President Slumdog

The silver screen is both a reflection and window into our collective consciousness. Hollywood has had uncanny interactions with presidential politics since Ronald Reagan failed to get the lead in Casablanca and wound up in the White House instead. No doubt there's a parallel universe in which Reagan landed the part and America had a President Humphrey Bogart.

Barack Obama's life has been touched by a glimmer of glamour since Guess Who's Coming to Dinner -- the 1967 classic about two liberal parents whose daughter brings home a black fiancé that she (like Obama's mama) met at the University of Hawaii.

I've been using my handy cinemascope to see around corners since China Syndrome, a movie about a nuclear power plant meltdown, was released a dozen days before America's worst nuclear accident took place at Three Mile Island. Life imitates art with a vengeance in our brave new world. Just before the Iowa primary last year I was trying hard to come up with a plausible scenario for how a country that was significantly racist, xenophobic, undereducated and overweight could possibly elect a skinny black guy from Harvard named Barack Hussein Obama. My son had my number. "A black sheriff?" he asked, perfectly imitating the line from Blazing Saddles. "In Mel I trust." I replied and never looked back. An audaciously improbable, darkly comic screwball happy ending that was the last best hope for mankind's last best hope winked her most seductive come hither smile. Hither we came.

But Bill Clinton's assertion that the Obama candidacy was a "fairy tale" proved deeply ironic. For all the superficial elements of a fresh prince sweeping America off her feet, it turned out that Obama was the only candidate inhabiting a truly adult narrative. Like the hero of Slumdog Millionaire, his ability to detach himself from the moment and carefully draw upon relevant episodes in his life allows him to serve not merely as protagonist but as his own narrator. This is what empowered him to write his own ticket.

An adult narrative assumes that you are, like everyone else, the hero of your story but also your own worst enemy. That every antagonist you have is someone you've antagonized. From this perspective, there are no good guys or bad guys, just more or less well intentioned people who are more or less confused. This detachment from his own narrative allows Obama to read each would-be adversary like a book and recruit them into supporting roles, willingly or not. See the unbridled ambition and narcissism of the Clintons harnessed to the Obama chariot. Our new president gets to focus 100% on the economy while maintaining a very formidable and public presence abroad. And by practically designating Hillary heir apparent, Obama made her the most forceful secretary of state since Henry Kissinger, enhanced but unencumbered by Bill's back channel relationships. See the congressional Republicans rise to the bait and assume the role of perfect obstructionist foils.

The left worries about Obama for obvious reasons. He knows their narrative backwards and forwards but remains detached even as he embodies it. Democrats have certainly had their share of vacillators-in-chief with Clinton and Carter. There are pronouncements of this administration that to a jaded left ear might sound like déjà vu all over again.

To best see Obama's future, read his past. He defied all probability when he became a community organizer, settled into south-side Chicago and embraced an African American identity; in many ways the available identity most foreign to his own. But even so, he embraced it as being emblematic of the American identity, the poor and dog-tired masses longing to be free; the essence of the American promise, not the exception. Obama is the brother from another planet. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087004/ It is written and it's being produced.He'll carefully consider every alternate narrative there is, first. But in the end it will be change we can believe in. That's his story and he's sticking to it.

 

 

Comments

[Jay Blair]

Adam, you're a great writer with sharp cultural commentary to share. Obama does have a strong sense of how to use narrative. I still haven't seen Slumdog, but the Blazing Saddles story does appear to have been prescient in retrospect.

How 'bout some more beans, America?
Obama: I'd say you've had enough.

[Cloudland]

Great piece! (Indeed I thought it was better than the movie, but that's another question) In truth, Obama's improbable story is - like most great true stories - better than any movie, which is why I think so much of the world is skeptical: how can something this good be real? Keep 'em coming, Adam Neiman - looking forward to the next post.

[bg66astoria]

Great post - what we need all through the progressive community are people who take acts of peaceful defiance by staying on top of their DC delegates. Let everyone in Congress know that voters are front and center to fight against the hi $$ lobbyists. Ask your Congressperson and Senators to be polite, but they're working for their voters this time!

[Nibbles]

Brilliant commentary, could be extended further, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Interested to hear more...

[wewantpie]

Excellent piece! I was trying to pinpoint my intuited connections between Slumdog and Barack and you have articulated them well! I also thought of the black sherriff often during the campaign, and Brother from Another Planet is one of my favorite films! Barack is a writer. He knows how to control a narrative. He is also a movie buff. I am so glad he is our President!