NOTE: I wrote this in 2004, in the era of Sarah Palin. Sadly, I was far more correct than I’d realized – just a little early. So take a look. We need to change the ending of our story.
Of course by now we’ve all seen this.
I wrote much of what appears below without knowing just how to begin it – and those wacky Republicans solved my problem. The response to this boilerplate Obama statement was to issue a vicious attack accusing him of sexism because of Palin’s convention speech “lipstick/hockey mom/pitbull” quote. This despite the fact that the metaphor has often been used by Republicans including Dick Cheney – to say nothing of John McCain – look here:
The McCain campaign, not only in its choice of Sarah Palin but in how they use her, is leaning on very scary tactics that are similar to the successful exploitation of voters illustrated by some of the most memorable characters in American political films. Watch this trailer for Tim Robbins’ Bob Roberts; see if it isn’t more familiar than you wish:
Creepy, isn’t it? A demagogue making his way to the top by lying about his opponent and manipulating the alienation of the American people for his own ends. That could never happen in real life, right?
Much, much earlier in film history, the beloved Andy Griffith played one of the scariest public personalities ever in A Face in the Crowd — written by Budd Schulberg and directed by On the Waterfront‘s Elia Kazan. He’s not a politician but watch the trailer and see if it doesn’t seem familiar. You have to watch until the end to get the full impact.
It’s so depressing — and enraging — to watch this campaign peddling pseudo-folksiness to win over its public. It’s time for that to stop working in our country. Stakes are too high to permit us (or the press) to fall for the most approachable (and least honest) over the most excellent.
A couple more:
Barry Levinson‘s brilliant Wag the Dog
And, finally, remember Robert Penn Warren’s remarkable novel, clearly based on Louisiana’s Huey Long – All the King’s Men? It portrays a politician on his path to becoming a dangerous demagogue. Yeah, I know it’s melodramatic but does it feel at all familiar?
Clearly we should consider these archetypal characters as cautionary tales; instructive representations of our future if we allow this kind of campaigning to prevail. Movies are our largest export (unless video games have taken over while I wasn’t looking) and often reflect, if not our truths, at least our ghosts, shadows and neuroses. It gave us The Body Snatchers in the 50’s, Easy Rider in the 60’s and Working Girl and Wall Street in the 80’s. It’s easy to be seductive, to manipulate language and truth; easy to pretend to be one of the people in order to win them. The vicious, craven strategies of this campaign – and Sarah Palin herself – are perfect examples; John McCain, whom I used to admire, has allowed, no encouraged, this shameful campaigning in his name and surrendered all the positions of principal that he once held. If we don’t want (another) Bob Roberts (He does remind me of GWBush) or a cynical populist pretender or a MS Wilie Stark as our government, it’s up to use to exercise vigilance and fierce commitment to fight off these transparent manipulations and to ensure that it does not happen.
