
Issue No 5		19 March 1999

Review

Bullworth - Beatty’s Political Rap

By Peter Lewis

Warren Beatty makes some gutsy calls in his new film about a politician who, when all else fails, tries the truth.


	Beatty as Bullworth

A suave suited Senator transformed into a hooded rapper? Sounds the stuff of cartoons only, but Warren Beatty manages to bring this delicious scenario to life in this (mainly) progressive political satire.

Bullworth is a jaded liberal running for re-election to the Californian Senate; sick of the deals, sick of the hypocrisy, sick of having to start every speech with the platitude "we stand at the dawn of a new millennium".

When he makes the decision to hire an assassin to take his own life, he is suddenly infused with the courage and bravado of someone with nothing to lose. He starts telling the truth, admitting to a Negro congregation that the Democrats gave up on them years ago and telling Hollywood studio bosses they make crap movies. Banks, health insurance and oil companies are all in his sights as he brazenly admits who is pulling his strings.

Crossing a line, he plunges himself into the black nightlife, following a trio of young women who sign up after his sermon; he survives the night and enters a new day with rap and rhythm in his sleep-deprived soul.

His new lease of life is short-lived, however, shattered by the knowledge that the assassin is out there somewhere and he must oscillate between the freedom of impending oblivion and the fear that this is now an unwanted fate. But who is the shooter? And what will be their price?

What follows is a rollicking farce, a series of chase scenes linked to set-pieces which flip the normal spin of contemporary politics and asks the question; is this the way the game has to be played? While the thought of Bob Carr in an anorak is too shocking to contemplate, the ideas of injecting real (rather than feigned) passion into political dialogue, having fun with words rather than torturing them and having a go rather than fearing a slip-up have great appeal.

The movie also provides a more than superficial snapshot into the collision between money politics and the Black America which it has so betrayed. While some of the characters' dialogues sometime sound a bit too much like a Politics One tutorial, their very presence in a mainstream flick is a breath of fresh air. When, for instance, was the last time you heard the word "socialism" or saw the media elite outed as such in a mainstream US flick?

Indeed, one of the main positives of this film is the very fact that it was made. As McKenzie Wark argued last week, a major challenge for progressive politics is to establish a foothold in popular culture. This is Hollywood and perhaps only a star of Beatty's celebrity could ever get this sort of project up.

Yet, within the strengths of this film also lie its weaknesses.

The betrayal of black people is ultimately, stereotypical; with the characters being idealised when they could have been understood. Beatty's adoption of rap lingo is cringe material, as if rhyming the slang is all there is to it. How would black Americans really feel about a member of the Establishment appropriating their form of expression and protest? Worse, the transformation of gangsters to 'good' citizens is predictably inspired by the white hero, undoing any messages of self-empowerment which may have been intended.

And Hollywood being Hollywood (and Beatty being Beatty) the film sadly lapses into schmaltz in its dying scenes; a few well-chosen words is all it takes to get the beautiful young black activist to fall for the great white middle-aged leader. At the end of the day, it is still the dominant culture which prevails and while Bullworth has been humanised he is still a Hollywood hero and the bit players still know that they can only exist on his periphery.

Whilst it is a courageous call for a privileged filmmaker to go on the line against the various forms of power and establishment including his own entertainment industry, it is sad, though predictable, that his own ego ultimately ends up taking centre stage.

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Issue 5 contents

Interview: Towards An Information International
FIET general secretary Phillip Jennings talks about the development of the Union Network International and its potential to organise globally.

Unions: The Integral Price of Loyalty
Workers at Integral Energy are asking for their share of the fruits of power reform.

History: A Very Public History
Historian Ray Markey and Public Service Association General Secretary Janet Good take a look at the union’s first 100 years.

Review: Bullworth - Beatty’s Political Rap
Warren Beatty makes some gutsy calls in his new film about a politician who, when all else fails, tries the truth.

Campaign Diary: The Ultimate Punt
As the leaders slug it through the final weeks of the campaign, the armchair critics get their chance to work their pet election theories.

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