Sometimes Hollywood produces a movie so utterly insane that you have to wonder whether it’s really not some sort of NEA-funded, meta commentary/performance art piece designed to fool the squares out in flyover country.
I don’t know if “The Obama Effect” is such a movie; all I can say is, for the sake of all involved, that I hope that’s the case.
“The Obama Effect” is directed by, and stars, Charles S. Dutton, the spherical actor best known as one of the people who screwed up the Alien franchise with his performance in “Alien3.” From the utterly unhinged trailer, this flick is not going to earn him my forgiveness.The express madness of the trailer is matched only by the bizarre political contentions and assumptions implied within its 2:31 minute running time.
This thing is simply nuts, but it’s an important kind of nuts because it provides us a window into the swirling minds of those on the other side who really believe this idiocy. And it’s important to understand their ideas, their thoughts and their feelings. No, not so we can come together in unity but so that we can use that understanding to more effectively mock them and defeat and destroy their hideous progressive dreams.
With that, let’s examine the liberal fever dream that is the trailer for “The Obama Effect” …
The trailer begins some stock footage of Obama, then a production company logo for – seriously – “Bro Distribution.” It’s the first of many troubling clichés, tropes and stereotypes that would get a conservative pummeled if he put it on film. But then, these are the folks who lionized noted KKK kleagle (or was it Imperial Cyclops?) Robert Byrd because he was a Democrat, so I guess they’re exempt.
It’s 2008. Dutton, his mouth full, says “The country can’t stand another four years of a Republican” and promptly vapor locks. Gee, I guess God really is a conservative.
He then wakes up in the hospital, where his hot wife – note that Dutton looks like he never met a meal he didn’t inhale – leans in and says, angrily, “A heart attack, John?” as if his myocardial infarction was part of some carefully developed plot against her.
Next, Dutton wonders how to “get back on the path,” to which a sage elderly woman who reminds us of the stock elderly, magical black woman in pretty much every hack liberal film, tells him “you just keep following the blueprint the Lord puts in front of you.”
The blueprint, we learn in the next shot as Dutton watches more stock footage of yet another Obama speech about nothing, has to do with getting him elected. Yep, apparently God is now a liberal. I thought it was only those terrible conservatives who thought God was on their side, but in this case, it’s cool to have God on your side – another manifestation of the Byrd Bizarro Rule.
You have to wonder at director Dutton’s choices in this scene – as he watches Obama, his eyes widen and he gets this smile on his face that you could imagine him showing to his conservative victim below in his pit as he lowers a basket and orders, “It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.”
Thankfully, he does not perform a “tuck dance.”
Then we see a montage of Dutton exhorting people to “make history!” while dressed in an Obama hat, Obama cowboy boots and a suit coat with a picture of Obama’s face sewn onto it. He looks like he should be making balloon animals at birthday parties for pinko pre-teens with low expectations. He’s clearly the kind of rational, sophisticated political thinker I’d look to if I was on the fence. Yeah, the guy with “Hope” and “Change” bedazzled onto the legs of his Dockers – that’s the dude I’ll be listening to come election time.
Next, his wife, having apparently forgiven him for deliberately suffering a heart attack, pleads with him to leave a few square feet of wall in their house unObama-cized. It’s the interior design implications that bother her, not the fact that her husband has clearly lost his mind.
Then we see him, in full Obama get up, inside an all-black beauty salon making the case to a skeptical group of black women not to be “on the wrong side of history.” Yeah, that sounds like a pretty tough crowd for that message – I mean, McCain had a lock on the middle aged black woman demo.
Next, he chases his undecided Latino neighbor around, pestering him to vote for Obama too. The Latino guy looks like he gets his clothes at “Cholo Clichés-R-Us” and takes hair style hints from Danny Trejo.Then we see Dutton – sans Obama gear – offering his letter of resignation to his white boss, who seems like he probably wears a monocle as he lights macanudos with the burning savings bonds he stole from orphans.
We don’t see exactly why he quit, but Dutton announces that “some things are worth quitting your job over.” The implication is that The Man refused to let him come to work dressed like a freaking lunatic. Yeah, fight the power!
But, actually, it puts Dutton’s character ahead of the power curve for the Obama administration – he’s already getting a head start on unemployment! Record scratch! Yes, literally, there’s a record scratch sound effect. It’s like they convened a council of renowned cliché experts to make sure they didn’t miss any.
Dutton (again dressed like a bumper sticker) and wifey are in a nice restaurant as she reacts to him quitting his job by asking “have you lost your mind” followed by the N-Word. Yeah, nothing like a hateful, wicked epithet to lighten the mood! Dutton then explains the outburst to the horrified. It’s agonizing. And it gets more insane.
Now Dutton has to borrow money from his wife’s rich nephew.
That’s going to be tough, because the nephew is a member of a key GOP constituency: Black Republican gangster rappers. Yeah. Seriously.Then there’s another montage, including him driving his Obamacized minivan around and reassuring folks that “anybody who’s with the Obama campaign is going to be all right.”
The peril they face is left unexplained – perhaps they are at risk of being hugged to death by adoring crowds of mainstream media reporters.Then it gets real for a minute, as another guy explains to Dutton that “A black man is running for president and, because of my record, I can’t vote.”
Yeah, convict, because you were a criminal, you don’t get to vote. Here’s an idea … if you’re so committed to hope and change, maybe you shouldn’t commit crimes.
Then, for some reason, we see the black Republican gangster rapper in bed with six hot women. I’m not sure Dutton has really thought through the message he’s sending here, but it seems to me that “The Obama Effect” is telling us that if you vote for Obama you end up unemployed and acting like a nut, while if you vote GOP you end up rich and nailing hot tramps.
This is what George Will has been saying for years.
Then it gets real again as Dutton examines a picture of Obama juxtaposed with a photo of the horribly scarred back of a slave. Again, there’s kind of a message problem. Which party was the one that freed the slaves, and which one founded the KKK and even allowed a KKK kleagle (or was it Exalted Cyclops?) to still serve as an iconic senator in this century?The Byrd Bizarro Rule remains in full effect.
Then we see Dutton giving an Obama impersonator the address of the White house, probably in case he gets lost on the way back from the golf course. It ends with the black Republican gangster rapper observing “That was very white of you.” Classy!
So, in just two minutes 31 seconds, Dutton manages to turn history 180 degrees, run through panoply of minstrel show stereotypes and clichés, invoke the Lord, and unintentionally make being Republican look pretty damn badass.Yeah, it’s a disaster, just like the real Obama Effect.
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