//literary & arts//
Spring 2017
Putting on Orange Colored Glasses
David Quintas
Great works of art are timeless. That is to say, they speak to all times. Just like a kaleidoscope, each time we pick them up, they seem to shift and rearrange to reveal some new side of themselves. When examined in different eras, contexts, and stages of life, artistic masterpieces continually speak to the moment in which they are examined. They remain relevant because their insights into humanity continue to dazzle us as strikingly relevant, even prescient.
And while I still believe this to be true, over the past few months, I have found myself wishing it weren’t.
Like many of my fellow patriots, I had been looking forward to not thinking about Donald Trump after November 9th. I stayed up on November 8th, realizing with increasing alarm that this hope would not come to pass. In fact, in the months since those stunning election results, Trump has not only not receded from the public view, he has taken up even more space. We no longer have the luxury of thinking of him as an abstract collection of bombast and Tweets or even of contrasting him with an opponent. Starting January 20th, we have had no choice but to consider the man on his own contradictory terms.
And it’s been exhausting. Trying to keep up with the ever-changing dynamics of his advisors (Bannon’s isolating Kushner! Wait—it's the other way around! Paul Ryan has the President’s complete confidence! Nope—Trump wants him to resign!), attempting to figure out whom we now consider our allies abroad and who feels the same about us, and discerning which of his campaign promises, executive orders, congressional plans, personal vendettas, and early morning Tweeted threats are actually happening is impossible. It has been a lot like what I imagine riding a mechanical bull would be like: you desperately try to stay on, knowing the point is for you to be bucked.
Accordingly, I’ve been turning to pop culture to provide some relief from the all-Trump, all-day reality we now live in. At least one late night host feels similarly to me: in February, Jimmy Kimmel hosted a “Trump Free Tuesday” on his show. Unfortunately for me, I have found that the ability of great films to predict and reflect the times back at us holds just as true as it ever did.
Take what was until recently ranked as the greatest film ever made by Sight and Sound’s poll of reputable critics (Damn you, Vertigo!): Citizen Kane. In a scene midway through the film, the titular newspaper mogul is holed up in his office while his loyal staff waits outside to hear the results of his gubernatorial election campaign. The staff hold a prepared copy of the next day’s edition of Kane’s newspaper, The Daily Inquirer. The headline reads: “KANE ELECTED.” As they learn the true results—an October Surprise of a scandal involving the implosion of Kane’s marriage in the wake of an uncovered extra-marital affair, which was enough to tank his popularity and lose him the election—they sigh and begrudgingly say: “This one,” gesturing to an alternate headline. This other option reads: “FRAUD AT POLLS!”
There is so much of Kane in Trump’s DNA—his garishness, his ambition, his uncanny understanding of the power of his own brand, his admiration of strong-armed dictators (an early scene shows footage of Kane and Hitler side-by-side on a balcony). But this scene in particular—how it maps onto our current President’s inability to accept any loss, from the popular vote and inauguration attendance to how scores of his followers will willingly present “alternative facts” to appease his bloated ego—made my jaw drop. It said in 1941 what we have all seen confirmed in America in 2016-17. If you’re powerful enough, people will say anything you want. I later found out that Citizen Kane is actually among Trump’s favorite films.
Prescient as Citizen Kane is, it deviates from our reality in one crucial respect: Kane lost his election. In this way, another classic film made long before Trump entered the public eye as a real estate mogul, let alone as a presidential possibility, may more accurately capture our national conundrum. The plot of Mel Brooks’s 1969 comedy The Producers (along with his subsequent theatrical and on screen musical adaptations) is simple: two desperate but ambitious theater producers seek to raise funds for a new Broadway musical, put on the worst show ever made, have it close, and—owing no backers any profits—get rich off the extra funds raised. Unfortunately for them, their surefire flop--Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp With Eva and Adolf at Berchtesgaden—becomes an enormous success.
Inspired by a Tweet from the critic Scott Tobias, I have recently been unable to view this conceit as anything other than an allegory for the Trump campaign. Trump’s candidacy seemed sure to fail. I remember watching the first Republican primary debate with my friends, laughing as though it were a comedy sketch. The stakes seemed nonexistent, since he couldn’t win. Could he?
As the months dragged on, it became clear that despite my earlier nonchalance, he could clinch the presidency. Even then, it was hard not to view the Trump campaign as a Producers-like scheme: something so outrageous and offensive, it must be deliberately trying to fail. All the articles and theories in circulation that insisted Trump TV would be launched after November 8th seemed truer and truer with every passing scandal. The problem with guaranteed failures is that audiences are suckers, whether they are at a posh Broadway premier or in an election booth. With every report of Trump’s growing agitation and confusion in the Oval Office, it is hard not to wonder whether, like Brooks’ producers, he overestimated his audience and has ended up well in over his head.
Narcissists are their own self-fulfilling prophecy: they find themselves endlessly fascinating and, as a result, so does everyone else. Trump is no exception. Accordingly, it is only natural that as his power and significance have drastically expanded, so too has his cultural relevancy. It can feel like a limitation of film or art when we see Trump’s orange face reflected back in what feels like every cinematic surface. But the opposite is true. If art were not to comment on contemporary circumstances, it would not be doing its full job. Escapism can only temporarily relieve symptoms; it cannot diagnose the malady. Citizen Kane’s insight into ego and The Producers' understanding of how one man’s failure is another man’s success are essential guides to our current situation. We need more films like them. Thus, for the next several years or so, it may seem as though all roads lead to Mar-a-Lago. As unpleasant as it may sound, sometimes, the only way out is to play through.
