Hollywood loves to paint itself as America’s capital of compassion. So why is the hottest script right now all about comedian Will Ferrell mocking Ronald Reagan’s fatal battle with the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease? This is no laughing matter.
As we noted yesterday, the script “begins at the start of the ex-president’s second term when he falls into dementia” and then “As a result, 'an ambitious intern' is assigned to convince Reagan “that he is an actor playing the president in a movie.” That gibes with the usual 1980s cartoon.
But even the hip men’s magazine Esquire warned, “It's an interesting concept — one that hopefully avoids poking fun at the horrors of dementia.” Reagan's son Michael has already blasted the project, tweeting on Wednesday, "What an Outrag....Alzheimers is not joke...It kills..You should be ashamed all of you."
This new push for a new bash-Reagan movie comes just weeks after the death of Nancy Reagan, who cared for the former president as he declined. CBS ended up shelving a nasty four-hour TV movie called The Reagans in November of 2003, just months before Reagan’s death in the summer of 2004. It aired on the pay-cable channel Showtime instead.
The Young America's Foundation, which bought and operates the Reagan Ranch in California, also tweeted its opposition:
Tre Goins-Phillips at TheBlaze reported YAF actually attended a reading and found it detached from reality:
The script was first debuted on the Black List, an annual catalog of top un-produced Hollywood scripts, and it was so popular that a table reading was scheduled last month with actress Lena Dunham, who played Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan, along with “Star Trek” actor John Cho.
But, according to YAF program director Amy Lutz, who attended the reading, the entire script is “detached from reality.”
“Although I was impressed with the talent of the actors participating in the table read and the occasional wit of the script,” Lutz told TheBlaze, “the entire screenplay is detached from reality.”
She went on to say the movie portrays Reagan “as a caricature that college professors often paint of him,” which she described as “a bumbling, forgetful man, wrestling in the throes of Alzheimer’s and beholden to ‘devious’ advisors.”
“The screenplay, though written to be a humorous satire, rather makes light of Alzheimer’s and undercuts President Reagan’s accomplishments in his second term,” Lutz added.
It's one thing for Tinseltown to use satire to put a twist on big moments in American history. It's another to mock so shamelessly the horror of a disease robbing a president of his mind and then his life as his family watches their loved one slip away.
