5 movies about politics worth seeing

MOVIES

5 movies about politics worth seeing

As the 2008 presidential campaign season finally winds down, perhaps you aren’t ready to turn you attention to other matters just yet. Here, for your consideration, are five movies worth seeing that offer differing takes on the world of politics. Each is the product of its own era, of course, but these movies also comment on the political realm in ways that have lasting impact.

1. DUCK SOUP (1933)

In this classic Marx Brothers farce, the tiny nation of Freedonia is in a dire financial situation and forced to borrow money from a wealthy benefactor. In this case, the loan is from a certain Mrs. Teasdale (Margaret Dumont), not the People’s Republic of China. Enter Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho Marx) as Freedonia’s new prime minister. His unorthodox ideas to solve the crisis may or may not seem more absurd to you than certain ideas put forth in the recent very real financial crisis, but the results are certainly much funnier. Filled with the usual Marx Brothers mayhem, the whole situation is complicated by the antics of spies from a rival nation, played by Harpo and Chico Marx. Directed to wonderful effect by Leo McCarey.

2. MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (1939)

An antidote to the cynicism that characterizes contemporary attitudes about politics, director Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is probably a movie that more people know about than have actually seen. Yet, regardless of what you already know about this movie, it is well worth seeing for a first, second, or even third time. Hollywood legend Jimmy Stewart is a standout in the lead role of Jefferson Smith, an idealistic man appointed to fill a vacant seat in the U.S. Senate. Few in the political establishment think that Smith will be up to the job. They wrongly assume that he will present little obstacle in their business-as-usual world of sleazy backroom politics. But Smith is a an idealist on a mission, and soon powerful forces aim to bring him down. One of Capra’s best.

3. ADVISE AND CONSENT (1962)

Talk about backroom politics. Director Otto Preminger rakes Washington over the coals in Advise and Consent, a film that deserves a more prominent place in the pantheon of movies from the 1960s than it has. The plot involves an unpopular president who makes a controversial cabinet appointment. The president’s political enemies pull out all the stops in efforts to derail it. Yet, the slimy political trickery is not restricted to the president’s enemies. Opportunists in the president’s own party use threats and blackmail as they try to sway the outcome. Starring Henry Fonda, Gene Tierney, Charles Laughton, Peter Lawford, and a host of other Hollywood luminaries.

4. WAG THE DOG (1997)

Does your candidate have skeletons in the closet that could make for disaster at the polls? Why not start a war to divert attention elsewhere. That’s the premise behind director Barry Levinson’s Wag the Dog, in which a president with a sex scandal to hide uses spin and manipulation in order to stay in office. The producers of the film used the tag line “A Hollywood producer. A Washington spin-doctor. When they get together, they can make you believe anything” when it was first marketed in the late 1990s. This is a funny and witty film, albeit it one with disturbing overtones. Starring Dustin Hoffman, Robert DeNiro, Andrea Martin, Denis Leary, Anne Heche, Kirsten Dunst, and others.

5. PRIMARY COLORS (1998)

Mike Nichols directed this entertaining treatment of Joe Klein’s thinly veiled version of the 1992 Clinton campaign. Here, the presidential candidate in question is a southern politician named Jack Stanton, a man with one eye on the pressing political problems of the day and the other on many of the women he encounters along the campaign trail. On the surface, the movie may seem rather limited in its aims, but film as critic Roger Ebert wrote, Primary Colors is“a superb film–funny, insightful and very wise about the realities of political life.” With John Travolta, Emma Thompson, and other notables.

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There are other titles worth seeing, of course, and this list merely represents one set of viewing options. (Among obvious possibilities are two Robert Redford films:The Candidate, from 1972; and All the President’s Men, the Watergate story released in 1976.) Don’t see your favorite? Let us know about it.

– G.A.

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IMAGES (above): Duck Soup DVD; Mr. Smith Goes to Washington DVD; Advise and Consent DVD; Wag the Dog DVD; Primary Colors DVD — all available at Amazon.com

“The Prince” and Pandora’s Box

THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN

“The Prince” and Pandora’s Box

By Kimberlee A. Cloutier-Blazzard, Bread and Circus editor and senior writer

As I watched the second presidential debate, I turned to my husband and said, “This may not sound appropriate in a democratic republic—but when Barack Obama sits on that stool don’t you think he looks like an Eastern Prince?  You know?  The kind shown in Buddhist images of figures in the lalitasana, the ‘pose of royal ease’?  Look at how peaceful and serene his face looks.”

