Posted on 03/01/2009 8:23:52 PM PST by KeyLargo
Is Barack Obama "A Face in the Crowd"? By Mark Stuart ELLISON
On Saturday, June 14, I watched the 1957 Elia Kazan film "A Face in the Crowd" on Turner Classic Movies. I had seen most of it before but was strangely drawn to it again. Instinct told me that the movie had special relevance to the 2008 presidential election, although I didn't know exactly how. After a second viewing, I understood. "A Face in the Crowd" is eerily similar to Barack Obama's candidacy. Although I came to this conclusion on my own, I am not the first person to voice this opinion. A video clip listed under "Barack Obama--A Face in the Crowd?" was posted on YouTube on May 3, 2008.
In "A Face in the Crowd," a young Andy Griffith gives a tour de force performance as Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes, a coarse but charming drifter with a gift for song and gab. Local radio reporter Marcia Jeffries (Patricia Neal) discovers Rhodes while broadcasting from an Arkansas jail. Sensing his talent, Marcia gets Rhodes released early and convinces him to be a regular on her show. She unknowingly creates a monster. With his folksy, populist charm, Rhodes meteorically rises in the media, eventually starring in a wildly successful television show in New York City. He also becomes a key adviser to a presidential candidate. A shameless womanizer drunk on his own power, Rhodes has utter contempt for his adoring audience...
Takeaways
Both Barack Obama and the fictional Lonesome Rhodes are larger-than-life figures.
Like Rhodes, Obama possesses phenomenal oratorical skill and animal magnetism.
Cults of personality are largely uncontrollable and shape public opinion for good and ill.
(Excerpt) Read more at associatedcontent.com ...
I Googled both Obama and "A Face in the Crowd" and found the above article.
If you get an opportunity, see the film.
"To his own great surprise, and to the joy and satisfaction of millions of Americans, Lonesome Rhodes rose from the very bottom to a media-driven celebrity and on to a position of remarkable influence and power. In time, the American people virtually clamored for him to step onto the greatest of political stages and shake up the nation."
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/rawfisher/2008/11/the_false_love_of_the_ordinary.html
Vitajex, what you do to me!
‘A Face in the Crowd’
Sounds like Hitler to me, seeing those early photos of him in the crowd.
Free Republic is Vanderbilt ‘44.
“Vitajex, what you do to me!”
Funny isn’t it that fifty years ago an advertising campaign for a snake-oil pill like that would someday become Viagra!
LOL
I’ve seen that movie. Great performance by Griffith. But no, I don’t think it matches Obama. Obama believes his own BS. Rhodes did not. He was cynical, not idealist. Clinton is more of a Rhodes type than Obama.
Lonesome Rhodes:
“This whole country’s just like my flock of sheep! “
“everybody that’s got to jump when somebody else blows the whistle. They don’t know it yet, but they’re all gonna be ‘Fighters for Fuller’. They’re mine! I own ‘em! They think like I do. Only they’re even more stupid than I am, so I gotta think for ‘em. Marcia, you just wait and see. I’m gonna be the power behind the president - and you’ll be the power behind me!”
Great movie! Saw it on one of the cable movie channels (tmc/amc) a few months ago. That said, I only see a thin comparison between the two except for the ending. I think the Kenyan will flame out gloriously just as Ange did in the movie.
It’s Bill Clinton, all the way.
I think the author should know the answer to these questions by now. We at FR knew them all along, but Obama's enablers in the media mostly gave him a pass during the campaign, instead allowing the Obama cult worship to grow and flourish.
I agree.
But, the concept of a media campaign putting an unknown person in a position of massive power I think does fit.
I thought of George Soros when I saw the character - General Haynesworth.
bfl
Whether it’s Obama or not Face in the Crowd was WAY ahead of its time, super visionary. The commercials Andy Grifith does in the movie are exactly like Viagra commercials today.
“You see those stupid morons out there? They cling to their guns and their religion....”
THe other movie analogy that came to my mind was Chance the gardener from “Being There”.
Late last summer we had this discussion on another site when a movie buff brought forward that we should all watch this movie, if we had not seen it yet because this was Obama. I hadn’t seen the movie in many years and it came on Turner Classics not long after and I made a point to watch. It gave me chills... too bad more people didn’t see it and make the connection and take heed before November 4th.
You don’t KNOW Obama doesn’t go home laughing at all of us each and every night.. in fact, I imagine he does.
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