So Friday night, Row, Kate, Bree, Scott and I watched Love Actually. There's a scene in the movie where the U.S. President meets with the Prime Minister of England and ends up making moves on the Prime Minister's love interest right before the press conference. Hugh Grant, the Prime Minister, saw what he was doing and didn't approve. This is how the press conference proceeded:
Press Conference Reporter: Mr. President, has it been a good visit?
The President: Very satisfactory indeed. We got what we came for, and our special relationship is still very special.
Press Conference Reporter: Prime Minister?
Prime Minister: I love that word "relationship." Covers all manner of sins, doesn't it? I fear that this has become a bad relationship; a relationship based on the President taking exactly what he wants and casually ignoring all those things that really matter to, erm... Britain. We may be a small country, but we're a great one, too. The country of Shakespeare, Churchill, the Beatles, Sean Connery, Harry Potter. David Beckham's right foot. David Beckham's left foot, come to that. And a friend who bullies us is no longer a friend. And since bullies only respond to strength, from now onward I will be prepared to be much stronger. And the President should be prepared for that.
After seeing this scene, Rowland and I were contemplating the effect this speech would have in world politics if it were real life. How would the U.S. public and English public react to this? Most likely the U.S. would take this poorly and the American media would portray the British as the new enemy and half of the British population would consider the Prime Minister as a dumb...butt and the other half would probably praise the prime minister for finally standing up to the U.S. The last lines, "I will be prepared to be much stronger. And the President should be prepared for that" makes me think that there may be an impending war against England and the U.S., whether it be a real war or a cold war, either way, knowing the United States' media, the Prime Minister's words wouldn't be taken well.
When I first saw this movie, I cheered for the British, like everyone else in the movie, however, this time when I watched the movie, I couldn't help but be frustrated with the Prime Minister for practically severing US/UK relations in such a public manner. Although it wouldn't have the same effect on the plot of the movie, Hugh Grant should have worked out his differences with Billy Bob Thornton, the U.S. president, in private without the media so that the issue wouldn't be that of world politics, but rather that Billy Bob Thornton understand that Hugh Grant called dibs on the chick and that its not ok to me a womanizing politician.
So, the real point of this post is that Love Actually is one of my favorite movies of all time and, thanks to World Politics, now I have a compulsive need to question the political implications of the goings on in chick flicks.
I totally agree with you Dhea on your assessment of the Prime Minister's speech and the reactions. What it made me think of was how much of world politics ends up being over personal issues. Not that I think every leader of a country has some scandoulous love affair, (although our congress has certainly shown otherwise)we are all human and sometimes alot of subjectivity probably makes its way into decisions.
ReplyDeleteWhere does this subjectivity come from? Maybe not a contest over a white house aide (one would hope Bill Clinton) but possibly from a dislike for another leader. For example Hugo Chavez recently said he severed ties with Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos because he was "crazy" and he could no longer talk with someone as crazy as him.
So I would hope that leaders keep their personal lives out of decisions affecting millions of people, but who knows, history and chick flicks have shown otherwise. If anything there will be plenty of good gossip and drama to talk about in the future.
I definetely agree with both of your points; I had never really thought about that scene in the scheme of World Politics before. I was just always cheering for the Prime Minister to be with the girl who works in Downing Street. But I wonder if the whole thing is also trying to humanize politicians in general. The US president is viewed as pretty much the most powerful and respected political figure in the world, and this movie portreyed him as a womanizing jerk, while it portreyed the Prime Minister as a nice man who likes to dance down the stairs of 10 downing street backwards.
ReplyDeleteSure, alot of it is political satire, but I wonder if the director was not trying to also tell us that sometimes we need to give our political leaders a break. Everyone is jumping on President Obama's back because the economy hasn't shown an upward turn yet, even though he cant just wave his hand and make things alright again. The job is hard enough without people resenting him for not fixing things he cant fix. Tony Blair was pretty much chased out of office because the British public did not like the way things were going in Afghanistan and Iraq, but he couldn't wave his hand and end a war. Maybe that's what the director was really getting at.