TurquoiseB wrote:
> So far, the best comments I've read, period, about
> Sarah Palin came from film critic (and Pulitzer
> Prize winner) Roger Ebert:
>
> "I think I might be able to explain some of Sarah
> Palin's appeal. She's the 'American Idol' candidate.
> Consider. What defines an 'American Idol' finalist?
> They're good-looking, work well on television, have
> a sunny personality, are fierce competitors, and so
> talented, why, they're darned near the real thing.
> There's a reason 'American Idol' gets such high
> ratings. People identify with the contestants. They
> think, Hey, that could be me up there on that show!"
>
> Sometimes it takes a film critic to pin down what's
> wrong with politics, and why people have allowed it
> to happen. Political audiences have allowed the
> dumbing down of their candidates for high public
> office for *exactly* the same reason that audiences
> have allowed the dumbing down of TV, and have allowed
> travesties like American Idol to become popular. It's
> as if seeing all those stupid people on TV makes
> the audiences feel smarter.
>
> Kurt Vonnegut dealt with this phenomenon a different
> way many years ago in his near-prescient short story
> "Harrison Bergeron." That story postulated a future
> America in which everyone was equal because the govern-
> ment *forced* them to be equal. It was Politically
> Correct Run Amock years before there was such a term
> as "politically correct."
>
> In Vonnegut's future world, if you are stronger than
> the median level of strength that has been decreed as
> the standard, you have to wear weights to compensate,
> so that you can't possibly outperform anyone else.
> If you're more beautiful than others, you have to wear
> a mask. You get the picture.
>
> Well, it's about to be a picture, called "2081." I
> just saw the trailer for it, and so can you:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKHzFWkH0Po
>
> I think it's a timely film to come out during this
> election, because this future world is exactly what
> one of the parties in that election is appealing to.
> They've given Americans two candidates who couldn't
> possibly BE more median and mediocre -- John McCain
> and Sarah Palin.
>
> And what's happening? A surprising number of potential
> voters are actually *drawn* to these insufferably
> stupid and unprepared-for-high-office candidates. It's
> as if they think they're voting for the next winners of
> American Idol, not the President and Vice-President of
> the potentially most scary nation on earth.
>
> This dumb-and-proud-of-it thing has really got to STOP,
> America! It's not just laughable any more; it's turning
> dangerous. Hopefully, films like "2081" will do some-
> thing to up the collective IQ a little bit. It's for
> damned sure that the Republican Party won't.
>
> And that's 50 and out for me...
I remember the 1970's PBS version of this story or the short film they
made based on it and other Vonnegut stories. Let's hope that a good
studio gets distributes it and not one who cuts it all up and dumbs down
the message.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1282015/
