Screaming Projector Episode 4th - Holiday Special - Beware the Flag

This is a quick one - a Screaming Projector Holiday Special about flags, undead Uncle Sam, and patriotic thrash. Happy 4th!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Welcome back to Screaming Projector. We have a quick one today. A holiday special. And we're gonna turn it on its head. Before we get into the pairing, I would like to thank Ben from the Endseeker for a great interview last episode. You went above and beyond Ben, and I really appreciate it, and we'd love to have you back anytime. Thank you so much. It's the 4th of July. Fireworks, flags, cookouts. And in a video store somewhere in 1996, a director named William Lustig and a writer named Larry Cohen looked at all of that and asked, what if a flag came back from the dead and started killing people for not loving it enough? That movie is Uncle Sam, and I think it has a soulmate in metal music that no one ever put next to each other. Master Sergeant Sam Harper dies in Kuwait. Friendly fire, his own side, an irony that no one will ever forget. His body comes home just in time for Independence Day, and every July 4th, he puts on a rotting Uncle Sam uniform and murders anyone he thinks is not patriotic enough. Flagburners, giraffe dodgers, a corrupt congressman, and a kid who botches the national anthem. It's gory, it's campy, it's a little bit of a mess, but Larry Cohen's satire is doing horror with a sledgehammer, not a scalpel. But underneath the cheap gore is a mean little joke. This is what happens when you take my country right or wrong completely, murderously, literally. Uncle Sam isn't a monster from outside America. He's what happens when Americans stop asking questions and start demanding loyalty. Fittingly, this movie is dedicated for Luccio, a nod to Fulci. And this is a movie that knows exactly where it's standing. In 1985, Anthrax guitar player Scott Ian had some leftover studio time after finishing an album, so he sat down and started drawing a cartoon. An undead, cigar-chomping skeleton that shouted slogans like, I'm not racist, I hate everyone equally. That character was Sergeant D. Ian built a side project around him, Stormtroopers of Death, or SOD. Stormtroopers of Death featured Anthrax's Charlie Benante, former Anthrax bassist Dan Loker, and Billy Milano screaming the vocals. The album, Speak English or Die, was recorded and mixed in three days. Twenty-two minutes of thrash and hardcore fused into something cartoonishly aggressive. Jingoistic slogans, ultraviolet nonsense, quote patriotism turned into a character so extreme it curdles into satire. Scott Ian has been clear for forty years. None of it was meant to be taken literally. It was all tongue-in-cheek. It was a joke about the kind of person who takes the stuff literally. Sergeant D isn't a hero. He's a punchline wearing a uniform. Sound familiar? Uncle Sam and Sergeant D are the same character, an undead soldier dressed in a flag. Screaming about patriotism while doing something grotesque in its name. Neither one is a celebration of this ideology. They're send-ups, taken to absurd, lethal extremes. Specifically, so that you can see how ugly it gets when no one's allowed to laugh at it or question it. The difference is tone, not substance. Cohen and Lustig made a slasher film about it. Scott Ian made a comic strip and a thrash album about it. Same target, same year. SODN85, Uncle Sam less than a decade later, both products of that late Cold War post-Vietnam moment when supporting the troops and worshipping the flag were getting harder and harder to tell apart. And satire was one of the only tools sharp enough to show the difference. That is Screaming Projector. Sometimes conceptual, sometimes visual, always fun. Happy 4th. Watch Uncle Sam, blast march of the SOD, and think about what you're actually celebrating. Regular episodes back soon, starting next week. Stay heavy, stay scared, and don't burn any flags near the cemetery. Fulci lives. That's a wrap on this one. Thank you for listening to Screaming Projector. New episodes dropped regularly. You can follow us on Instagram at Screaming Projector, and you can find everything at Screaming Projector.com. I'd like to hear what you have to say. I want to know what your thoughts are. Hit me up at Dave at Screaming Projector.com. And if you're watching this on YouTube, please hit like and subscribe. It genuinely helps new people find the show. If you'd like to help support what we're building here, we're on Patreon. Every little bit helps. Until the next time, stay heavy, stay scared. Fulci Lives. Screaming Projector is a production of Screaming Projector Media. Music by D218 and Dave.