Now some folks who are already whipped into a xenophobic frenzy about Obama being “too foreign” and “too exotic” for America would OF COURSE take that kind of a remark as an unforgivable lapse in judgment from an elitist East Coast academic such as myself.  To them, I can’t really offer an excuse, nor an apology.  A peaceful, relaxed figure exuding intellect, confidence and poise is something I desire in a world leader. ‘Nuff said.

But, it only occurred to me later—in re-reading Stephen Greenblatt’s Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1980) this week—that McCain, too, reminds me of a prince.  Machiavelli’s prince.

Last week’s dismal news that the McCain-Palin ticket began encouraging race-driven insults and worse from their socially and economically panic-stricken audiences forced me to realize that the Republicans are not beneath any scorched-earth tactic (ahem, strategy) to help them gain the White House. They found loads of company on the low road, and discovered it makes for easy travel.  This was as true in Renaissance Italy as it is today.

As Greenblatt points out, “For Machiavelli, the prince engages in deceptions for one very clear reason: to survive.  The successful prince must be ‘a great feigner and dissembler; and men are so simple and so ready to obey present necessities, that one who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.’…The initiated observer can always see beneath the surface and understand how appearances are manipulated by the cunning prince.”1  As Machiavelli explains it, it is in politics as it is in nature, the fox always eats the hens; yet, the sheer willingness of the victims still inspires outrage among the socially-responsible in society.2

In response to the troubling development in the Republican campaign, Georgia Democratic representative John Lewis publicly issued a condemning statement likening McCain and Palin’s tactics to George Wallace’s segregationist vitriol.  ”What I am seeing reminds me too much of another destructive period in American history. Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse,” wrote Lewis.  McCain’s response was to voice disappointment in his one-time hero for stifling the national political conversation with his accusations.

I have to ask: If we are routinely asked to praise John McCain for his veteran-of-foreign-war status, should we not also exult  John Lewis for his service in another kind of war?  Did Lewis not also suffer physical and mental anguish in the service of ensuring American freedom and liberty?  Unlike McCain, Lewis suffered at the hands of fellow Americans instead of foreign armies, having his skull fractured by police in the “Bloody Sunday” March on Selma, Alabama.  But, I believe that a hero like Lewis deserves every bit as much respect for his exceptional, patriotic experiences.  And, I also trust that he knows racist rhetoric when he sees it, and that he does not wield his opinion on the subject lightly.

For now—after the outright public disgust and outrage with the tactics of McCain and Palin—they have reined-in their poisonous rhetoric out on the campaign trail.  But, it’s incredibly frightening to imagine that they’ve already opened a post-modern Pandora’s Box, that they’ve loosed rapacious greed, envy, vanity, slander, and lying into the midst of our revered political process.

The optimistic news is that—in the original myth—a once-curious, now terrified Pandora slammed the lid closed before “hope” could escape, which would have left mankind utterly inconsolate.

Ah, HOPE.  Thank heaven for it.  And, thank heaven we have another campaign inextricably linked with that very same saving grace.

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1. Greenblatt, 14.  Machiavelli quotation, The Prince (NY: Modern Library, 1950), 64-65.

2. Greenblatt, 259, n. 3.

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This item originally appeared in the blog Percyflage.

Kimberlee A. Cloutier-Blazzard, Ph.D., is a senior contributing writer & contributing editor of Bread and Circus Magazine and an Independent Scholar of Art History, Specializing in Northern Renaissance and Baroque. Click here to send her email.

Impresaria or Imposter? Aren’t we all…

THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN

Impresaria or Imposter?  Aren’t we all…

By Kimberlee A. Cloutier-Blazzard, Bread and Circus editor and senior writer

Staying on the topic of Sarah Palin—if I can realistically count my glasses post as an article—I’d like to comment on Judith Warner’s latest article on “Poor Sarah“ in the NY Times (9/25/08).

In reading her op-ed, Warner made me realize that my already confused stance on Feminism is actually more muddled than I thought.

Where to begin?

