Washington Post film critic Stephen Hunter is sometimes maligned by liberal bloggers for showing a conservative streak. But in today's Post, he looks for cinematic archetypes for John McCain (John Wayne) and Barack Obama (Will Smith) and ends up trashing McCain for his surly temper and killer's background:
He has, of course, Wayne's rage (the famous temper) and impatience. He was formed by an extremely hard-knock system, first at Annapolis, then at flight school, then in battle, then in prison camp and torture, and finally, for 23 years, in politics. He seems like one of those alpha dogs that others kind of fear because he actually likes to fight. He doesn't fear confrontation or force like most of us; he considers their application fun. That makes him cool; that also makes him scary. He's like a gun in the house: unnerving, but when you need it, baby, does it feel good.
But behind it all, even the image experts can't banish the maybe too-intense gleam in his eyes, and when he slides into his occasional slow, quiet cadences -- remonstrating against Wesley Clark's comments on his "limited" qualifications last week -- perhaps it's because he's strangling the fury that's within him. Did all those hard knocks unhinge him? What about his small-man's bellicosity? Will he crack under pressure like Bogart's Queeg, or will he hang tough forever, just like the Duke's Sgt. Stryker, even when his men hate his guts? Is violence -- having dropped bombs and having been tortured -- too easy a solution for him?
He'd be the only president in years and years who has actually killed people, for when he flipped the toggle on his Skyhawk and dropped a couple of 500-pounders down toward some ridge or factory or SAM installation, and when they detonated, you know that people died by his direct agency, though the names are lost forever. That's a movie-star thing, isn't it: the willingness to kill? Look how much good it did the Duke or Clint Eastwood. They shot their way to the top. But while we admire that as an expression of machismo in a tight little world of fabricated melodrama, do we want it in a president today?
McCain's warriorhood, once a key star attribute, now comes freighted with ambiguity. He lived up to the faith of his father and never questioned it, but today a lot of people can't endorse it without caveat and context; there's less enthusiasm for killing and killers these days, and McCain acknowledges this by stressing his suffering in wartime captivity, not his killing in wartime missions.
Hunter framed the story as a fair and balanced exploration, but the verbiage on Obama starts to get gushy:
It's certainly true that Obama has movie virtues that poor McCain lacks: great teeth, for example, and a big-featured, extremely expressive face. He looks sensitive; you'll never see contempt or implicit supremacy on that smooth, adorable mug. He has an orator's voice, a command of mellifluous rhythms, where poor McCain's voice and laugh are nasal, and feel crimped and nerdy. But alas, there's nothing granular about him, no grit, no salt, no sand. The ears, comic fodder for some, actually help him by giving his looks uniqueness. He's also exceedingly graceful, which the camera picks up. The footage of him driving to the hoop after a juke, controlling his body through traffic as he rises to the rim and lays off an easy two, is priceless and probably worth a million votes, as any ballplayer will recognize the assurance of natural hand-eye.
He's likable, but is that enough? Americans can like a star -- look how far Tom Hanks has gotten -- but it's an exception, a special case. Obama will last longer if he's respected. Running for office is incredibly demanding, true; Obama's a real smart guy and he'll quickly acquire the discipline that prevents him from saying "I've visited all 57 states."
