By Jack Nichols
| Sure, he's been called a womanizer. Who cares? Better
a skirt-chaser in the White House than a dorky snorter. Some people
think actors should stay out of politics. But what is a politician's
job, after all, but acting? Give me one with a few decent
instincts—a man or woman who's everything that Ronald Reagan
isn't—and I'll vote for him or for her with joy. |
 Warren Beatty (right) in
Bulworth |
I hear Warren Beatty's been waiting to hear whether or not people
want him to run in 2000. I do, Warren, I do. And not just because you've
always been a knock-out in the looks department either, though that surely
helps. Better a handsome face to contemplate for four or eight years on
the evening news, says I, than a redneck-Texan with looks in the Pat
Robertson mould, a jerkoff Daddy's boy like George W. Bush, Jr.
HBO is currently showcasing Bulworth Warren Beatty's
latest masterpiece—a film for which he's responsible in every conceivable
way. The fact that he's capable of putting together such a film and acts
in it too speaks volumes about Beatty's political acumen.
| Every
speech he gives in this superb film is right on target, asking the
same questions we all ought to ask: about the oligarchy's murderous
relations with the poor—the have's and the have-nots—about race and
class and the ruination of the planet by gas-guzzling auto
emissions—about the moving of blue collar jobs to third world
nations, making a third world nation out of our good ol' USA.
But there's another reason why Warren Beatty has proved he's
smart enough to be president. He knows how to season his politics
making his messages palatable. Bulworth is part
comedy, part adventure, part love story. In other words, it's
entertaining. The political messages—though present—aren't crammed
down our throats. |
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Barry
Goldwater: Conservative & Human
Gary
Bauer in His Own Words
Michael
Moore: World's Funniest Political Pundit
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Bulworth
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Beatty knows how to present politics on film with glorious finesse
and so it's a sure bet he'd do it with equal effectiveness from his White
House perch. He's a long-time director, after all. And, unlike actor
Reagan, he's capable of putting together his own scripts.
The Sherlocks in our midst say Beatty's an ultra-liberal. These are
the same people who cringe whenever Bulworth rants. Beatty's lovable
character, Senator Bulworth, you see, has a kind of nervous breakdown
and—instead of feeding campaign listeners bull, he gives 'em the honest
truth. He even delivers it in comic non-stop rap, enjoying an interracial
affair in the interim.
Beatty's realistic touch is clear here in that he knows any current
Senator would probably have to have a nervous breakdown before saying the
kinds of things the fictional Bulworth says. But Bulworth, obviously, is
saying the kinds of things Beatty would say in a run for the Presidency.
 Therefore, he must be encouraged to run. Run Warren, run! The
Beatty message—delivered during the 2000 race—might just cause enough
ripples in the two mainstream parties to make them look less like the very
Tweedle Dee's and Tweedle Dum's that Gore Vidal accused them of being in
his 1974 Esquire "State of the Union" essay. They'd have to
deal with Beatty's ideas.
The political script—Bulworth's speeches—is all ready for
launching. Hilarious clips of Beatty damning the insurance companies, the
educational establishment, the health crisis and the racial divide could
be run as TV ads. A Beatty campaign would therefore save hundreds of
thousands of dollars bypassing unneeded help from expensive ad agencies.
A director with Beatty's talent proves he's ready to do the
President's job. He knows already how he'll look in those scenes wherein
he'll be called to perform. He'll get the lighting right. No shiny nose.
His deliveries will be executed to perfection. Beatty has always been a
political animal, a man with sincere convictions who's previously been
asked to consider running for office, but is only now giving the
possibility some thought.
Just imagine, Shirley McLaine for First Sister. If the President
were not entertaining enough, we could look forward, perhaps, to seances
in the Blue Room. Shirley could campaign for her brother too—promising a
more thorough-going federal investigation of the UFO phenomenon, you know,
the arrival of those extra-terrestrials. Whether they do or do not exist
is beside the point. A whopping 37 percent of the public thinks they do
and that could translate into big time votes, n'est pas? Or does this all
sound just too California?
Beatty—as shown on CNN this week—already has the approval of
Chippy, the chimpanzee who's beating out all the pundits with his
predictions. (See Brill's Content (July/August p. 41). The
chimp, asked if Beatty should consider running, nodded his head "yes"
vigorously. That settled it for me.
The final words spoken in Bulworth, I suggest, could
become the hopeful rallying cry of a Beatty campaign. An elderly bag man
hobbles down the street and peers into the camera. He speaks to the
apathetic, to the uninvolved, to the conservative zombies of our own time:
"You gotta be a spirit—you can't be a ghost."
|
