The Audio-Animatronic Candidate (Ahnuld) -- by Frank Rich

[Vitruvius]

I don't care what anyone says. It's always depressing when the circus folds its tent and leaves town. So forgive me for mourning the passing of the recall election in California. Maybe it wasn't the greatest show on earth, but in its lasting impact it may prove one of the more transformative cultural events of our young century. <SNIP> As goes California, so goes the nation. It's Disneyland, not Colonial Williamsburg, that prefigures our future, and the action-packed recall ride was nothing if not the apotheosis of the Magic Kingdom. It was fun, it was instructive, it was expensive, it was hawked relentlessly on television, it starred an Audio-Animatronic action figure. It even had product placement for its leading man's vehicle of choice, the Hummer. And it will set off a chain of unanticipated consequences whose full meaning will become apparent only with time.

To see the recall as Disneyland, you have to remember the platonic idea of Disneyland at its inception. From its opening day in Anaheim in July 1955 — 48 Julys before Darrell Issa's recall petitions hit paydirt — it was never meant to be just another tourist destination. It was virtual reality before virtual reality was cool — a visionary's idea of how American life might be conducted. Walt Disney had long despised the rowdiness that up until then had defined amusement parks, "dirty, phony places run by rough-looking people," as he characterized them. He wanted to build instead a beautiful, phony place run by nice-looking people: an alternative America that he could script and control down to the tiniest detail <SNIP>.

In 2003, it's that vision of a hermetically sealed simulation of democracy that is proving to be Walt's most lasting legacy. The original notion of Disneyland lives today not only in the first park, its satellites and its many imitators; its influence can be found in planned and gated communities, in Rouse-developed downtowns, in the carefully scripted "reality" programs of network television, in the faux-urban ambiance of a shopping mall near you. <SNIP> But up until Arnold Schwarzenegger, no one had succeeded (though many have tried) in creating a powerful political movement according to the Disney park aesthetic: a content-free campaign, as hollow inside as a movie set's facade, that enjoyed an unimpeded romp to victory until scandal cast a shadow at the finish line.

Forget California. For America, the Arnold juggernaut is here to stay. Measured against the disappointing returns of "Terminator 3," his political career has far more box-office clout than his waning future as a Hollywood leading man. <SNIP> Helen Gahagan Douglas, Jesse Ventura and of course Ronald Reagan all had passionate ideological convictions to go with their showmanship. Unlike the Gipper, the Groper has none, except a belief in his own stardom. He only bothered to vote in two of the last eight state elections.

While it was Mr. Schwarzenegger's screen celebrity that got him on the political stage, it's the discipline of his campaign that made him fly. Its scrupulously bogus depiction of an actual political candidacy, as concocted by his staff of Imagineers, resembled a genuine democratic phenomenon in the same way that Disneyland's Main Street resembles an actual Main Street. The candidate's "town meetings" were open to invited guests only. <SNIP> "Meeting the press" meant spurning the actual press entirely for TV entertainers like Oprah and Jay Leno. Political "dialogue" for Mr. Schwarzenegger meant dialogue akin to that of actors in costume playing Disney cartoon characters: he plucked well-worn tag lines from his films and shuffled them into crowd-pleasing medleys of his greatest hits. <SNIP>

As for the young Arnold's ruminations about Hitler, sure there was fire to go with the smoke. Otherwise, why would the star have overpaid $1.2 million in 1991 for the exclusive rights to "Pumping Iron" and its outtakes? <SNIP> his credo was laid out quite specifically in his autobiography, "Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder": "A certain amount of people are meant to be in control. Ninety-five percent of the people have to be told what to do, have to be given orders." <SNIP>


MORE at http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/12/arts/12RICH.html

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Scary,

also notice good political reporting in the ARTS page, not
in the political page, or the Op Ed page...

Part of tomorrow land I guess

[realFedUp]

2. I miss Frank Rich on the editorial pages...

but glad he's still writing for the paper....

This will be cut down by admins to meet DU copyright rules...
rfu, moderator