Review of New Oliver Stone Film “W.”
The Man Who Should Have Been Commissioner: A Political & Baseball View On W.
By David Duhalde
Channel surfing during punditry on a very late Monday night, I found myself watching Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig live on ESPN. He was addressing reporters about the historic, but ultimately inconsequential, decision to suspend 2008 World Series Game Five mid-game. His presence at the press conference, with his wet hair standing up a bit and dressed in a soaked overcoat, was rather lackluster. Reflecting on it, I could not help but wish that George W. Bush was in the commissioner’s shoes instead. Bush’s charm and humor would have been more entertaining to watch than Selig’s dull and dry demeanor.
And Bush’s love of baseball is a constant theme in W., the new film from director Oliver Stone. Short fictional segments portray Bush (both in suit and baseball outfit) looking hopefully for a flyball which he never catches. Movie viewers watch the real parts of baseball in Bush’s life: living in the shadow of his father’s playing days on the best Yale team in history, a seemingly uneventful ownership of the Texas Rangers, and ultimately losing the position of commissioner to Selig. Of all the unfair gains Bush had in life due to privilege, holding the commissionership still should have been one.
Somewhat for him. Mostly for all of us.
Watching the film is painfully awkward. Not because it is bad cinema, but that it drags up contemporary events which we are still not over. As a viewer, I found myself miserably unable to stop thinking about the current election, where we have been under Bush, and what we may soon see. I think we all would have benefited from some more time to reflect on the legacy of Bush at a distance. Likely, one would see him not only as a (terrible) president, but as an unhappy product of his patrician family.
Stone’s brutal portrayal of a troubled relationship between father and son is excruciating to watch and is also the main strength of his film. This oedipal kinship makes Bush Jr. an almost forgivable character in W. It seems that Stone wants to tell Bush Sr. that all he ever had to do was to give his son a mere verbal complement or hug. The movie desires to leave you with the notion that had he and and his father a warmer relationship, George W. Bush would be a happier man – not to mention that some of the disasters of the past eight years would not have happened.
But the catastrophes certainly would not have happened if W. became baseball commissioner. Had he got the gig, he would have been free from his father’s legacy. Leaving politics to little brother Jeb, Bush could have been a personality that even left-wing partisans such as myself could have looked forward to every World Series. I will always partly remember Bush for his sense of humor. Many times we laughed at his expense, but sometimes he could make even an hardened radical chuckle. His charisma (and legacy) would have been better served chumming up the press corps after Game Five. Instead, he misled our country with life-and-death consequences.
What has been done cannot be so easily changed. As we enter the next four years with Barack Obama as president, we should remember Abraham Lincoln’s plea at the end of the Civil War: with liberty towards all, malice towards none. I don’t ask anyone to forgive Bush (nor do I expect him to want your charity), but rather that we focus our energy on the battles that lie ahead. Another powerful theme in W. is the ability for every sinner to mend their ways. So as with Bush, but for the proverbial grace of God, may go us if we are not careful with our values when we are close to power.
Either way, it’s a new day next January. So, people get ready, there’s a train a-coming.
Haven’t seen Stone’s movie yet. Not sure I want to — I’ve had more than enough of the Real W, why would I want to see him at the movies?
I’m not sure what David is trying to say with the Curtis Mayfield quote at the end of his piece, BTW. I don’t think that David means to be as pro-Obama as that quote makes him sound.
For those unfamiliar with “People Get Ready” by Curtis Mayfield, the
spiritual song reference the “coming on the lord.” Mayfield sung: “there
ain’t no room; For the hopeless sinner; Whom would hurt all mankind;
Just to save his own; Have pity on those whose; Chances grow thinner;
For there is no hiding place; Against the kingdom’s throne.” So, Jason, I was referencing the
Christian idea that sinners must mend their ways or else face judgment.
That was addressed in the paragraph above.
I am certainly more pro-Obama than those throwing up their hands acting
as if they never knew he was a centrist and the others ridiculing those
who were excited about his election by calling them “zombies.” Those
leftists sound like the kids who couldn’t get into the party, so they
make fun of those who did. I am excited about the opportunities ahead
that we didn’t have under Bush and wouldn’t have under McCain. Obama
is part, but not all, of why we have new possibilities.
…OK, so you’re critiquing The Onion?