Born In The U.S.A.

I went to see the new Oliver Stone movie “W.” the other day. It’s a portrait of George W. Bush and his road to the White House. Part human drama, part political satire. It was quite an interesting movie, and I enjoyed it. I rarely pay attention to audience reactions when I go to the movies (mainly because I’m working really hard to block out all the annoying sounds of chitchat and bags of candy). But I noticed that even though the film is full of dark humor and clever dialogue, the audience was only laughing at the obvious jokes. Like Bush mispronouncing a word, the look on his face or his laugh. It wasn’t really a surprise, but it got me thinking about the recent U.S. election and in particular the media’s coverage of it.

It’s three weeks ago today since Obama won the election. It was the most significant, and arguably the most important win in the country’s history. Leading up to the election the media’s involvement was massive. Everyone knows that a major part of any presidential campaign is not only to make your own policies known, but also to shame or even better, embarrass your opponent. This election was no exception. During the endless months of campaigning there wasn’t a day that went by where the republicans were not battering the democrats, or vice versa. It even started before the nominees of each party was decided. In the republican camp there was a mighty war of words going on between McCain and Romney. And the democrats were even worse, as the battle between Obama and Clinton didn’t just limit itself to verbal arguments, but attempts of public humiliations of each candidate. It would be exploiting rumors of a personal nature and photographs of the candidates in “unfortunate” situations. But the worst of it all was yet to come.

When McCain announced Sarah Palin as his vice presidential candidate things would really get ugly. There was no stopping the endless attacks on the Alaska governor. Some were innocent while some quite serious. And when it came to this, no one was worse than the TV shows. Letterman, Leno, Jon Stewart and Saturday Night Live to mention just a few, pretty much based their entire fall schedule on the ridicule of this, until recently, unknown woman. Since I have laughed out loud at many of the jokes on some of these shows I have no right to say “that’s wrong!” But I am amazed that even now, almost a month after the election this is still going on. Jokes about McCain, Palin and Bush are still what keep the audience tuning in.

I am sure that if you were to ask a group of American voters what they remember the most about the 2008 election, the most important one in their lifetime, very few would say McCain’s promise of tax cuts or Obama’s pledge to withdraw soldiers from Iraq. They would laugh and say Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin impression on SNL, Conan’s joke about how McCain is so old he can’t remember what he’s doing at this debate, or the time Obama went on Letterman to do the Top Ten list.
I’m watching a movie about what people call the worst administration and president in American history. Eight years which have seen horrible terrorist attacks, endless years of war, a US economy in crisis and a world struggling and fighting due to oil prices. And yet, just have George W. Bush say “nucilar” and people laugh their asses off.
If it is all just a joke, does it really matter who wins?