I am a child of the Seventies.  That puts me in the strange position of being a “second wave feminist”—one who has the luxury of reconsidering our “gains” in society and culture from a liberated foxhole (or “DFP” for you military buffs).

I have a product-of-the-late-Sixties mother who worked part-time as an executive secretary during my childhood.  It seems most period career choices for women back then consisted of housewife, teacher or secretary.  So, as a result, my mom was “mainstream”.  While she worked, I was cared-for by my grandmother who came of age in the Forties.  Unlike my mother she neither had a degree, nor could drive a car.

Even as I child I saw advantages and disadvantages to both of these lifestyles.  My mother was independent, mobile and able to spend her own money.  I might add that she was also seemingly forever stressed-out and/or suffering from headaches.  To the contrary, my grandmother was tied to her house and had little disposable income, but she made her own schedule and had lots of fun teaching me how to cook and keep house.  From that early age it seemed to me impossible that women could be both a successful careerist and available caretaker.  It took a village.  Or, at least two women.

And, here’s where Warner comes in.

What a provocative idea Warner has, that one could feel sorry for Sarah Palin as a well-kempt working mom who began to wilt under the glaring media- and international spotlights.  Warner perceives Palin as a sister-sufferer of imposter-syndrome.  (Is there anyone who hasn’t yet suffered from, or at least heard of that phenomenon?)  As evidence of Palin’s professional-woman’s strained survivalist-instincts, Warner notes Palin’s slumping posture, impossibly-perfect hair and nervous tics (the folded-hands-on-knees and deer-in-the-headlights look) during her visit with Henry Kissinger. Warner exudes compassion for this girlfriend out of her depth.

I suppose that we women could feel empathy for Palin.  We’ve all met smarter people, or been put on-the-spot in a high-pressure situation.  Might Sarah Palin be a hapless victim? A woman put in the precarious position of Veep candidate by the irresistible, synergistic forces of an enticing career move and her own hubris?

But, this scenario would assume that Palin was circumspect enough to realize that she’s out of her league.  After all, she could cry “Uncle!”  Or, “I want to be there for my kids while they’re small.” And we’d all understand.  But, we all know she won’t.  She won’t admit that she’s “just one woman”.  One woman without the credentials necessary for the job she’s applied for.

In a sense the problem is that Palin is just like any other person.  (As she loves to admit with her small-town, hard-working rhetoric.) In fact, like most people who are unqualified for something due to a lack of gifts or experience, she just don’t see it that way.  After all, it takes gumption to say you’re focused on education to Katie Couric’s face when—in actual word and deed—you despise intellectual pursuits.  (In this regard she sounds mightily like our intrepid former National Education Secretary, William Bennett, who spent the other morning on the Today Show bashing intellectuals.  Fine sport for a Ph.D. in philosophy.)

Fortunately, in the real world, when people without credentials apply for management positions their cv never gets past the door.  Unfortunately, in this election year, a desperate, eager-to-reinvent-its-image GOP was not beneath finding a pliable and perhaps gullible “hick chick” for its ticket.  Not kosher, no matter how classically good-looking she is.

At this point you might well ask what my life is like.  Do I work?  Yes.  Do I have kids?  Yes.  Am I, therefore, in taking Sarah Palin to task somewhere between deeply conflicted and suffering from split personality disorder?  Absolutely.   Every day I question whether or not I am doing either of my vocations (maternal and professional) well.  And, I have a sneaking suspicion that most women are in the same rickety boat.  Unfortunately, as a post-modern woman I remain compelled to do both.  And, that’s why I can fathom why Warner’s feeling sorry for Palin.  And, yet, my platonic intellect tells me that Palin is not up to the task of world leader.  (Never mind the our polar opposite political stances…)

Couldn’t we at least get someone who knows why being an “elite” is a good thing?  Even Martha Stewart understands that one…

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This item originally appeared in the blog Percyflage.

Kimberlee A. Cloutier-Blazzard, Ph.D., is a senior contributing writer & contributing editor of Bread and Circus Magazine and an Independent Scholar of Art History, Specializing in Northern Renaissance and Baroque. Click here to send her email.

Presidential Superstars — Celebrities or Leaders?

THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN

Presidential Superstars — Celebrities or Leaders?

