Reflections on ‘Bulworth’
and Presidential Politics, 2000
By
Johnie H. Scott
(WAVE Newspapers, Wednesday, April 5, 2000)
There have been any number of major motion pictures made over the years where politics has been the subject with films like The Candidate and True Colors only being the latest. Three films, however, stand head and shoulders above the rest: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington starring Jimmy Stewart, The Distinguished Gentleman with Eddie Murphy, and Warren Beatty’s Bulworth. In Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) , the late Jimmy Stewart was featured in arguably his best work: this being the tale of a political innocent elected to office hoping to bring about some modicum of change in a venal system. Mr. Smith, our typical small-town hick (as though hicks can’t be found in the larger metropolitan areas), soon learns just how ruthless the nation’s capital can be with the politically naïve.
From Eddie Murphy’s Beverly Hills Cop (1984) money machine series where he plays smart-cracking Detroit cop Axel Foley on through his refashioning of Jerry Lewis’ work with the fantastical Klumps of The Nutty Professor (1996), we have seen a comic genius at work. That genius is extended in The Distinguished Gentleman (1992). Here, Murphy plays Thomas Jefferson Johnson, a small-time grifter who has set his sights on Con Man Heaven: Washington, D.C. Little does this con artist know that, once in the nation’s capitol, Big Money will come in ways he only dreamed of, but with a very steep price tag!
For this confidence man-turned-politico, the answer to those sleepless nights brought on by a troubled conscience is personal integrity. As a commentary on the National Enquirer feeding-bag that Washington has become of late, dealing with integrity can be an agonizing ordeal. Murphy’s character slowly, but certainly, must decide just how much is enough? He has to answer the question of when does the individual stop and say, “I am not for sale”?
What makes The Distinguished Gentleman worth discussing is that we have an African American cast in the leading role, calling the shots that all revolve around questions of moral decency and character. This alone is quite a distance from those scurrilous images of Blacks elected to Congress as depicted by D.W. Griffith in The Birth of a Nation (1915).
Griffith gave the world images of Black politicians swilling gin and eating fried chicken on the floors of Congress, leering at white visitors, especially white women, standing in the balcony who faint at the raucous bedlam greeting their eyes. The message in Birth of a Nation can be neatly summarized as follows: If African Americans are not responsible human beings in the first place (which is why it was a mistake for the North to engage the South in the Civil War!), then you clearly should not and cannot expect them to be trustworthy public servants.
Bulworth (1998), however, ranks as my favorite film when it comes to giving our political system the hard look it deserves. Senator Bullworth (brilliantly played by Beatty) has no morals whatsoever. We see the Senator at a political fund-raising party in one of the tony sections of West Los Angeles. While there, he attracts the attentions of three good-looking young Black women who take Bulworth “into the Hood” – Compton, no less.
While in Compton, this Bulworth goes through a complete transformation: in speech, clothing, attitudes and, most important of all, values. Bulworth leaves Compton – the ‘hood that gave us NWA – speaking a combination of Ebonics and hip hop, wearing baggy pants, baseball cap reversed, “Loc” shades, turning around the previously clean-shave, glib, power-suited fund-raised who would get in the bed with anyone for a vote. Get the picture?
The greatest transformation Bulworth undergoes, however, is found neither in his affected Black English (which, by the way, deracts from the serious discussion that Ebonics deserves) or hip hop gear. Rather, we see how that one night spent in a Compton gambling shack (as the old folks used to call them) and coming-out into the light of day has given the Senator courage to finally speak up and speak out: to speak truth, if you will, to power. And it is this newfound courage that will cost Bulworth, ultimately, life as he has known it.
Fast forward with me now to the Little Rock, Arkansas of March 24, 2000 in real-time and one of the most infamous high schools in America, Central High; the scene in1957 for then-Governor Orville E. Faubus calling out that state’s National Guard on September 2ndwith this being the night before school was to begin. The Governor’s orders to the Guard: surround Central High and stop history from taking place.
Faubus was attempting to block nine African American high schoolers from entering Central High. These students now have their names etched in the American memory as the Little Rock Nine: Ernest Green, Elizabeth Eckford, Jefferson Thomas, Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls, Minnijean Brown, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Thelma Mothershed and Melba Patillo Beals. A federal judge granted an injunction against Faubus’s using National Guard troops to prevent integration. The troops were withdrawn on September 20th, but the damage had already been done.
Dwight
D. Eisenhower Calls in the 101st Airborne
When school resumed on Monday, September 23rd,more than 1,000 people gathered in front of Central High. Those nine students, although under police escort, were moving targets for this mob which challenged the police and surged towards the school with shouts and threats of violence directed at those Black kids. Little Rock’s Mayor, Woodrow Mann, and U.S. Rep. Brook Hays asked the federal government for help. President Dwight D. Eisenhower responded by ordering 1,000 members of the 101st Airborne Infantry of the United States Army into Central High to shield the Little Rock Nine while they attended classes.
Eisenhower also federalized the entire Arkansas National Guard, taking it away from Faubus. I was eleven years old when this happened, a sixth grader more than 1,500 miles away at 102nd Street Elementary School in Watts. Even now, it’s easy to remember the strong emotions roiling through my heart, the feelings shared with family members, neighbors and friends as we gathered together, held one another in tight hugs, and watched those nine African American high schoolers walk bravely through the worse kind of gauntlet simply to go to school.
Their courage contributed to changing the way edcation had been conducted in the South. Their courage helped set the tone for the Civil Rights Movement to come in the months and years ahead. Their spirit, not coincidentally, gave gaining an education new importance for Black youth nationwide. It certainly did so for me.
Now, what does Central High and the Little Rock Nine have in common with Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Distinguished Gentleman, and Bulworth? With “Word Up!,” I can and will sound the alarm when something that is not quite kosher is going down.
On March 24th of this year, presidential hopeful and current Texas governor George Bush visited that same Central High. The Republican’s purpose was to sell his educational program: not to the administration, faculty, staff, and student body of Central High but, instead, to the nation. His campaign staffers certainly picked a location loaded with symbolic value, particularly with education is concerned.
What they failed to take into account
was the seriousness of the issues that affect Central High and, by extension,
all of Black America.
Posed with tough questions from an audience grown tired of glib retorts and quick-fix solutions, what seemed a golden photo opportunity soon developed into something else for George Bush: something totally unexpected, or what they call in substance abusers circles a “moment of clarity.”
For the moment, let it be enough to say this Presidential Election Year 2000 will not be decided on photo opportunities.
(This column has been edited and revised from the original that was published by the WAVE Newspapers. It includes links identified and embedded by the author)