Thursday, March 4, 2010

The Imperial Presidency

Ed Driscoll has a fascinating post featuring a video that discusses a movie made in 1933, Gabriel Over the White House. The movie describes the miraculous transformation of a mediocre president into a dynamo of activism, and is an interesting cinematic treatment of a cult-like leader.

The troubling thing about the film, however, is that it is a celebration of what is, in fact, a dictatorship; it is probably no coincidence that it was released in the months after FDR's election to a first term. Watch the video.



Of course, this is just a matter involving film history, of no relevance to our contemporary political world.

Update: Of no relevance whatsoever.

5 comments:

  1. A cult, indeed. And O!bama is lapping it up -- he loves it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You 'Murricans may not realise the scope of the dictatorship.
    I live about 9000 miles from Washington DC.
    But this propaganda arrived in the mail with my power bill a few days ago.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Skeeter: Honestly, we had no idea he wanted to take over the world. We apologize.

    ReplyDelete
  4. You might check Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism" for another treatment of this.

    Cheers

    ReplyDelete