Hollywood’s Gift To The Political Process

The vice president has died, and the nation’s chief executive (Jeff Bridges) appoints a woman (Joan Allen) to the job. In “The Contender,” a political thriller that DreamWorks SKG is releasing next month, Allen plays a Democratic junior senator who needs to be approved by the House Judiciary Committee before she takes over as the nation’s No. 2. * In the real world, this would mean days of hearings on weighty issues. In “The Contender,” sex is topic A. It seems our heroine has a promiscuous past, and when a ranking Republican lawmaker (Gary Oldman) finds out about it, the stage is set.

Leave it to Hollywood to make congressional confirmation hearings hot. This is the place, after all, that created “The West Wing,” NBC’s hit series about a Democratic president (Martin Sheen) and his savvy executive staff, which has struck a chord by making the inner workings of government look as exciting as “ER” during a full moon.

Traditionally, Hollywood’s biggest role in the political process has been a financial one. Even after the three DreamWorks founders--Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen--opted to step down from their informal stint as Hollywood’s chief Democratic fund-raisers, the money keeps flowing in. By one recent tally, the entertainment industry has ponied up at more than twice the rate it did during the same period in the 1996 presidential election cycle, with donations to Democrats topping those to Republicans by 2 to 1.

But the industry injects something far less tangible than cash into the electoral process--and we’re not talking about Warren Beatty. The way Hollywood dramatizes politics influences voters’ ideas about strong leadership and skilled governance as much as the TV spots that the industry helps pay for. And despite itself, Hollywood may even be doing some good.

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THE FACT THAT HOLLYWOOD AND WASHINGTON can serve each other to mutual advantage doesn’t prevent pundits in both camps from mixing it up.

“Just as Americans have developed a warped impression from TV of what goes on in the courtroom or in a hospital or in a police station, politics as entertainment definitely has an effect on the electorate,” says Dan Schnur, former national communications director for Arizona Sen. John McCain’s presidential bid. “It’s overly simplistic to say that because voters have gotten used to being entertained by TV politicians, they feel more of a need to be entertained. But they’re increasingly impatient. A natural human politician doesn’t have a prayer.”

If Schnur is all doom and gloom about Hollywood’s impact, though, Patrick Caddell is practically a Pollyanna.

A longtime Democratic strategist who quit politics in disgust in the 1980s to work as a consultant in Hollywood, Caddell says Schnur is missing the point: By helping Americans imagine a better political reality, television and movies can do something that’s difficult to accomplish in the rough and tumble of actual campaigning.

“There’s an opportunity to remind people that they are not wrong in believing that politics can be something other than a circus of corruption,” says Caddell, who has served as an advisor on several movies (“In the Line of Fire” and “Air Force One”) and on TV’s “The West Wing.”

“In ‘The West Wing’ we walk a critical line between being very realistic and at the same time being very idealistic,” continues Caddell. “As Martin Sheen likes to say, it’s a little bit of what might have been--if, say, a Bobby Kennedy had lived--and of what might still be.”

Writer-director Gary Ross, who has written inspirational movies with political themes (“Dave,” “Pleasantville”), not to mention speeches and jokes for a variety of candidates, including Bill Clinton, also treads the sunny side of the street when talking about Hollywood’s impact.

“The irony is that Hollywood, which is seen as the most cynical and craven of all institutions, understands that what people really want is to not be cynical, but to have deeper beliefs,” Ross says. “I believe a show like ‘The West Wing’ does a tremendous service by showing decent people trying to do a decent job for something they believe in.”

Asked if Hollywood oversimplifies government, Ross demurs. “If anyone reduces politics to simple homilies, it’s politicians more than entertainment--like when George Bush tries to reduce everything to a screed against Washington, D.C.”

But to the extent that TV and movies often candy-coat political reality, do they truly serve Americans’ interests? Andrew Fleming, director and co-writer of last year’s “Dick,” a film comedy about two teenagers who stumble into the middle of the Watergate scandal, spent some time in the real West Wing researching his script.

“It didn’t feel at all like [the one on TV]. It felt very heavy and bureaucratic,” Fleming says. “Any time there is entertainment that’s talking about issues and making them engrossing, that’s positive. But ‘The West Wing’ is really romanticized.”

That’s just it, according to Caddell. To be unromantic in the dramatization of politics is to court rejection.

“Take [1997’s] ‘Absolute Power.’ It was a great book. It had a terrific cast: Clint Eastwood and Gene Hackman. But it did not do very well because Americans were not interested in seeing a president who is a murderer. They didn’t want to be disappointed again.”

And that may be the crux of it: in Washington, just as in Hollywood, nothing turns dewy-eyed idealists into sneering cynics faster than disappointment. To win at the polls (or have a socko opening weekend in theaters), candidates (like movies) must appear to be what people want. But to have lasting appeal, a politician (or a film) must live up to its promises, delivering an ending as satisfying as voters (or ticket buyers) have been encouraged to expect. If not, they risk the backlash that comes when Americans learn they’ve been duped into backing a loser.

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HOLLYWOOD’S PORTRAITS OF WASHINGTON HAVE ALWAYS REFLECTED their time. The early 1960s, for example, brought us leaders we could be proud of. In “Seven Days in May,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff plot to overthrow the president, who is a man of principle played by Fredric March. “Fail-Safe” featured another chief executive (Henry Fonda) cleaning up the mess after a U.S. bomber accidentally nukes Moscow. “The Best Man” depicted a vice president (Fonda again) seeking to win the presidency, but not at any cost.

By the end of the decade, though, as antiwar and anti-Establishment sentiment surged, the take was darker and more satirical. In “The President’s Analyst,” James Coburn was hunted down for refusing to shrink the president’s head; in “Wild in the Streets,” a singing idol was elected president after the voting age was lowered to 14.

