Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Rang-O-Bama

Rang-O-bama

I finally got around to seeing Gore Verbinski's “Rango.” A stylized post-modernist animated film featuring a lonely, self-infatuated domesticated (if not exactly pampered) gecko (Rango) deeply insecure about who he is and unaware of exactly where he is. Throughout the movie Rango 'courageously' combats his existential angst through haranguing bouts of thespianism cast upon a captive audience consisting of one plastic goldfish and other assorted caged props.
About ten minutes into the film Rango's carefully constructed world is literally dashed with his glass cage shattering on a desert highway. At this point in the movie the French philosopher Baudrillard or Morpheus of Matrix fame might well have said: “Welcome to the Real—Rango.”
What follows is the predictable transformation of the character from inhabiting a state of total alienation (both from himself and from the 'real world') to self-aware, self affirming action hero possessed of a newly self-constructed identity which eventually allows him to help others in desperate need.
As movies go, it was riddled with too many cliches and extraneous references and thus too much of a 'director's movie.' Yet it was Rango's character, the initially hapless Gecko, and his dangerous plight into the 'real' which captured my attention and imagination.
Throughout the movie I could not help myself seeing Rango as an animated green avatar of our current president Barack Obama.
The parallels were painfully obvious.
Firstly, the origins of both are located in a carefully constructed world not of their own making and one could argue not of their own choosing. As many commentators have recently pointed out: Obama is the product of at least two generations of government, academically led affirmative action policies; policies which arguably have done a disservice to those who they purportedly tried to help. The long term onus of affirmative action is neither secret nor illogical: affirmative action has, in many cases, undermined self-confidence, identity formation, and professionalism in a myriad of ways. One is never sure of what one has, or who one is, if it has been given to one on account of something else—other than ones own hard work and merit that is.
It has been recently argued by many that the stunningly rapid career advancement of Barack Obama is almost a classic case study of how affirmative action can build an illusory world of achievement which is destined to be torn down once the 'real' is either let in or inevitably forces its way in. When the latter happens the initial response is often one of denial or reflexive condescension towards others. In short all mental defense and self-deceptive mechanisms are on overdrive (Children of another generation were once familiar with this story as 'The Emperor with no clothes.')
Arguably from the moment when President Obama took the oath of office (an oath he had to repeat twice...almost as if he himself couldn't believe it was happening; a case of 'simulacra' meeting the 'real'?) the carefully guided and constructed world that he had lived in all his professional life had suddenly flung open onto the world.
The world waited for a response. The response was a thespian one. And initially a captive (or desperate) audience was enthralled.
Yet what the world (except for a few prescient ones) did not know then was that words and theatrical gestures was all that it was likely to ever get.
For, like Rango, these tactics or behavioral standards were more than enough to either remain popular or at least not threatening in a (liberal) world managed by the values and expectations of others (liberals).
Of course the office of the Presidency offers one of many inconveniences. It is a seat (the seat?) in the world. And that means that it is often a hot seat of crisis. And crisis demands character, stamina, clarity of vision, wisdom, and understanding of the nature of action and its consequences.
Such virtues are seldom nurtured in a hot house environment such as Harvard or the University of Chicago. Other valuable flora and fauna grow there but not necessarily strong political leaders. Just seriously ponder for a moment the career and historical consequences of another such dramatic 'Gecko': Woodrow Wilson.
As Rango might tell you, after his life-growing/life-threatening ordeals...there ain't no substitute to life and its lessons. And those lessons as Margaret Thatcher once said are conservative.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-OOfW6wWyQ


Rango

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