The Hollywood Candidate Is Not Obama
If John McCain wins this election, it will be because of Hollywood.
It's not that Hollywood is giving him big money (it isn't); or that big celebrities are attracting attention to him (they're not); or that star writers and directors are helping him with stagecraft and wordsmithery (again no).
It's that the gradual appropriation by Hollywood of politics, journalism and practically ever other domain of modern life is reaching its apotheosis in McCain's campaign. His persona, and the story he is telling, and the media narrative that frames and delivers it to us, all come straight from the movies.
Unfortunately, this movie may end really, really badly.
If you want to see how entertainment conquered reality (as the subtitle of Neal Gabler's "Life the Movie" puts it), don't look at Arnold Schwarzenegger or Ronald Reagan, or at Oprah or Jane Fonda. Look instead at the inauguration day of the era we now inhabit: September 11, 2001.
"It was like something from a movie." It's stunning how universal that reaction was, whether from eye witnesses or television viewers. It is entirely plausible that the terrorists themselves intended us to experience it as a movie -- a disaster film, a horror picture, an epic of spectacular destruction and mass helplessness.
From 9/11 until now, we have lived in a state of suspense, wanting to know how it will all turn out. Are we living through apocalyptic times, heading toward nuclear terrorism and an "On the Beach" ending? Will the anarchy of "Mad Max" be our fate? Will the human monsters who hate us ravage us as mercilessly as the monster of "Cloverfield" or the aliens of "War of the Worlds"? Or will we be rescued by a latter-day cavalry, like the improbable heroes of "Independence Day"?
George W. Bush told us we were in a Western ("Wanted, dead or alive"), and in a World War II movie ("Bring 'em on!"). But the quagmire of Iraq, the persistence of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and the return of Cold War Russia have prevented us from reaching -- except in the President's own mind, perhaps -- the ultimate victory of the white hats and the good guys that those genres promise.
At the moment when things look most bleak, in rides John McCain. Like Rambo, he has returned to rescue us, to make this war on terror end differently than that war in Vietnam. Like Shane, he is a maverick, a loner, a reluctant gunslinger who arrives out of nowhere, back from political death. Like Yoda, or the Wise Man of countless other science fiction films, he offers us wisdom and judgment accumulated over lifetimes.
Only that message didn't work. The hero of the Hanoi Hilton has used his POW history a dozen times too many to explain everything from not recalling how many houses he owns to charges that he cheated his way out of the Saddleback "cone of silence." The maverick who bucked George Bush turned out to vote with him 90 per cent of the time; the loner who denounced the "agents of intolerance" in his own party returned to Liberty University to pay honor to Rev. Falwell; the opponent of torture ended up supporting it; the sage turned out to be a hothead with a hair-trigger temper whose gut instincts are the problem, not the solution.
And then there was his opponent -- the true outsider who made him look like Mr. Establishment, the young guy who made him look too much like Yoda, the leader of millions who made his own claims to leadership ring hollow. Barack Obama, to be sure, has also been the beneficiary of Americans' inclination to experience life via movie genres. In Obama's case, it's the rags-to-riches saga, the only-in-America tale, plus the crusader quests of Gene McCarthy and Martin Luther King, Jr., of Bobby and Jack Kennedy -- stories so burnished by Camelot mythology and an Age of Giants romanticism that the line between legend and life hardly matters.
McCain's Rovian campaign fought genre with genre, trying everything to recast Obama into a different story. They depicted him as a false prophet with literally Mosaic pretensions; a traitorous "Manchurian Candidate"; a demagogue, like Lonesome Roads in "A Face in the Crowd"; a rock star egomaniac, a celebrity airhead, a diva, like the characters in the serial melodramas that we call People, Extra! and TMZ. But for all that, the race remained a dead heat.
In panic, McCain threw a Hail Mary pass -- familiar to fans of sports comeback movies -- and chose Sarah Palin as his running mate. What he gets from this self-described hockey mom is a genre lift, the Hollywood fable of the un-politician who comes to Washington to straighten things out.