And while I still believe this to be true, over the past few months, I have found myself wishing it weren’t.
Like many of my fellow patriots, I had been looking forward to not thinking about Donald Trump after November 9th. I stayed up on November 8th, realizing with increasing alarm that this hope would not come to pass. In fact, in the months since those stunning election results, Trump has not only not receded from the public view, he has taken up even more space. We no longer have the luxury of thinking of him as an abstract collection of bombast and Tweets or even of contrasting him with an opponent. Starting January 20th, we have had no choice but to consider the man on his own contradictory terms.
And it’s been exhausting. Trying to keep up with the ever-changing dynamics of his advisors (Bannon’s isolating Kushner! Wait—it's the other way around! Paul Ryan has the President’s complete confidence! Nope—Trump wants him to resign!), attempting to figure out whom we now consider our allies abroad and who feels the same about us, and discerning which of his campaign promises, executive orders, congressional plans, personal vendettas, and early morning Tweeted threats are actually happening is impossible. It has been a lot like what I imagine riding a mechanical bull would be like: you desperately try to stay on, knowing the point is for you to be bucked.
Accordingly, I’ve been turning to pop culture to provide some relief from the all-Trump, all-day reality we now live in. At least one late night host feels similarly to me: in February, Jimmy Kimmel hosted a “Trump Free Tuesday” on his show. Unfortunately for me, I have found that the ability of great films to predict and reflect the times back at us holds just as true as it ever did.
Take what was until recently ranked as the greatest film ever made by Sight and Sound’s poll of reputable critics (Damn you, Vertigo!): Citizen Kane. In a scene midway through the film, the titular newspaper mogul is holed up in his office while his loyal staff waits outside to hear the results of his gubernatorial election campaign. The staff hold a prepared copy of the next day’s edition of Kane’s newspaper, The Daily Inquirer. The headline reads: “KANE ELECTED.” As they learn the true results—an October Surprise of a scandal involving the implosion of Kane’s marriage in the wake of an uncovered extra-marital affair, which was enough to tank his popularity and lose him the election—they sigh and begrudgingly say: “This one,” gesturing to an alternate headline. This other option reads: “FRAUD AT POLLS!”
There is so much of Kane in Trump’s DNA—his garishness, his ambition, his uncanny understanding of the power of his own brand, his admiration of strong-armed dictators (an early scene shows footage of Kane and Hitler side-by-side on a balcony). But this scene in particular—how it maps onto our current President’s inability to accept any loss, from the popular vote and inauguration attendance to how scores of his followers will willingly present “alternative facts” to appease his bloated ego—made my jaw drop. It said in 1941 what we have all seen confirmed in America in 2016-17. If you’re powerful enough, people will say anything you want. I later found out that Citizen Kane is actually among Trump’s favorite films.
Prescient as Citizen Kane is, it deviates from our reality in one crucial respect: Kane lost his election. In this way, another classic film made long before Trump entered the public eye as a real estate mogul, let alone as a presidential possibility, may more accurately capture our national conundrum. The plot of Mel Brooks’s 1969 comedy The Producers (along with his subsequent theatrical and on screen musical adaptations) is simple: two desperate but ambitious theater producers seek to raise funds for a new Broadway musical, put on the worst show ever made, have it close, and—owing no backers any profits—get rich off the extra funds raised. Unfortunately for them, their surefire flop--Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp With Eva and Adolf at Berchtesgaden—becomes an enormous success.
Inspired by a Tweet from the critic Scott Tobias, I have recently been unable to view this conceit as anything other than an allegory for the Trump campaign. Trump’s candidacy seemed sure to fail. I remember watching the first Republican primary debate with my friends, laughing as though it were a comedy sketch. The stakes seemed nonexistent, since he couldn’t win. Could he?
As the months dragged on, it became clear that despite my earlier nonchalance, he could clinch the presidency. Even then, it was hard not to view the Trump campaign as a Producers-like scheme: something so outrageous and offensive, it must be deliberately trying to fail. All the articles and theories in circulation that insisted Trump TV would be launched after November 8th seemed truer and truer with every passing scandal. The problem with guaranteed failures is that audiences are suckers, whether they are at a posh Broadway premier or in an election booth. With every report of Trump’s growing agitation and confusion in the Oval Office, it is hard not to wonder whether, like Brooks’ producers, he overestimated his audience and has ended up well in over his head.
Narcissists are their own self-fulfilling prophecy: they find themselves endlessly fascinating and, as a result, so does everyone else. Trump is no exception. Accordingly, it is only natural that as his power and significance have drastically expanded, so too has his cultural relevancy. It can feel like a limitation of film or art when we see Trump’s orange face reflected back in what feels like every cinematic surface. But the opposite is true. If art were not to comment on contemporary circumstances, it would not be doing its full job. Escapism can only temporarily relieve symptoms; it cannot diagnose the malady. Citizen Kane’s insight into ego and The Producers' understanding of how one man’s failure is another man’s success are essential guides to our current situation. We need more films like them. Thus, for the next several years or so, it may seem as though all roads lead to Mar-a-Lago. As unpleasant as it may sound, sometimes, the only way out is to play through.
//DAVID QUINTAS is a junior in Columbia College. He can be reached at [email protected]. Movie Still from Citizen Kane (1941).