Stone takes on reality yet again in ‘W.’
Andrew Chestnut
Editorial Columnist
Josh Brolin as George W. Bush, fourty-third president of the United States, as depicted in Oliver Stone’s “W.”
If there is one thing I know to be absolutely true, it is this: People will believe what they want to believe.
Within this assumption, Oliver Stone’s film “W.” can seem nearly pointless. This unexpectedly serious pseudo-biography intermittently interprets two strains of George W. Bush’s life. The first stage is his early political development (including scenes of whiskey-soaked fraternity hazing at Yale, struggles with alcoholism, family fights and a coming-to-Jesus moment); the second being his administration’s lead-up to the Iraq War.
All the while, W. (Josh Brolin) is depicted as a black sheep in the Bush family, a man driven by an Oedipal urge to live up to the demands of his father and family name. Stone surprisingly treats the character kindly.
W. is portrayed as a spoiled, socially gifted, yet tragically misguided fool used by the malevolent Dick Cheney (Richard Dreyfuss) and Karl Rove (Toby Jones) to achieve an evil agenda of power and Middle East domination. Stone seems to portray Bush as a troubled man with—gasp!—good intentions.
The movie is generally well made, though acting and cinematography are overshadowed in such a politically charged narrative. The real purpose of this movie is unclear (outside of trying to influence the outcome of the current election).
Perhaps we are meant to learn numerous awful truths about the Bush presidency, though this would be totally impossible. Many specific events in the movie can hardly be taken as fact, given how opaque this administration has been and how outspokenly liberal, and therefore biased, is Stone’s perspective.
Did Bush really feel he was personally called by God to be President? Was he really “born again”? Did Dick Cheney really run the country through Bush? Nobody in the world knows any of these things for sure, which means conjecture is largely futile.
Even if Stone could somehow know these things, and even if we could bypass his tremendous lack of objectivity, it wouldn’t matter, because people would only choose to believe these things if they wanted to.
I doubt any undecided citizens will see the film and suddenly decide they don’t approve of the president. However, you can extract some truth and some lessons if you look a little deeper.
Throughout the movie, Stone is careful to show the frightening and unprecedented obsession with which the administration controlled its message to the public. The most notable instance came when it was becoming undeniably clear that no weapons of mass destruction were going to be found in Iraq.
Bush instinctively responded by directing his cohorts to change the message of the war. No longer was it about preventing future terrorist attacks; now it was about spreading the gifts of democracy to the citizens of Iraq.
During Stone’s depiction of the infamous “Mission Accomplished!” declaration onboard an aircraft carrier, a fake news anchor, while babbling about Bush’s contrived militaristic mystique, accidentally utters the movie’s most profound line: “Perception is reality.”
For this administration, what the public thought was always more important than what was actually true. Bush’s regime seemed to operate under the principle that truth was defined by whatever the majority of people believed—or what they could be convinced of—rather than fact itself.
By casting Bush and Rove as conniving producers of artificial truth, as talented marketers of a doomed neo-conservative agenda, as salesmen, Stone attempts to remind us that common understanding does not constitute reality.
By giving us a film loaded with unverifiable (though certainly not impossible) events and speculative characterization, he shows us whatever we “know” is most likely whatever we want to believe.Stone is right; a fact which is simply deplorable.
Remember how the Iraq War was sold to us; remember the fact that it had to be sold in the first place. Recall the administration’s Orwellian language crafted to describe their No Child Left Behind Act (which inherently leaves children behind) and their Clean Air Act (which lowers anti-pollution standards).
If you see the movie, you can take or leave Stone’s pantomimes of Bush-as-alcoholic or Bush-as-troubled-son, but please recognize the power and implications of Stone’s portrayal of Bush-as-marketer. Is Stone’s perception of this president reality? Of course not; how can it be? But we can look to this film as a reminder that reality is not contained in perception.
To write this in this weekly paper is probably to piss against the wind, to row like mad in a flimsy dinghy against an unstoppable current of wishful, blissful stupidity that has swept the country, and the world, onto the doorstep of the apocalypse, but I don’t care, I’ll say it anyway…
Perception is not reality!
Catherine Stahl
Diversions Editor
Fall Fun Fest
Join X-Action and Residence Life for Fall Fun Fest at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 30. Meet at Bellarmine Chapel for some fun Halloween activities.Everyone’s welcome to wear a costume or Halloween colors!
Choral Music
At 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 5, come see the Xavier University Concert Choir and Women’s Chorus perform Leonard Bernstein’s “Chichester Psalms” with local choirs from Cincinnati.
Xavier Xchange
Want to share a great book you’ve read? Looking for a new book? Visit the Xavier Xchange bookshelf on the first floor of the McDonald Library between the computer lab and faculty lounge to swap titles with the Xavier community. It’s free!
Win a free iPod Touch
Who knew it was this easy to win an Apple iPod Touch? Simply pick up a map from the SGA office in GSC 21, color in the map, and submit it before Monday, Nov. 3.