She comes from a long line of movie outsiders. Jimmy Stewart's Mr. Smith starts out as the head of the Boy Rangers. "The Candidate" played by Robert Redford is a lawyer for hopeless causes. Kevin Kline, who impersonates the president (for the better) in "Dave," runs a temp agency. In "The Distinguished Gentleman" (which I wrote and executive produced), Eddie Murphy is a con man who gets elected to Congress, because that's where the legal corrupt money is. In "Man of the Year," Robin Williams is a comedian and radio guy who runs for the White House. Reese Witherspoon's Elle Woods, in "Legally Blonde 2," is the underestimated Delta Nu chick who turns Capitol Hill around.
So why not Sarah Palin as Vice President? To be sure, the notion that women, particularly Hillary Clinton supporters, would vote for her just because she has two X chromosomes, and despite her being on the opposite side from Sen. Clinton on every policy issue facing the country: that cynical tokenism is precisely the kind of affirmative-action-at-its-worst that the right never tires of accusing the left of committing.
But McCain isn't betting everything on the hope that self-spiting Clinton partisans and undecided younger suburban women will identify with Sarah Palin's gender. He's doing it to tap into the beloved American movie myth of the salt-of-the-earth outsider who ends up in power. He's gambling that we just can't help loving plots like that.
And what about the heartbeat-away issue? As critic Katha Pollitt wrote, "If life were a Lifetime movie, Palin would do just fine running the country should McCain keel over. Girls can do anything! And look great doing it!"
John McCain is 72, and he's been operated on for malignant melanomas -- the most dangerous kind of skin cancer -- four times.
At this point in the campaign, it looks as though McCain has a 50/50 chance of becoming President. And while I wish him 120 birthdays, it is no great stretch to imagine Sarah Palin ending up in the Oval Office. This is the entirely possible outcome that the Republicans are putting on the table this week.
Maybe Americans won't want to take that risk. But McCain could well win. More Americans may vote to watch the real life movie about the moose-hunting Alaskan beauty queen who goes to Washington, than to see the one about the charismatic half-black Hawaiian who ends up at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
If John McCain wins, it is entirely conceivable that whatever scares you most in the world, and whatever you care most about doing at home, Sarah Palin will be in charge of it. But by the time we realize how dystopic such a movie might turn out, it will be too late for any of us to leave the theater.
(This is my column from the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, where you can email me if you'd like.)
Follow Marty Kaplan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/martykaplan
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Maybe I have watched too many movies, but I can relate sincerely & totally. This election is an intelligence test for America where A to B doesn't pass so easily. It still defies imagination that the choice so obvious given the competent functioning of more that 3 brain cells hovers at 50/50. Have another diet coke and flip in the tele... funny we were considering a vacation in Australia, stsrting to make more sense..
For sadness for our country, you are correct Marty. Since the life of conservatism is the continual ignorance of the population, they may get away w Sarah. They control the talk radio and tv. Their message gets broadcast live 24/7. Before the week is over Sarah will have walked w mother theresa.
These repubs have reality problems based cinema mania. I read where the torture concept was derived from the tv show '24'. The whole smoking gun scenario that they threw into the torture debate came off the pages of 24. Citizens, we are in trouble, But as Obama says, not this time......
Obama/Biden08
No need to worry, here are McCain's top picks for his cabinet. All highly qualified individuals, I'm sure.
Agriculture: Oliver Douglas
Commerce: Milburn Drysdale
Defense: Brigadier General Amos T. Halftrack
Education: Herbert Garrison
Energy: John Ross (JR) Ewing, Jr.
Health: Nurse Mildred Ratched
Homeland Security: Capt. Wilton Parmenter
Housing: Stanley Roper
Interior: Ranger John Francis Smith
Justice: Ally McBeal
Labor: Charles Montgomery Burns
State: The Borg have no diplomatic department, "prepare to be assimilated"
Transportation: Danica Patrick
Treasury: Stanley Monopoly (aka Rich Uncle Pennybags)
Veterans Affairs: Sgt. Vince Carter
Press Secretary: Billy Mays
My thinking is that when John McCain and his camp realized they weren't moving up in the polls with regard to white male voters, they decided what the ticket needed is a good-looking woman would help him get elected. Well, that AND the fact that no one would let him pick Joe Lieberman, so he said "scr*w you" to all his advisers. Look, I'm sure Sarah Palin will be a rock star pol going forward. She is very smart and appears to be a hard worker, but I do not believe she's ready to be VP, 2 X chromosomes be damned!
