Abstract: American politics and show business have
become inextricably intertwined. This was quite
evident during the 1996 presidential campaign, with
presidential candidate Bob Dole trying to capitalize
on the success of the movie 'Independence Day' and
various political figures landing lucrative dollar
book deals designed to further their political
ambitions. Even political conventions have been
reduced to nothing more than television
entertainment.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 1997 Artforum International
Magazine Inc.
It was a stirring vision of interplanetary danger in
which America's youthful president, a slick neo-lib
waffler married to an intimidating warrior-woman,
reversed his fallen approval ratings by taking a firm
stand against the aliens: "Let's nuke the bastards!"
Can it be only six months ago that this cold latka -
in which a bunch of hopped-up flyboys of varied
ethnic persuasions made believe to join forces and
decimate a horde of computer-and-latex
extraterrestrial locusts - had all Terra in its
thrall? The overlong, vaguely camp appreciation of
blood and guts, God and country, ultimate sacrifice
and cheap thrills copyrighted throughout all
universes known and unknown as Independence Day
seemed to evaporate from the mind faster than the
memory of the Steve Forbes juggernaut. Did the
premise of last year's top-grossing movie leave room
for a sequel? (And, having pretended to join the
Republican Revolution to hold the line on Medicare in
the parallel-universe production Dependence Day, what
can our reelected Bill Clinton possibly do by way of
an encore?)
A celebration of American military and cultural
hegemony (not to mention the formula PR + F/X = USA
#1), Independence Day was the pure filmic expression
of that which The Nation had dubbed the National
Entertainment State - the spectacle for which the
Republican attack on the Clinton White House and the
revelation that life had once upon a time existed on
Mars were but part of a three-month publicity
buildup.
Yet another spin on the War of the Worlds scenario,
Independence Day looked tacky enough to suggest a
megamillion-dollar remake of Ray Harryhausen's 1956
Earth vs. the Flying Saucers minus the cold war
subtext. This was a feel-good Armageddon that
knowingly quoted R.E.M. ("It's the end of the world
as we know it, and I feel fine") and cleverly rewrote
Dr. Strangelove (a Slim Pickens look-alike drafted to
replay his rip-roaring nuclear suicide).
For Americans, it's a patriotic duty to be
entertained. Among other things, Independence Day
afforded the key negative moment in the year's other
Show Biz extravaganza - namely, the interminable
presidential campaign (which, given its estimated
$800 million budget, cost out at roughly $8.50 per
vote, or the price of a first-run movie ticket in New
York). Mired in the polls, Bob Dole had created a
midsummer media event out of his wife's sixtieth
birthday by treating her to a box of Goobers, a
basket of popcorn, and a matinee showing of
Independence Day in a nearly empty Century City
cinema. What did the candidate see? Accurate as far
as it went, Dole's thumbs-up review ("Leadership -
America - Good over evil") only underscored his
cultural cluelessness. By failing to comment on the
movie's money shot of the White House blown to
smithereens, Dole served notice that he had never
caught the most successful trailer in recent memory.
Dole's hapless attempt to appropriate Independence
Day underscored a campaign predicated largely on
successful Show Biz mergers. With voters
indistinguishable from consumers, publishers
subsidized potential presidential candidates (and
vice versa) in the early days of the campaign. Colin
Powell's and Newt Gingrich's lucrative book tours
amounted to privatized, profit-making test pilots
underwritten, respectively, by S. I. Newhouse's
Random House and Rupert Murdoch's HarperCollins.
Even as Hillary Clinton's It Takes a Village supplied
a ready-made campaign issue, Bob Woodward's campaign
book (The Choice) appeared mid-campaign, and the
hubbub surrounding the initially anonymous Primary
Colors (Random House) provided a substitute for the
actual primary season, the campaign itself was now
understood by pundits and pols to be a representation
(a "campaign opportunity" in the words of Murdoch
employee and Weekly Standard editor William Kristol).
Bill Clinton posed as the president while Bob Dole
invented a fictional "Bob Dole" as his real self
explained to reporters, after embarking on his first
post-senatorial campaign swing, that "We're trying to
get good pictures. Don't worry very much about what I
say."
Historical depth had already been provided by the
"Richard Nixon" thoughtfully resurrected by Oliver
Stone (for the Wait Disney Company) just as the
campaign (for which Disney contributed $532,000 to
the Democratic Party) got under way. As former Nixon
henchmen from William Safire to candidate Dole
himself cast the president and first lady as Nixon
redux, predicting a Clinton II as scandal-ridden as
Nixon II, so the loser would be lambasted by
conservative cheerleader Peggy Noonan as the last
Nixonian. The crafty Clinton, she bemoaned, won only
because he had contrived to run as her former boss
Ronald Reagan.
True enough. As predicted by The American President,
Clinton had simply merged with Hollywood. "The
biggest contributing zip to Bill Clinton is 90210,"
Variety bragged (not referring solely to the
Murdoch-produced television show). "Politicians and
movie stars spring from the same DNA," Jack Valenti
crowed. Never mind the polls showing that the
professions American parents wished least for their
children were president and movie star: by the time
the conventions rolled around, even erstwhile Bushman
Kevin Costher had switched his allegiance to Clinton.
And as the president was reelected First Celebrity,
The National Enquirer opened a bureau in the nation's
capital: "We refer to Washington as Hollywood East."
The two parties were now in effect rival studios -
the respective producers of Clinton's Twister and
Dole's Mission: Impossible. To the dismay of
Nightline, which found its convention reportage
reduced to the level of E! network publicity,
Democrats and Republicans had joined forces to merge
the aesthetic of daytime TV with the hoopla of the
prime-time conventions. Where else could it end, if
not with stars staging public squabbles with their
screenwriters and directors? Dole's speechwriter,
novelist Mark Helprin, stalked off the Republican set
after the candidate rewrote his dialogue; Clinton was
upstaged by his chief imagemaker Dick Morris - first
on the cover of Time and then, thanks to the Star,
during the convention itself.
Pundits complained but, in fact, these spectacles
(complete with scandalous interruptions) were as
redolent of American might as any blockbuster.
Indeed, in the midst of the US election, Time was
pleased to report how a cadre of American advisers
used polls, focus groups, and negative ads to help
the living corpse of Boris Yeltsin win reelection to
the presidency of the former Soviet Union. In the
most spectacular coup, a onetime Dick Morris
associate (with White House connections)
stage-managed the April summit meeting as a Yeltsin
photo op: the American president was directed to just
grin and bear it while the Russian leader lectured
him about great power prerogatives ... for
teleconsumption by the folks back home. Bringing
Independence Day to Moscow: in the New World Order,
That's Entertainment II.
J. Hoberman contributes this column regularly to
Artforum.