That's Showbiz
October 16, 2003

I know a lot about bad movies; I've seen enough of them. But I never thought I'd be living in one. Until now. Welcome to Arnold Schwarzenegger's California.

Californians can no longer tell the difference between real life and entertainment.

I blame TV reality shows, where the lines are constantly blurred between what is staged and what is—quote—real, between scripted and spontaneous, between "innocent" white lies and horrendous manipulation. It all began back in the Dark Ages with Candid Camera. Allen Funt and his crew of merry pranksters would set up absurd situations with onscreen actors to trick innocent bystanders into making utter fools of themselves on national TV. Hey, it was all in fun! And the public ate it up.

Flash-forward to the present, and the public still can't get enough of shows like Survivor, or Temptation Island. Viewers can't wait for participants to kick one of their members off the island, or betray their partners while the cameras roll. Have you seen the ads for The Next Joe Millionaire: An International Affair? Some beefy blond American kid is set up in a European mansion while a bunch of fluffy women with foreign accents are told he's filthy rich and invited to vie for his affections. You can almost hear the announcer's smirking voice: What these women don't know is our "millionaire" is actually a poor schmuck from Sheboygan! Tee-hee!

Watching the recall race on TV, I keep waiting for the announcer to say, What these voters don't know is our "candidate" is actually an actor with a fading movie career who just wants to be more famous! So where's this Funt guy when you really need him?

With the skill of Allen Funt, the GOP—the same folks who brought you the Iraqi war and the plummeting economy—has set up an actor in an absurd situation and induced the people of California to do something really stupid. Just like a scene from another movie, California voters have declared they are mad as hell, and not going to take it any more. What exactly they're mad about, and what they're no longer going to take are as nebulous as Arnold's campaign platform. Somehow, mega-millionaire Arnold is perceived as a populist candidate who will restore power to the people.

But electing Arnold is not taking back the government. The people of California have no more power now than they did last week. But Arnold does. And Arnold is a man who admires power. His political heroes may be Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon—not exactly anyone's idea of salt-of-the-earth populists—but he has publicly expressed admiration of the way Adolf Hitler rose from nothing to a position of incredible power. And let us not forget that Hitler secured that power on the backs of disgruntled young and/or midlife white men who felt neglected by the system. The same constituency that pays good money to see Arnold's movies and voted him into the governor's mansion.

Oh, stop: I'm not saying Schwarzenegger is a Nazi. It wouldn't even matter (much) if he was, because Shwarzenegger will not be running the state. Like George W. Bush, whose governorship and presidency were similarly purchased for him, Arnold is a figurehead for the Republican Party, which has had a burr up its collective butt about California ever since we failed to return a majority vote for Bush in the so-called 2000 election. To paraphrase a joke from a Woody Allen movie, the GOP is dying to do to California what Arnold wanted to do to all those women he allegedly groped, spanked, and fondled. And a majority of Californians, mad as hell about something or other, have obediently delivered the state into its grasping, meaty paws. Oh, well, that's showbiz.

Of course it never would have happened if Santa Cruzans were running the show. In Santa Cruz, the recall was soundly defeated, and Cruz Bustamante—a man with at least some hands-on political experience—would have been the replacement governor of choice, if such were necessary. Yet another reason why I would never live anywhere else in the state, let alone the country. As Clark Gable once exulted in one of his movies, "God, I love this burgh!"

As actor figureheads go, Gable had the right image for a political leader: tough, tender, a bit of a scalawag at heart but always looking out for the little guy. In Hollywood's Golden Age, political leaders were always played by decent, respectable actors like Henry Fonda and Jimmy Stewart and Gary Cooper, men of integrity attempting to find compassionate solutions without compromising their principles. More recently, actors like Martin Sheen and Jeff Bridges have taken those roles, thoughtful men determined to do the right thing.

Schwarzenegger has never even played that kind of role onscreen, let alone in real life. Arnold is most famout as an action movie hero who thinks with his fists, mows down opponents with an arsenal of firepower and asks questions later (if at all), while mouthing catchy scripted phrases like "Hasta la vista, baby." (Uttered just last week on the campaign trail.) Schwarzenegger's most famous role in the three Terminator movies is a robot from the future.
Guess what? The future is now.

(Lisa Jensen is taking a nap until 2006. Leave her a message at lisajensen@sbcglobal.net)