In print | Published November 6, 2008 — Updated November 13, 2008 19:27

I’ve said from the start of this column that I intend to write about movies in a broader social context, examining their relevance within the framework of contemporary societal issues and current events. This week, what event could be more pertinent than Election Day?

The 2008 presidential election mercifully marks the close of the long and painful George W. Bush era, and although we have to wait until January to actually get rid of the guy, I thought it was appropriate to list, on the week that marks the selection of his successor, the movies that I believe to be most emblematic of the Bush years.

Therefore, without further ado, I present to you my list of the five films that historians will look back on and wonder how we could possibly have elected and supported this guy.

5. “Left Behind” (Columbia TriStar Pictures, 2001)
Few groups have been more studied and vilified in interpreting the success of the Bush political coalition than the emergent religious right, and few pop culture phenomena better show these people in all of their glory than “Left Behind,” a movie based on the frighteningly successful series of Christian novels about the end times. “Left Behind” tells the story of reporter Buck Williams, played with appropriate gusto by child actor turned evangelical activist Kirk Cameron. This is the sort of film that begins with the destruction of thousands of Syrian jets by God as a means of protecting Israel. You pretty much know what you’re getting into from there. Along the way, we get to meet Nicolae Carpathia, a United Nations official who actually turns out to be the Antichrist. If you, like myself and most other secular left-wing Swarthmore students, are more than a bit curious that people actually believe that Obama is the Antichrist, you should watch this movie to see how the Other Half thinks.

4. “300” (Warner Brothers, 2007)
Few movies better capture the paranoia and racism of right-wing political discourse than this piece of cinematic dreck. This lavish, visually arresting video game masquerading as a film tells us the story of the Battle of Thermopylae, where three hundred Spartans fought valiantly but futilely against a vastly larger Persian invasion force. Since the Persians are dark-skinned and tyrannical and the Spartans are white and (at least comparatively) democratic, it isn’t very hard to read the political subtext. This racist, testosterone-filled movie helps explain how so many Americans are able to paint millions of Middle Easterners as an amorphous, abstract “Other” that can be demonized for the purpose of our political discourse. Madness? This is America!

3. “W.” (Lions Gate Entertainment, 2008)
Okay, so it might seem like a bit of a cop-out to say that a biopic about George W. Bush reflects the George W. Bush era. But what’s fascinating about “W.” is that it was made before the end of Bush’s presidency. It’s as if filmmaker Oliver Stone decided that history has already declared its verdict on Bush, that there isn’t any need to wait a bit longer before making a movie about him. “W.” is unlikely to be very successful; Americans are unlikely to want to see a movie about the president who can’t leave office fast enough. But the fact that it was created at this point in time speaks volumes about Bush’s unlikely ability to unite the American people behind the unanimous decision that he is a failure as a president.

2. “Fahrenheit 9/11” (IFC/Lions Gate Films, 2004)
The surprising financial success of Michael Moore’s controversial anti-Bush documentary, which is deeply flawed in many ways, at least shows that millions of Americans were willing to consume entertainment that openly questioned the motives of their president. Nevertheless, “Fahrenheit 9/11” was ultimately unable to influence enough voters to swing the 2004 election in favor of John Kerry, so its actual value as political propaganda is questionable at best — it probably only served to reinforce the views of the half of the country that already hated Bush by that point. Nonetheless, it did succeed in winning President Bush a Razzie award for Worst Actor, which means that Bush managed to do something better than anyone else that year

And the number one film that tells us about the Bush era in America is …

1. “G.I. Samurai” (Toho, 1979)
While browsing the movies in McCabe freshman year, I discovered this one — a truly bizarre, widely forgotten Japanese samurai movie. Of course, I had to watch it. But the aspect of the film that struck me as strangest was when I learned that it had been remade in 2005. Why, after all these years, would a justifiably obscure samurai movie need a remake? And then it struck me: this film is the perfect parable for the present time. “G.I. Samurai” tells the story of a small group of Japanese forces that invade 16th century Japan. (Don’t ask how they do this; it’s never really clear.) Despite seeming to have the advantage in terms of military technology, they are invading a land about which they know little, for no apparent reason and with no plan for how to win peace, and they go in with far too few forces to do the job. Sound familiar? The analogy gets even better at the end of the movie, when the filmmakers seemingly either ran out of money or were too bored to make a proper ending, and all of the main characters just die anticlimactically. (Sorry if I ruined it for you, but let’s face it, you’re not going to see this movie anyway.) The filmmakers just wanted to get the movie over with at that point. Sort of how the American people feel about Bush.

So there you have it, five films that I feel represent America during the George W. Bush years. As awful as they’ve surely been, at least they’ve inspired a variety of artistic depictions. This, of course, raises a good question: Who are we going to mock now, with Bush gone? Luckily, the farce that was the McCain ’08 campaign leaves us with plenty of material. How long can it really be until we get “Plunge It!: The Joe the Plumber Story?”

Joel is a junior. You can reach him at jswanso1@swarthmore.edu.

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