With the passing of Ronald Reagan this weekend the airwaves are quickly becoming saturated with programs summarizing his long career as both an actor and politician -- but none are likely to examine the intersection of the two as effectively as Michael Rogin did in his groundbreaking 1987 essay "Ronald Reagan -- The Movie" (Radical History Review, No. 38), which was republished as Chapter 1 of his book Ronald Reagan, the Movie: and Other Episodes in Political Demonology, about the countersubversive tradition in America.

In his essay, Rogin writes, "'Movies Are Forever,' was the theme of the 1981 Academy Awards. President Ronald Reagan, the first Hollywood actor elevated to the Presidency, was scheduled to welcome the Academy from the White House. 'Film is forever,' the President was to tell the Academy. 'It is the motion picture that tells us not only how we look and sound -- but more important[ly] -- how we feel.' Hollywood movies, Reagan was suggesting, mirror back to us the feelings we see on the screen as if they were our own. As if to confirm the President's faith in the power of film, John W. Hinckley, Jr., imitiating the plot of Taxi Driver, deliberately shot the President on the day of the Academy Awards.

"Millions of Americans experienced the assassination attempt by watching it over and over again on TV. The power of the image to confirm the shooting also allowed Reagan to speak to the Academy the next night as if it had never happened. The television audience watching their screens saw a Hollywood audience watching another screen. One audience saw the other applaud a taped image of a healthy Reagan, while the real President lay in a hospital bed. Reagan was President because of film, hospitalized because of film, and present as image because of film. The shooting climaxed the film's ingestion of reality. In doing so it culminated, in an uncanny way, Reagan's personal project: the creation of a disembodied self that, by rising above real inner conflicts, would reflect back to the President and all the rest of us not only how he looked and sounded but -- more importantly -- how he felt and who he was."

Douglas Kellner picks up on Rogin's thesis in his essay "Presidential Politics: The Movie", which he summarizes as follows: "One can depict the relationship between media and politics from the Kennedy administration to Bush II in terms of the narrative and cinematic spectacle that framed the respective presidency. From this perspective, successful presidencies presented good movies that succeeded in being effective and entertaining in selling a presidency to the public. Failed presidencies, by contrast, can be characterized as bad movies that fashioned a negative public image that bombed with the public and left behind disparaging or indifferent images and reviews of the presidency in question...

"The Reagan Administration was one of the most successful media presidencies and set of political spectacles in history. Michael Rogin has written a book Ronald Reagan, The Movie... that documents the intersection of Reagan's film and political career. Reagan, contrary to some popular misrepresentations, was a top-line A and not B-movie actor. His presidency was scripted to act out and play his presidential role. Reagan rehearsed his lines everyday and generally gave a good performance. Every move was scripted and his media handlers had camera on hand to provide the image, photo opportunity, and political line of the day that they wanted to convey to the media...

"The centrality of media spectacle and political narrative to contemporary politics means that making sense of the current era requires the tools of a critical social theory and cultural studies in order to analyze the images, discourses, events, and narratives of presidential politics. Of course, politics is more than merely narrative, there are real events with material interests and consequences, and often behind the scenes maneuvering that are not part of the public record. Yet publics see presidencies and administrations in terms of narrative and spectacle, so that theorizing the cinematic and narrative nature of contemporary politics can help us understand, critique and transform our political system."

# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 6/07/2004 12:48:00 PM

Comments (1)

 
If A good movie is ever done, Tim Matheson should play President Reagan.
# posted by  Anonymous @ 6/16/2008 9:33 PM  

Post a Comment