Media scribes in both Canada and the United States are missing the point in the brouhaha following the news that the Oscar-winning film “Argo” came nowhere near telling the truth in the real-life story of the six American embassy workers’ harrowing 1980 escape from Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran.
The real problem goes much further than the CIA getting the credit for what, in reality, belongs to mastermind former Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor, who made the six embassy workers house guests until their safe escape could be made a reality.
Most adults expect Hollywood to throw “based on a true story” in the opening credits of their movies before going on to debase and slaughter the truth.
The current problem with Hollywood movies is that latter day politicians sometimes include them to advance the Big Lie. There is no “based on a true story” happening in the politics of the day and thus far no happy endings either.
With the bald truth of the fiscal cliff still playing out in congress, politicians transferred Abraham Lincoln’s hard-earned bipartisanship skills to President Barack Obama after watching Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln”.
The film went on to become a kind of nursery school for politicians ducking work for an afternoon at the movies.
The Senate took an official recess from floor debate for a few hours to screen the movie “Lincoln” in the Capitol Visitors Center within the Capitol complex, on Dec. 19. A special screening was also watched by senator’s wives.
“Appearing with director Steven Spielberg and actor Daniel Day-Lewis on Capitol Hill this evening, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said that he hopes the message of the movie will resonate with senators and the American people.” (ABC News, Dec. 19, 2012).
“I hope everybody who shared his anti-political mood will go out there and see Lincoln. The movie portrays a nobility of politics in exactly the right way,” he said.
“Because even senators need snacks, a special waiver was granted by the Senate Rules Committee to allow popcorn in for the screening.”
Popcorn and fluff are part of being a senator, but Canadian Members of Parliament had their own private viewing of the Spielberg film, too.
If politicians are admittedly learning the values of bipartisanship from the movies, what else are they getting from them?
In other words, politicians count on Hollywood movies to learn how to conduct themselves. In this case, it was watching British actor Daniel Day-Lewis play Honest Abe.
Only radio talk show giant Rush Limbaugh found it somewhat grotesque that First Lady Michelle Obama, whose husband the president has kept a cover up on the Benghazi tragedy since Sept. 11, 2012, would be the one to present the Oscar for Best Picture to “Argo”.
You can be anyone you want in the movies and only do harm to young people led to believe in false Hollywood heroes.
But politicians watching Lincoln, on the silver screen, have as much hope as being like Honest Abe as they have in learning the art of bipartisanship.
Meanwhile, media scribes, now describing those disappointed in there being no truth in “Argo” as “whiners” and giving voice to commenters branding Americans as cowardly, have missed the point that the real drama of life is happening daily out on the streets and the drama of real life up on the silver screen is the pretend world copied by so many of today’s feckless politicians.
Judi McLeod——Bio and Archives
-- Judi McLeod, Founder, Owner and Editor of Canada Free Press, is an award-winning journalist with more than 30 years’ experience in the print and online media. A former Toronto Sun columnist, she also worked for the Kingston Whig Standard. Her work has appeared throughout the ‘Net, including on Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.