Besides that, do we REALLY want a man running our country who says "scr*w you" and does whatever he wants when he doesn't get his own way? John McCainis a wingnut and should NEVER be elected POTUS.
The Republican VP Nominee Is As Wrong As Is Her Top-Of-The -Ticket-Partner
How can a woman, mother, and governor continue to oppose sex education in the schools, birth control, and abortion rights for women when, in her own immediate family these positions have proven to be WRONG? Her support of abstinence only has been proven a failure by her 17 year old daughter. This is MORE than a family matter. It is a wrong-headed approach proven wrong right in her face. Her selection and/or election would bring more wrong-headed extreme policies to bear on the entire country. Now we have McCain backing ( 95% ) the most failed presidencey of recent years and a running mate whose policies are proven wrrong by her own family. Were about to see her reformist credentials proven to be false by her misuse of power to settle a family feud. The Republicans are showing themselves to be more of a farce every day.
jeez- you're right.
I know there are people who vote like that.
What a great explanation of this phenomenon. The disconnect that makes people
vote without any real thought to the consequences.
Does it come from so many years where the Government has not grown to keep up with the population so that it is no longer truly representative? There is no way one congressperson can do what they were meant to do originally, I know that. The have more than ten times the number of constituents that was once objected to ( I think in Jeffersonian era) as too many to represent accurately.
If you dont' feel a connection to your representative, and thus your government, it might seem unreal, like it has nothing to really do with you. Or at least- nothing that you can do anything about.
All we really have is the movie.
Way too gloomy and pessimistic and inappropriately so at this point.
What really matters here, is none of the above. The very future of the United States of America, and possibly the future of our children and our grandchildren is really what is at stake in the 2008 election.
With McCain voting with his party 90% of the time, his support of the war, etc., etc., etc., he is well entrenched in the diabolical proliferation of the Republican doctrine that is seeking to manifest its total control and manipulation of the American people, enabling it to continue the implementation of its agenda of world domination of people and resources, and its ungodly accumulation of wealth for the select few. It is mandatory, at this point in our history as a nation, that the Reublican party, be ousted from its current position of power and control over the reins of the American government. ENOUGH, people!!! Our time is NOW! The life-blood of our country is being steadily extracted from the very body that is the American way of life, set in United States Constitution , and the freedoms granted and guarenteed in our Bill of Rights.
Professor Kaplan,
You *NEVER* cease to amaze me, your mind is lke a steel-trap, an excellent essay/post
Let's see...an ex-beauty pagent winner...w
Take off your cynic's hat. We are getting to know Sarah Palin better, and while hope may be audacious, it's not entirely out of reach.
What is coming out about Palin makes me think she is not the sweet beauty contest winner she appears. It seems she is hard headed, vindictive ( firing people who disagree with her, a la Bush ). Hunting ( which I really have no problem with ) etc.
When you look at her "attributes" as a person I see a man trapped in a woman's body ! The sort of "woman" who would cut your balls off at the turn of a hat if you don't agree with her 100%.
This does not sound like someone open to discussion
I think she shares McCains hair trigger response and would be dangerous.
Her candidacy is an insult to women wih IQs of 60 and over everywhere in America, Democratic women are not going to be compliant in this Ricardo-Mertz-esque hairbrained scheme, especially after HRC, Barbara Boxer, Pelosi, et al get through with having her for a light lunch.
Meanwhile, looks like that other hair-brained republican scheme cooked up by the Reagans ("Just Say No!") really worked out well for Palin's high schooler daughter.
Has anyone thought that McSame is in part using Palin as an insurance policy against people who want him out of the presidency if he is elected? I thought of that when W picked Cheney those (seem like) many years ago. With him (or her) in there no one would want to impeach him.....an
I don't know....ma
Obama/Biden '08
Hi Marty.
So are u saying that you don't like the Obama for President movie anymore?
we Hillary supporters can't save you from this-Obama got virtually no bump frum the convention-he should have got at least 15-he is obviously got all the votes he is ever going to get-all those undecides have been slowly going to McCain-that is how McCain tied him by convention time-Sarah Palin is bringing the rest of the undecided and independants into their camp-obama is not gaining in the polls he is stagnating-McCain is the turtle in this race--You blew it DNC and the party leaders-you flat out blew it
oh dear. you missed the bus to your alternate universe, dear.
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