Screen depictions beat around the Bush
By PETER KEOUGH | October 15, 2008
REGULAR GUY: James Adomian’s Dubya hangs with Kumar (Kal Penn) and Harold (John Cho) just before (or after?) passing that joint in Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantánamo Bay. |
How is it that the least popular and possibly worst chief executive in American history has inspired no lasting impersonations? Josh Brolin’s performance in Oliver Stone’s W., which opens this Friday, will have little competition for best imitation of the 43rd president. Even the innocuous Gerald Ford was better served by Chevy Chase’s pratfalls. But as I survey the past eight years, not many funny, memorable, or pointed TV or movie parodies of George W. Bush come to mind. How could such ripe material be neglected for so long?
It didn’t look that way during the 2000 presidential campaign, not with SNL’s Will Ferrell rendering George W. as a language-mangling fratboy idiot. But once Bush got into office, Ferrell shied away, fearing typecasting (anyone remember Vaughn Meader?), and in 2002 he left the show to pursue his film career. He has since reprised his Bush imitation (still the funniest and edgiest) on occasion; he drew on it for his NASCAR driver Ricky (“If you’re not first, you’re last!”) Bobby in Talladega Nights (2006).
Meanwhile, South Park’s Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who planned before the election to produce a sit-com centered on whichever candidate won (they were pretty sure it would end up being called Everybody Loves Al), debuted That’s My Bush! in the spring of 2001. Timothy Bottoms played the Ralph Kramden–like president. Avoiding any real political content, emphasizing slapstick, it lasted eight episodes. And plans to turn the premise into a feature movie didn’t seem like such a good idea after 9/11.
The War on Terror might not have brought about the end of irony, but it sure put a damper on parody. So except for sporadic bits, Bush got a free pass not only from the news media but also from the world of entertainment. Not till 2004 did a Bush-like character reappear on the screen. Dickie Pilager (Chris Cooper), the not so subtly named Colorado gubernatorial candidate in John Sayles’s Silver City (2004), played on the image of Bush as dolt but made him more victim than perpetrator, a well-meaning puppet of malignant forces that include his US senator dad, a power-hungry corporate mogul (the head of “Bentel”), and a Cheney-esque svengali played by Richard Dreyfus (a warm-up for his role as the real Cheney in W.).
Bush as sympathetic dupe returns in Chris Weitz’s ill-fated satire American Dreamz (2006). George W. stand-in President Staton (Dennis Quaid) awakes the morning after re-election with an urge to read the New York Times and is shocked to learn there’s all kinds of “stuff” in there he didn’t know about. Dismayed, his Cheney/Rove-like handler (Willem Dafoe) cuts him off from reading material, puts him on pills, and tells him what to say through an earpiece. If only Bush/Staton could be himself, is the implication, his regular-guy decency might win the day.
Related:
W. gets a B, The gulf of Maine, Bull disclosure, More 
- W. gets a B
Josh Brolin prevails over Oliver Stone’s shaky portrait
- The gulf of Maine
With a massively unpopular Republican president leaving office, this year’s Senate election is a contest based on a candidate’s alignment with Bush.
- Bull disclosure
As the presidential candidates prep for the final debate of 2008 — which will take place on October 15 in Hempstead, New York, with CBS’s Bob Schieffer moderating — it’s a fitting time to ask: why do some journalistic conflicts of interest become semi-scandals, while others get almost no attention at all?
- 20 reasons the Earth will be glad to see Bush go
The planet Earth usually tries to stay out of politics. It doesn't endorse candidates. It doesn't run attack ads. It doesn't even register as a lobbyist.
- The Funn(k)y Drummer
Johnny Carson was revered for his impeccable comic timing. It was "so precise," wrote one newspaper in his obituary, "that we wouldn't be surprised to find buried in his skull a quartz crystal." And why might that be? Perhaps because Johnny Carson was a drummer. In drumming, after all, timing is everything.
- Dictator McCain?
The only thing standing in the way of Republican John McCain assuming the powers and prerogatives of a dictator should he be elected president is the vote of a single Supreme Court justice.
- Robert McNamara, RIP
As secretary of defense under President Lyndon B. Johnson, Robert McNamara prosecuted the Vietnam War on a day-to-day basis, just as Donald Rumsfeld orchestrated the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for George W. Bush.
- Cheney's latest crime
As if there were any doubt, the latest CIA scandal once again reminds the nation that whatever former vice-president Dick Cheney touched turned to slime.
- Fascism in the eye of the beholder
You claim that Dick Cheney was George W. Bush’s number-one thug. But I would argue that Bush was Cheney ’s thug.
- The nanny state
Assaults on liberty promoted by right-wing authoritarians, such as President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney, may be difficult to combat, but they are easy to recognize.
- Hoosier daddy
You already know the plot for the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries.
- Less
Topics:
Features
, Culture and Lifestyle, George W. Bush, Trey Parker, More
, Culture and Lifestyle, George W. Bush, Trey Parker, Trey Parker, Richard Dreyfus, Matt Stone, Matt Stone, AMERICAN DREAMZ, George W. Bush, Oliver Stone, Less
