March 11, 2009

Obama at the Movies

TNR's Chris Orr tears apart an Amity Shlaes column that compares Obama to "The Matrix," coming up with some better ideas:

There's the timely anti-utopianism of Watchmen, which would let you take your pick between comparing Obama to a foppish, idealistic mass-murderer or an above-it-all blue god (naked, too!) who's lost touch with human reality. If you were too busy to make it to the multiplex this weekend, you could instead opt for the "human struggle is necessary and we shouldn't leave all our problems to be solved by a paternalistic government" theme of Wall-E (you'll want to gloss over the ecology, obviously); or, if you'd like to impress the die-hards, you could cite the low-key libertarianism of Joss Whedon's (tragically underseen) Serenity. And don't even get me started on the possiblities of the Star Wars saga (tell me you wouldn't love to toss out the phrase "Evil Empire") or "Battlestar Gallactica" or the infinite permutations of Star Trek. But Peter Orzag as Agent Smith? You really, really need to do better than that.

Posted by Stephen Silver at March 11, 2009 04:02 PM
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