The Horrors of Politics
By Tom Houseman
October 31, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
I apologize for the rant, but the fact is, the campaign process is so complicated and tortuous that it would give the Jigsaw Killer a headache, and some candidates' ideas about how to lead our country are so frightening they would make Freddy Kreuger pee himself. So how do I distract myself from the terror of election day? By watching movies, of course! There are plenty of movies about the political process, but they don’t always provide the best distraction. Many of these movies are themselves quite scary, and not always for the right reasons.
So I thought it would be appropriate, considering that we at BOP had just compiled a list of our favorite horror films of recent years, to examine six of the most memorable recent films about the political process, and why they could easily qualify as horror films. Some are scarily accurate, some scarily inaccurate, but all of them give me the willies.
Horror Movies About Elections:
1. Wag the Dog
What It’s About: Wag the Dog is David Mamet and Barry Levinson’s biting satire about the ways in which voters are manipulated during a presidential election. Robert De Niro plays one of the sitting president’s top advisors, and is given the job of distracting the American public from a scandal that was recently revealed about the president. He hires a Hollywood producer (Dustin Hoffman) to manufacture a fake war, create fake war heroes, and generally lie to and mislead the public as much as possible. They want the voters to decide with their hearts, not their brains, and they want those hearts to be woefully misinformed.
Why It’s Scarily Accurate: Because elections really are all about lying to and manipulating voters. When Sharon Angle told voters that there are Muslim communities in Nevada that are practicing Sharia law, she wasn’t trying to convince them that she was the best candidate. She wasn’t concerned with balancing the budget or dealing with the recession, or even realistically handling the complex immigration issues that are facing her state. No, she was trying to scare the pants off the voters so that they would run pantless to their nearest polling place and vote for the woman who promised to kill all the Muslims. Those are the kinds of tactics that Wag the Dog jokingly portrays, and sadly, are the kind that so many candidates use.
2. Head of State
What It’s About: Chris Rock plays a Washington, D.C. alderman who is chosen to run for president after the leading candidate of an unnamed party dies. At first Rock tries to play the political game, pretending to be what he thinks the voters want to see and hear, but then he realizes that what the voters really want is someone who tells it like it is, and he proceeds to... God, I don’t even really remember. I haven’t seen this movie in a long time, but I remember him saying lots of stupid things and then getting elected president.
Why It’s Scarily Inaccurate: For so, so many reasons. First of all, they completely ignore the whole primary election process, which is how candidates are actually chosen, rather than being picked off the street by four people in a shiny bus. Secondly, there’s a reason no candidate tells it like it is. Because it doesn’t work! Any number of things Rock’s character says in this film would be torn apart by the media. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that a candidate who chastises working mothers for wanting to work, or who says “If America was a woman, she would be a big-tittied woman. Everybody loves a big-tittied woman!” wouldn’t get elected president.
3. The Contender
What It’s About: Rod Lurie is Aaron Sorkin without subtlety, and here he explores the repercussions of a Democrat president (Jeff Bridges) picking a woman (Joan Allen) to replace the recently deceased Vice President. Of course, an evil Republican senator (Gary Oldman at his most evil) uses the confirmation hearings to launch a full-scale attack by bringing up every skeleton he can find on the candidate's possibly sordid past, including showing some fairly graphic photos. Christian Slater kicks some butt, too. Yay Slater!
Why It’s Scarily Accurate: Because it seems these days that people are more concerned with the insignificant details of politician’s pasts than they are with their ideas for how to run the country. That’s true for both sides of the aisle: I’m sure you’ve heard about the Republican congressional candidate who was photographed dressed as a Nazi during a war reenactment. But can you tell me any of his positions on any issues? No, all anybody knows is that he likes dressing up as Nazi, which not only isn’t accurate (the guy is a history buff! Give him a break!) but is totally irrelevant to how good a congressman he will be.
4. Man of the Year
What It’s About: Lou Dobbs (Robin Williams) is pretty much John Stewart, and on a whim he decides to run for president. Despite not getting on the ballot in many states and taking every opportunity to treat his campaign like a joke by saying lines that wouldn’t be funny enough to be on the actual Daily Show, Dobbs manages to get elected president. But then it is revealed to him that the new electronic voting machines were rigged by the company that made them, and the movie becomes half bad political satire and half bad thriller.
Why It’s Scarily Inaccurate: Okay, so Laura Linney (continuing to waste her talent) discovers that the computers are so embarrassingly crappy that no matter what data is inputted it will declare the winner based on alphabetical order, so Dobbs beats candidates Mills and Kellogg. This is quite possibly the most ridiculous premise of anything ever, because it assumes that 1) Nobody will think it strange that Dobbs won in states where he was probably woefully behind in the polls; 2) If Dobbs had not run, Kellogg would have won every single state, and that; 3) There are no other third-party candidates. If these machines had been used during the 2008 presidential election, we would currently be living in a country run by Libertarian candidate Bob Barr. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s pretty freaking scary.
5. Milk
What It’s About: Sean Penn stars as Harvey Milk in Gus Van Sant’s biopic of California’s first openly gay elected official. Milk broke barriers, building grassroots support to fight discrimination, in particular fighting an initiative to prohibit homosexuals from jobs at public schools. Milk attempted to reach across the aisle, including trying to compromise with extreme conservative and homophobe Dan White (Josh Brolin). Although Milk made many important strides, his life was cut unfortunately short when he was shot and killed by White.
Why It’s Scarily Accurate: Because we live in a country where fear drives us to do crazy things, and where important members of the media, as well as respected politicians, are egging on their followers to take drastic measures. It is disgusting how manipulative people like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are, and how they cheer on the actions of people who take the law into their own hands. When events like the murder of Dr. George Tiller raise applause from extremists, and when politicians like Sharon Angle tell their followers that “second amendment remedies” are the way to fix the country, you realize that men like Dan White are less and less the exception.
6. Swing Vote
What It’s About: Kevin Costner deciding who gets to be the next president of the United States. No seriously, Costner plays an alcoholic loser whose politically active daughter convinces him to vote. A problem with the electronic machine keeps his vote from going through (or possibly redirects it to Robin Williams) and when the electoral college vote counting all comes down to New Mexico, it turns out that the entire state is tied except for Costner’s vote. It is at this point that I shoot myself in the face.
Why It’s Scarily Inaccurate: Imagine if everyone who voted in Florida in 2000, but whose vote wasn’t counted because of a hanging chad, had to revote. It would take forever and be wildly expensive, which is why if your vote isn’t counted the first time, it just gets ignored. If a vote in one state was that close, there would be endless recounting and bickering, and, hopefully, Kevin Costner would have nothing to do with the outcome. I’m pretty sure he’s not even allowed to vote.
Before you watch these movies, do me one favor: go out and vote. Seriously, it’s important. There are some crazy people out there, and the only way to keep them from having control of our lives, jobs and bodies is to vote. It’s really easy, takes about ten minutes, and is scientifically proven to make you 12% more attractive to members of the opposite sex, unless you’re gay, in which case it has the effect on members of the same sex. I may have made that last part up, but voting really is one of the most important ways, and by far the easiest one, to make our country a better place.