Flash-forward 30 years and the screens were again full of exemplar politicians (with the notable exceptions of director Oliver Stone’s quasi-historical “JFK” and “Nixon”). “Dave” was the story of an incapacitated U.S. president replaced by his likable look-alike (Kevin Kline), who accomplishes seemingly more than any experienced politician to come before him. Harrison Ford is a president who kicks ass and takes names in “Air Force One.” “Bulworth” was Beatty’s satire about a California senator who solves his crisis of conscience by beginning to tell the truth. And then there was “The American President” (written by Aaron Sorkin, who would later create “The West Wing”), with Michael Douglas as an affable, widowed president human enough to have a crush on a lobbyist played by Annette Bening.

“This is the ultimate wish-fulfillment movie, with a president who’s handsome, funny, forthright, decisive and honest. If only!” critic Leonard Maltin wrote in his “Movie and Video Guide.” The film made $60.1 million at the domestic box office. By contrast, 1998’s “Primary Colors,” the Clinton-inspired roman a clef that portrayed our president as womanizing, compromising and morally flawed, took in only $39 million despite star power behind and before the camera (John Travolta starred; Mike Nichols directed).

Was Douglas a better president than Travolta? More likely, his role simply tapped more directly into the viewing public’s hunger for heroic leaders. For on the big screen, idealism about politics beats cynicism almost every time.

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THIS YEAR, THE MAJOR TV NETWORKS HAVE DEEMED REAL politicians so dull that none planned more than minimal coverage of the Republican and Democratic conventions. It’s rerun season, and network honchos are betting that Americans would rather watch almost anything twice than suffer through the drone of bonafide campaigning.

Nonetheless, Hollywood is gambling on several political movies and TV shows. In addition to “The Contender” from DreamWorks, New Line Cinema has Kevin Costner in “Thirteen Days,” a heroic portrait of the Kennedy White House during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, due in October. That same month, NBC will offer the second season of “The West Wing” and the premiere of “Dag,” a comedy series about a first lady and the Secret Service agent who protects her. On cable, TNT today begins airing the movie “Running Mates,” a behind-the-scenes comedy-drama about a leading presidential contender (Tom Selleck) in the midst of the Democratic National Convention.

“Our picture shows things the way they are and asks for them the way they ought to be,” says Gerald Rafshoon, an executive producer on “Running Mates” and White House communications director under Jimmy Carter. Rafshoon recently sent a copy of the TV movie to Carter.

“I asked him if he saw some incidents and people who were familiar. He laughed and said, ‘Of course.’ And he hopes that the two guys who get the [real] presidential nominations do as well as our guy does in the decisions he makes.”

Will this new crop of political fantasies have any direct impact in November? In purely partisan terms, probably not. Ross jokes that the most notable political fallout after the release of “Dave” may have been that some real politicians cribbed from the script.

So why, given Americans’ widespread political apathy, would anyone consider making a politically themed film? Joe Klein, the journalist-turned-author who wrote the political novel “The Running Mate” and the book that inspired the movie “Primary Colors,” says politicians are irresistible to creators of fiction.

“When you get down to the game itself--not just the electoral game, but the more difficult-to-convey governance game--these people are among the most interesting characters I have ever come across,” says Klein. “Their attempts to be human in a fishbowl under the most dire circumstances are so poignant, and at the same time their screw-ups are so inevitable.”

Just as writer-director Ross and consultant Caddell say Hollywood can fuel hopes for a better political process, Klein says that dramatizing politics can help combat cynicism by celebrating the complex, larger-than-life personalities of those who lead.

“It’s obviously fantasy to portray politicians as people who always act nobly. But it’s also fantasy to portray politicians as always corrupt,” he says. “Most politicians are combinations of idealism and opportunism and egotism, and it depends on the day of the week. You don’t get great strengths without great weaknesses. But to only deal with politics in negative, hipper-than-thou rhetoric is pathetic.”

Rod Lurie, who wrote and directed “The Contender,” believes a film’s political impact is subtle at best. “After Alan J. Pakula’s pro-Democratic films [“All the President’s Men” and “The Parallax View”] came out in the late ‘70s, we still had Republicans elected in giant numbers.”

Nevertheless, Lurie acknowledges that besides hoping “The Contender” will entertain audiences, he also wants it to express a point of view: His. “Without a doubt, political films are trying to influence society, not reflect it. If not, what’s the reason for being?” he says. “Female politicians are always bitches in movies--hard-driving, tough-talking chicks-with-dicks types. I decided to create a role where a woman could maintain her femininity and still be tough as nails. But I couldn’t bring myself to make a Republican the hero of the film, because I’m a Democrat.”

Cinema is nothing, however, if not a subjective art. Lurie says that at test screenings, the movie is tracking equally well with Republicans and Democrats. And while he may have set out to paint a glowing portrait of his leading lady as a righteous Democrat hounded by a harsh ideologue (“Oldman looks like [Pennsylvania Sen.] Arlen Specter and sounds like [Illinois Rep.] Henry Hyde,” he says happily), more conservative viewers--including Oldman himself and Douglas Urbanski, one of the film’s producers--likely will see it differently.

“The liberals in the film definitely say things that make you feel warm and fuzzy. But the one true patriot in the film is the rascally Republican [Oldman’s character],” says Urbanski, who is also Oldman’s manager. “He’s the only character who doesn’t say anything insane, who puts his career on the line for what he believes in.”

Schnur says that regardless which characters inspire the most allegiance, the true electoral impact of “The Contender” may be that it distracts voters from the real presidential contest.

“How in the world can you ask George Bush or Al Gore to compete with Jeff Bridges for entertainment value?” Schnur asks. “Not only is he trained for it, but he’s also got an editor to take out all the boring stuff.”