction scenarios where earthlings practice asymetrical warfare against a superior alien force, or, if you can stomach it, fringe literature like The Turner Diaries (wikipedia), which was the white supremacist novel that inspired Timothy McVeigh. This incredibly racist book heroicizes suicide bombing tactics because the federal government is "occupied" by non-whites.
posted by BackwardsCity at 9:00 AM on July 6, 2006

The moral problem with suicide bombing is that it's bombing, not that it's suicide.

I think the "Judean People's Front Crack Suicide Squad" from the Life of Brian ought to get a mention.

Suicide squad, attack!
posted by TheophileEscargot at 9:06 AM on July 6, 2006

Every episode of Star Trek:The Next Generation and the old series where they set the self destruct and plan to fly into the latest space monster/time vortex/alien ship.
posted by blue_beetle at 9:13 AM on July 6, 2006

In "War of the Worlds" Tom Cruse's character grabs a gernade when he gets sucked into a tripod, but he ends up being pulled out in typical speilburg shlock.
posted by delmoi at 9:22 AM on July 6, 2006

Actually, it's what happened in the book... shlock hater.
posted by ewkpates at 9:28 AM on July 6, 2006

Unless we count the Terminator example, I don't see that we've come up with anything.

I think that the idea is anathema to the western concept of noble violence.
posted by ewkpates at 9:29 AM on July 6, 2006

The Siege doesn't portray suicide bombers as heroic, but it tries to be nuanced. They're not Western movies, but Paradise Now and The War Within are two recent movies featuring suicide bombers.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:36 AM on July 6, 2006

Léon (aka The Professional) at the end.

Léon: Stansfield?
Stansfield: At your service.
Léon: [handing him something] This is from... Mathilda.
Stansfield: [sees that it's a pin for a grenade] Shit.
posted by porpoise at 9:49 AM on July 6, 2006 [1 favorite]

Randy Quaid in Independence Day. Sort of.
posted by pmurray63 at 9:52 AM on July 6, 2006

The soldier in the Alien movie (was it 3?) who stays behind in the tunnel with the Thermite grenade.

That's Aliens. Vasquez and Gorman.

"You always were an asshole, Gorman."
posted by brundlefly at 10:09 AM on July 6, 2006

Also, I know you're limiting it to Western media, but this was the first thing I thought of.
posted by brundlefly at 10:15 AM on July 6, 2006

More recently, V (that was the character's actual name right? Anyway, the main guy) in V for Vendetta.

In Dr. Strangelove, I think Major Kong is depicted as more of a fool, who sees himself as heroic, so he doesn't exactly qualify for this question, IMO.
posted by gauchodaspampas at 10:25 AM on July 6, 2006

There's something like that in the book "Footfall", by Niven and Pournelle.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 11:04 AM on July 6, 2006

Not exactly a classic, but in "Battlefield Earth", the American Human resistance patriotically fly planes into skyscrapers to collapse them and kill countless in and around them.

(Then 9/11 happened and then it wasn't a heroic tactic anymore).
posted by -harlequin- at 11:34 AM on July 6, 2006

The Professional doesn't count, sorry. Leon was trying to escape and was almost gone before Stansfield shot him in the back.
posted by sacre_bleu at 12:18 PM on July 6, 2006

a fool, who sees himself as heroic

Which is exactly how many people think of the Mideastern suicide bombers.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 12:24 PM on July 6, 2006

Stephen King's The Running Man (the book, not the movie). The protagonist flies a jumbo jet into an office tower.
posted by russilwvong at 12:28 PM on July 6, 2006

Vague memory: In the X-Files movie, Terry O'Quinn's character purposely lets himself be killed by a bomb to protect a secret.

In Moonraker (the book, not the movie), James Bond is preparing to fire up his cigarette lighter in an area filled with rocket fuel fumes. His plan is to blow up Drax' rocket on the pad. Fortunately for the franchise, a different opportunity arises.

In Christopher Moore's A Dirty Job, one character sets off claymores in his store to try and kill demons.

And don't forget John Wayne's death scene in The Alamo -- Davy Crockett with the torch amongst the gunpowder.
posted by forrest at 1:44 PM on July 6, 2006

BackwardsCity, your posts wrongly inject conditions not found in the asker's question. Nowhere does the asker limit things to those targeting noncombatants.
posted by NortonDC at 4:50 PM on July 6, 2006

But that's what suicide bombing means. It never refers to soldiers who stay behind to fight while everyone else escapes, or people who crash their plane into the alien mothership. Everyone in the world but in the original post, it refers to people using asymetrical tactics like explosives in a shopping mall (noncombatants) or a car bomb at a military base (occupying military).
posted by BackwardsCity at 5:00 PM on July 6, 2006

Asymmetrical.
posted by BackwardsCity at 5:02 PM on July 6, 2006

Well in the recent Dawn of the Dead the mall-security guy does blow up a whole bunch of civilians, along with himself.

True, they were zombies, but still.
posted by Serial Killer Slumber Party at 5:06 PM on July 6, 2006

BackwardsCity: Alien military occupiers count as occupying military :)
posted by -harlequin- at 5:16 PM on July 6, 2006

No, BackwardsCity, it means performing a bombing that also purposefully claims the bomber. That's it. The asker did choose to narrow their question beyond that to bombings directed at people, but he made no distinction as to what kind of people or what role those people are playing at the time of the bombing. That's your invention, and it's not helping to answer the asker's question.

And yes, you can suicide bomb during battle; it's bombing with suicide, during battle! How about that? What will they think of next?
posted by NortonDC at 6:53 PM on July 6, 2006

Well, we're derailing the thread, so we might as well agree to disagree. It's just my take that there's a world of difference between crashing your broken A-Wing into a Super Star Destroyer and detonating C4 at a mall. It's not that suicide-bombing-must-always-be-pejorative-or-my-worldview-collapses, it's just what the phrase typically includes and what it typically excludes in conventional usage.

For what it's worth, the current Wikipedia article draws my distinction between suicide bombing/suicide attack and generic self-sacrifice in battle -- though contrary to what I said above it does lump WWII kamikaze pilots into the category of suicide attack.
posted by BackwardsCity at 7:31 PM on July 6, 2006

I hope I'm not just whistling past the graveyard here. Am I the only one who draws this distinction?

Generalized, oft-used tactic against a superior military force: suicide bombing as it is conventionally defined.

Spur-of-the-moment, last-ditch self-sacrifice in the heat of battle: not suicide bombing as it is conventionally defined.
posted by BackwardsCity at 7:44 PM on July 6, 2006