Now, since I saw Transformers last week, I’ve been thinking that I should have taken my kid gloves off and roughed it up for all of the crap that it subjected me to, and providing the information that Autobots like to watch. However, I also thought about something else, right from the moment it happened in the movie. On Air Force One, there is a president represented only by his feet up in bed, asking politely in a (presumably) Texan drawl for some Ding Dongs.
It made me wonder: there’s going to be a new President of the United States next year. How is he (or even she) going be represented in films? I’m not talking about a hero president like Bill Pullman, a romantic president like Michael Douglas, a fisticuffular president like Harrison Ford, or a fantasy president like Martin Sheen. I’m talking about a not very subtle cipher president, representing whoever is in office, like the lothario, imperialist bully Billy Bob Thornton played in Love Actually:
I would also be talking about Dennis Quaid in American Dreamz (coincidentally also starring Hugh Grant) but seriously, screw that movie.
I can imagine that the new president might take some sorting; there could be a few problems, like the one that I’ve imagined here, playing on conservative fears about a certain potential president’s “dangerous” name, at a test screening for a movie that otherwise has precisely nothing to do with politics, flying or the state of the nation:
INTERIOR: Air Force One, Cockpit. Pilots JACKSON and CRUISE are attending to the controls.
SFX: Knock at door.JACKSON: Enter.
President SADDAM BIN BLACKMAN enters the cockpit.
CRUISE: Mister President! What can we do for you, sir?
BLACKMAN: Hi boys, where are we going?
JACKSON: We’re enroute to Boston, Mister President.
BLACKMAN: You think we can take a detour into the Empire State Building?At this point, the audience boos. “Too soon!” says one. “NEVER FORGET!” shouts another. The rabble rises, and they look as if they’re about to start a full fledged riot. The director, seeing the situation, runs out in front of the screen and extends his arms. He quells the audience with a mere two words:
“… The Aristocrats!”
Okay, that example is just silly, but I am curious to see what analogous presidents we’ll be gifted with over the next few years. Will any of them be as ripe for parody as George W. Bush turned out to be?
One of the possibilities for president in 08 is apparently Fred Thompson, who has a long political career as well as an acting career – he’s almost always cast as the powerful polician. Need someone to play a CIA director? Get me Fred Thompson! Need someone to play a powerful district attorney on Law and Order? Get me Fred Thompson! This would be kinda funny if he becomes president. First, who would imitate him? And second, who’s going to play all these other characters!?