Colin
Powell is undoubtedly the only African American today who
can gain his party's nomination for president; he can credibly
run a campaign about real problems with commonsense solutions,
and he may have an excellent chance of winning. A Hollywood
screenplay in which a Black might be elected president
would be a welcome sequel to Jonathan Lynn's The
Distinguished Gentleman (1992) in which Congressman Johnson (played by
Eddie Murphy) might parlay his exposure of how Washington
works into an effective campaign for President. Insofar
as the recent film Head of State may be seen as that sequel,
the result is extremely disappointing, carried to a level
of vulgarity that defeats the possibility that the public
will realize that there is an alternative to politics as
usual. The plot hangs on a silly premise, namely, that
one party's candidates for president and vice president
die in separate airplanes that crash each other only weeks
to go before the 2004 presidential election. Senator Bill
Arnot (played by James Rebhorn), who wants to run for president
in 2008, persuades the leaders of the party to replace
the presidential candidate with Mays Gilliam (played by
Chris Rock), a quixotic Washington, DC, alderman who fights
for the people but is gerrymandered ("redlined," according
the film's jargon) out of his district, does not have enough
money to continue renting an office or owning a car, and
even has his bicycle destroyed by a passing bus. Arnot's
aim is to boost his party's minority vote, which looms
larger each year, so that he can win on the coattails of
an unsuccessful minority candidate. At first, the naïve
Gilliam does what he is told by his political consultants,
garnering only about 10 percent support in the polls. In
Chicago, however, he throws away a prepared speech, cites
various injustices, and the audience echoes his campaign
phrase "It Ain't Right!" Gilliam then picks up
support, chooses his more articulate brother Mitch (played
by Bernie Mac), who operates a bailbond business in Chicago,
as his vice presidential running mate, dumps his campaign
advisers (who later beg successfully to return to work
for him, though on his terms), frightens Arnot about the
prospect that his handpicked loser will become President
Gilliam, endures a smear campaign, triumphs in a debate
with the opposing candidate, and wins the election on the
basis of the votes of California (where minorities comprise
the majority). However, there is such a lack of clarity
when Gilliam appears to present real issues that an opportunity
is lost to raise the consciousness of nonvoters to throw
out fat cat incumbents at the polls. Among the issues that
could have been raised with some seriousness are the fact
that too many Americans lack health care insurance and
work two jobs to stay afloat, the money spent on the war
on drugs goes down a rathole, public education is underfinanced,
foreign policy is unilateralist, and in general that poor
people derive little benefit from government compared to
the rich. With a more coherent screenplay, Eddie Murphy
could have made Head of State into a major challenge of
the political status quo. Writer-director Rock instead
demonstrates his ignorance of political realities by settling
for infrequent cheap laughs (not even cheap shots), stereotypic
politicians and their advisers, and a promise that a Head
of State II may feature a President Gilliam as an utter
fool. As in the case of Bulworth (1998), directed by Warren
Beatty, the flippant approach of Head of State to serious
political issues buries the possibility that members of
the public will realize what they must do to save American
democracy from extinction. MH
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