I just finished watching the movie “The Contender” on video last night and to say the least it raised a few questions. For those who haven’t seen it the basic premise is a woman is nominated to be vice-president. Here Congressional enemies initiate a campaign to destroy her reputation and her political career.
There is a scene where Joan Allen playing the candidate makes her grand speech in front of the Congressional approval commitee. In this speech she makes several statements that seem to me to come from some sort of liberal moviemaker parallel universe. To paraphrase she says (among other things)
I believe in a woman’s right to choose. (So far so good)
I am in favor of taking every gun from every home in America. (Don’t know of a single senator, house member or serious politician who has ever dared make such a statement)
Hi Opal!
I believe the separation of church and state exists not to protect religion from government, but to protect government from the influence of religious fanaticism. (Religious right would have fun with that)
I am an atheist. (Has an avowed atheist ever been elected anything?)
Now I’m a tried and true liberal, but this is a bit much. It seems the makers of the movie don’t live in the same political world as the rest of America. Could a candidate making these statments be elected so much as dogcatcher in America? Do the film makers really believe they have created a realistic portrayal of an American vice-presidential candidate?
Heck, this one is such a slam-dunk you could have put it in GQ.
Yeah, I’m a liberal too, but I definitely thought that after she made that speech she’d have about as much chance of being confirmed as Vice President of the United States as Saddam Hussein.
I also don’t think pro-lifers these days could get away with being quite so strident–I mean, politically speaking they can’t really just jump up and yell “baby-killer” at anyone who’s pro-choice. That’s why they focus on things like parental notification for teenagers seeking abortions and late-term abortions and admittedly viscerally gruesome surgical procedures like the whole “partial-birth” thing.
[sub](Incidentally, I was really surprised the film-makers included that “Hi, Opal!” line. I wasn’t aware that particular in-joke had spread so far.)[/sub]
I’d say that’s a pretty accurate portrayal of a losing vice-presidential candidate. Seriously.
Every one of those issues (including, I hate to say, the gender of the candidate) is a hot-potato issue that sharply divides the American populace. That candidate is gonna lose.
I’d like to be able to pull out real numbers, but the way the division goes, it’s impossible. Here’s my estimate, from 0-5.
Let’s give our nation some credit and say that only ten percent of our voters are so chauvinist as to dismiss a woman out of hand. 90% left.
Right to choose. Again, I can afford to be conservative in my estimate. Let’s say 20% of the remainder are completely turned off by this position. 72% left.
Snagging guns. Okay, the stated position is extremely extreme in the extreme, but since we’ve already scared off the hard-liners and we’re in fantasy land, I’ll give 'em only twenty percent of the remainder. 57.6% left.
Church/state. Well, you’ve run off most of the thumpers now, but you’re also antagonizing some Constitutionalists. Let’s take ten percent. 51.84% left.
Stated atheist. There just arent that many God-fearing, woman honoring, baby-killing, gun stealing church-razers out there. As a casual estimate, I’ll say that it’s approximately 3.5493827160493827% of the remaining populace. It’s exactly fifty-fifty.
OpalCat would never vote in favor of someone associated with an out-of-order list starting with zero. The Contender loses.
Obviously, “The Contender” was a liberal fantasy, a fantasy that bore no resemblance at all to the real world.
But more than that, it was a fantasy based on ridiculous, demonstrably false premises.
The film insists that a man who’d been appointed to a high office would NEVER be held accountable for alleged sexual peccadilloes (I think CLarence Thomas and JohnTower might argue the point). It also insists that if a MAN were asked about past indiscretions (like, oh, possible cocaine use?), and he refused to dignify those charges with an answer (like, oh, George W. Bush did?), the matter would be dropped.
Well, considering that late-night talk shows and comedy sketches STILL do jokes and sketches based on unproven allegations of cocaine use by Mr. Bush, I think it’s safe to say the basic premises of “The Contender” are sheer nonsense.
I think the film was a subtle commentary about athiesm versus so-called “religious values,” especially by making a point of calling democracy a “church.” Hollywood doesn’t like to make tragedies, because America is stuck in a primitive myth mode, which demands themes of good versus evil (protagonist must defeat antagonist). Tragedy is sophisticated realism, and features a right versus right scenario, where the protagonist loses on their terms. It would have been appropriate, and even better, but not for a middle-ground Christian audience which it was aimed at influencing. Also, note that the entire platform of religious right is based on a fantasy, so the film’s style was appropriate.
What I found the most implausible is that a vice presidential candidate (or any politician) would refuse to answer an implicit accusation of impropriety where they were demonstrably innocent.
I mean… come on! She knew that her silence implied that that the rumors were true. Even her fellow democrats believed the rumors were true, precisely because of her refusal to address them.
A politician refusing to answer an accusation on the grounds that “that’s private” even when the accusation was false? Never happen.
Is this your mistake, or the movie’s? Congress has absolutely no say as to who is Vice President. There is no confirmation process for that office. However, any VP candidate who made these statements would immediately be dropped by the presidential candidate.
The Ryan:
The Vice President had died in office, so a new one had been nominated by the President (Jeff Bridges) and was going through the confirmation process before Congress as provided for by the 25th Amendment. That much, at least, they got right.
Heck, The Contender is pretty mild. If you want a movie that’s a real liberal fantasyland, take a gander at the winner of the 1939 Best Picture Oscar, You Can’t Take It With You. It basically preaches living in one big happy commune. Such a movie could never have gotten made during the McCarthy Era.
Let’s not forget: In any meanginful political sense, Clarence Thomas was not held accountable; he survived the approval process by refusing to answer the charge, and made it onto the Supreme Court. So the film’s insistence on this point is hardly “liberal fantasy” (although other portions of the film may deserve that description).
Yes, it was a liberal fantasy. However, there wasn’t much discussion in the film about the media portrayal of the events. I think were supposed to assume that Leno, Letterman, and all would continue to harass her, but she would just ignore them. In real life, of course, she would just have told the truth and been done with it, and embarrassed the Republicans in the process. But how many political thrillers could actually be called “realistic”?
[paint target on self mode]OK, I’ll bite. The characters and specific positions, painted in primary colors (heh, no pun) are pure fantasy. But I didn’t think the characters were the point of the movie, anymore than people and things in Fauvist Art aren’t purple or green [except when I’m on the absinthe].
Rather, the point was the way the game is played; not who was doing the backstabbing, but how - and that, in my experience, was not too far off from reality. [/paint target on self mode]
No need to paint the target, but I think you are bit off base. For the process to be conveyed convicingly the characters and the plot need to support the theme. I had trouble finding a realistic character in the film and that led me astray from what should have been the central theme in the film.
As a hijack on my own thread. Has there have been a conservative political hero on film. As I have said before I am a liberal myself, but I absolutely agree with complaints of liberal media bias. If I was a conservative I would certainly have trouble finding a media role model.