By Jessica Miles, Bread and Circus contributing writer

Cameras flash blindingly from every angle. Countless numbers of people horde the streets. They cheer in unison. They wait with anticipation. Britney Spears walks by. Paris Hilton strikes a pose. Then Barack Obama appears? Suddenly, the narrator’s voice resounds, “He’s the biggest celebrity in the world, but is he ready to lead?”

The campaign ad produced by John McCain’s party meshes perfectly with the status and media-saturated society we have become. But is our individual welfare being threatened by the hallucinations of those responsible for our democracy? We have to wonder whether these fantasy-inspired revelations should exist amongst our potential leaders, leaders we call upon to address the uncertainties and fears of people in personal crisis throughout the country.

While our pleas seem helpless, we must acknowledge that the presidential candidates and their campaign parties are not the only forces driving our society to an impractical way of life.

This is not about which candidate is more suitable to run this country, but rather how the media has transformed this election into a media-driven political frenzy supporting the notion of celebrity as opposed to leadership. The media has a responsibility to educate the public about local, national, and global affairs and honesty is to be held at its highest regard to uphold democratic ideals. Sadly, I feel this country’s profit-driven media have taken advantage of society’s essential principles, choosing to focus on the entertainment values of the election, as opposed to the educational values that affect society.

Pick up the newspaper on Sunday morning, turn on the TV for headline news, surf the Internet. Since the beginning of Election ‘08, an overwhelming amount of “information” being fed through the media covers the inane details of our supposed future leaders. Moreover, the media often mishandles the information and twists it into an argument over proper and improper behavior for presidential candidates. For example, Barack Obama was criticized by the media for a leisurely day of golf. It made headline news because his trip fell in the midst of the turmoil between Georgia and Russia.

With these irrelevant issues flooding media sources it is no surprise that the primary question remains unanswered. “Where do the candidates stand on the real issues facing our country?” We are still left in the dark after the presidential debates when news stations pummel us with even more questions about whether or not we are exposed to the truth and if the candidates have their facts straight.

This election has been blanketed by a layer of overriding fabrication. Consider “Obama Girl.” Remember her? The girl who danced around in skimpy shorts and a t-shirt, singing her praises to the love of her life, “Obama.” Barack Obama’s values and goals for this country became invisible thanks in large part to the mild entertainment of a few guys with a video camera. The media hyped it up to the point that “Obama Girl” was making headlines ahead of hard news. This marked the reemergence of the presidential celebrity.

Unfortunately, the idea of the presidential celebrity became even more outlandish following John McCain’s campaign ad, depicting Obama as a comparable icon to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. Could this have been a more inappropriate comparison? This association ignited a response from attention-seeking goddess, Paris Hilton, who produced an ad recommending a hybrid alternative to both sides of the environmental crisis and bringing together the frightfully evident marriage of Hollywood and politics.

The media’s perception of the political process has become a smorgasbord of sex, lies, and videotape that has trumped society’s ever-growing concerns about the future. We can look back to Bill Clinton’s sex scandal or look more recently at John Edward’s infidelity drama. The endless war in Iraq and skyrocketing unemployment rates have taken a backseat throughout the gradual transformation of the news journalist to the news-making journalist – a distinction evident in the likes of Bill O’Reilly, Charles Gibson, and Katie Couric, to name a few.

So why should you care about what the media expose society to regarding the election?  It is increasingly apparent that people are untrusting of their candidates and feel disconnected from them. This can be directly linked to a profound divide between society and election coverage.

In the recent months leading up to the Democratic and Republican National Conventions I have questioned our position in this election. If a popularity contest based on petty bickering and name-calling is what our society is yearning for, then it seems we have given up hope and our right to a voice. At a time when our country is facing bleak circumstances and the majority of people are in a state of constant fear, we should not have to demand resilience from our potential leaders. It should be an imperative credential for our leaders. For this effect to take place we must be a vigilant society and the media must reinstate their position as society’s watchdogs.

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Jessica Miles, Bread and Circus contributing writer, attends Bryant University, where she is a  Communication major.

Robin Hood, Monty Python, and American Presidential Politics

NOTES ON POLITICS & POPULAR CULTURE

Robin Hood, Monty Python, and American Presidential Politics

In the wake of the global financial debacle, the economy is a more important topic than ever in the U.S. presidential campaign. And the perennial topic of taxation is a central issue.

Mr. Obama wants to cut taxes for people earning less than $250,000 per year. Mr. McCain and his surrogates appear to think that lurking within the Obama tax plan is a hidden scheme to redistribute the nation’s wealth. In this context, some people have accused Mr. Obama of playing a kind of “Robin Hood economics.” (See, for example, a recent commentary in the Arizona Republic here.) To critics of the Democratic candidate, that is not a good thing.

Robin Hood was, of course, the legendary folk hero, who has mostly enjoyed a favorable image in American popular culture. He is known for defending the interests of the disadvantaged and powerless. His methods were simple. Hood instructed his followers take from the corrupted rich in order to give to the poor.

A durable and popular champion of the underprivileged, Robin Hood has been the subject of numerous films and television productions. In early years of the cinema, Hollywood icons Douglas Fairbanks and Erroll Flynn both played Sherwood Forest’s most famous medieval resident.

Voters of a certain age will remember the imported series The Adventures of Robin Hood, a television show that starred Richard Green. It began its run on American TV in the 1950s and continued in reruns for many years. The show’s famous theme song included words that pretty much covered the way leading character was presented, stating: “Feared by the bad, loved by the good, Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Robin Hood!”

It is difficult to determine when, exactly, Robin Hood lost his heroic status. But since some commentators are equating Robin Hood’s agenda as veiled socialism, it is apparently true that Robin Hood’s legend has lost some of its luster.

Years after its original creation, the TV show was parodied in a well known Monty Python sketch that may give us a clue about Robin Hood’s challenged legacy in modern times. The sketch presented its own archetypal hero, played by John Cleese.

As the Monty Python character tried to take from the rich and give to the poor, an unexpected role reversal occurred. Things did not work out as planned. The formerly poor became rich and behaved badly. The formerly rich were reduced to victim status. The sketch’s hero became a laughing stock.

Finally, the Monty Python hero declared his famous closing line: “Blimey, this redistribution of wealth is trickier than I thought!”

Evidently so. But sound economic policy is a bit too complicated for simplistic reductions based on reference to myths, ancient or modern. Let’s leave Robin Hood — and Monty Python — out of it.

– G.A.

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Image (above): The Adventures of Robin Hood DVD available at Amazon.com.

Kaffeeclatch (Coffee Talk)

LIFE & CULTURE

Kaffeeclatch (Coffee Talk)

by Kimberlee A. Cloutier-Blazzard

Has anyone noticed that televised ads for cheap coffee are multiplying?

Recently I’ve seen the resuscitation of Folgers and Maxwell House coffee ads on the networks, as well as pretty-darned-witty McDonald’s ads geared towards discerning coffee drinkers.  

In the McDonald’s ads, they spoof coffee house coffee as “elite” by associating its totalers with goatees, Palin-style metrosexual eyewear, speaking French and knowledge of global geography.

Is it just me, or is there a certain recession-savvy prescience among corporate America that the average consumer is about to revert to my grandparents’ favorite sport—finding the least-offensive, yet cheapest cup of coffee?

And–in a pandemic global recession–I’m afraid, over time, maybe least-offensive will even lose-out!  

Here’s a history lesson for you.  Did you ever wonder where the word “ersatz” comes from?  It means “substitute” in German and was first used in WWI to describe things like synthetic supply replacements.  

And again, in the hard economic pinch of WWII, it was regularly used to describe “replacement coffee”.   What the heck is replacement coffee?  (You’re fortunate not to know!)  Getreidekaffee or “grain coffee” was served to Allied POW’s by their German captors when real coffee supplies were scarce.  It meant coffee made from any roasted grain or bean except coffee.  Yum!  (NOT!)

Like those Allied POW’s who detested the stuff, I’m sure I’m not looking forward to “the best part of waking up”  if the global economy continues to sink.

Call me an “elitist” but you can ask me the same question in French, Dutch, or German, in Paris or Paraguay, and the answer won’t change.  A good cup of coffee is the sign of a great economy.  So, there goes “I’m lovin’ it.”  (Sigh.)

Kimberlee A. Cloutier-Blazzard, Ph.D., is a senior writer & editor of Bread and Circus Magazine and an Independent Scholar of Art History, Specializing in Northern Renaissance and Baroque. Click here to send her email.