The Best Dramas Ever Made

To deal with the angst of losing my laptop and all its data and the simultaneous boredom produced by my rush-job spreadsheet re-writing, I have turned to my truly excellent "DVD" collection and, specifically, to my collection of fine political dramas. I want to share them with you because, well, you deserve it. May my pain, coupled with my political genius, brighten your pitiful lives.

Figure 1. Delta Tau Chi House - intended, according to Director
Landis and Writers Ramis, Kenney, and Miller, to be a discrete
reference to Descartes

I. Animal House - A commentary on Machiavellian and Hobbesian politics, with a Marxian class-relations theory twist, set satrically on an early 1960s college campus - just before the full blossom of mid-Century American revolutionary and progressive movements. Some scholars have suggested that the chief antagonists are all based on historical figures - Dean Vernon Wormer, for instance, represents (depending upon the analysis) Louis the XVI of France, George the III of the United Kingdom, or Stalin, while Douglas Neidermeyer is manifestly a symbolic manifestation of imperialist lackeys of all variants (see in particular James P. Witherspoon's esssay "Neidermeyer, the Horse, and the Flounder: A Cinematic Analysis of Franco's Spain" in American Sociology) . As to Greg Marmalard, well, the simultaneous reference jelly in his name and his own inability to perform sexually, coupled with his function as a device for and of Dean Wormer can only be described as both Freudian and a commentary on pre-Reformation abuses of the Roman Catholic church.
As to the protaganists? I will only list in brief who they are usually compared with:

1. John 'Bluto' Blutarsky: This character is obviously a realization-in-the-flesh of the ubermensch, not to mention the Romantic archaetype of the heroic, unintentional artist. He has variously been compared with Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Plato, and of course every historically significant messianic figure. A key essay? Simpleton's "Bluto: Liquor, Lincoln, and the American Dream."

2. Eric 'Otter' Stratton: Oration of this level is rare in any genre of art or literature - this magnificent performance is unquestionably a reference to Socrates, though others have compared it to the masterpiece speeches of both Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry.

3. Donald 'Boon' Schoenstein: To quote William A. Reinholt's 1984 article, "Zionism and Animal House,":

Schoenstien is both the archaetypical American and Zionist. "Boon" is, of course, simultaneously "Boone," the trailblazer whose life, fraught with tragedy, assumes higher meaning through tragedy. But furthermore, Boon represents the tragedy of the Jewish people - the diaspora, the repression of the Middle Ages, the Holocaust, on and on - yielding, ultimately, a heroic volkgeist that leads to the establishment of Israel.

Beautiful words.

4. Daniel Simpson 'D-Day' Day: Probably the most unaccountable figure of the piece, D-Day most likely represents the dialectic between imperialism and libertarianism that defines modern, developed, democratic nation-states with their powerful military-intelligence-police establishments and legal systems that enshrine individual rights. Strong arguements, however, have been made asserting that D-Day is, in fact, a sort of Count of Monte Cristo figure, alighting on the scene, creating grand disorder, then disappearing. I am, however, disinclined to agree with that particular interpertation.

5. Robert Hoover: Hoover, the "House's" resident philosopher and fraternity president (read "philosopher-king") is unquestionably intended to represent the fundamental flaws attendent with political-economic schemes that lean too explicitly in idealist bents - Platonism and classical Confucianism, for instance.

To end, I would like to note one key fact - there remains some debate over where fictional Faber College was intended to be. The official line, never mentioned in the movie, is that the institution was the product of Pennsylvanian higher education. Yet, the substantial number of Southern accents throughout the movie, as well as the presence of the Tennesseean flag during the magnificent "trial scene" seem to indicate that this is not, in fact the case. The controversy among members of the academic community is tremendous.

Figure 2. "Droz" and "Gutter," played respectively by Jeremy Piven
and John Favreau, caught amidst one of their dialogues which have been
variously compared to the greatest performances of Shakespeare's
Romeo and Juliet (Mercutio and Romeo) and Christopher Marlow's Dr. Faustus.

II. PCU: This film, set at fictional Port Chester University, Connecticut, requires far less discussion, not for lack of quality, but for lack of ambiguity. PCU is a barely covert reference to the phenomenon of "PC" or "Political Correctness." In essence, it is a classical Marxist analysis of the elite, dominating class (or classes) of all society's propensity to use formal and informal methods of domination, including propaganda (read as both liberal and conservative variations on PC) as methods of dividing the underclasses that they might be more easily exploited. To summarize, consider this Orwellian monologue by Droz:

Ok, now it's true, the majority of students today are so cravenly PC, they wouldn't know a good time if it was sitting on their face, but there's one thing that will always unite us and them. They're young. They may not realize it yet. They've got the same raging hormones, the same self-destructive desire to get boldly trashed and wildly out of control. Look out that window! That's not a protest! That is cry for help! They're begging us . . . please have a party! Feed us drinks! Get us laid! Aahhhhhh!

Touchingly reminiscent of Walt Whitman and Ghandi.

Figure 3. Van Wilder orates on the innate equality of all members
of our species physiologically and essentially, and on how our
worth as men and women can only be judged in terms of our service to the community.

III. Van Wilder: Another masterpiece - MASTERPIECE. Beautifully filmed, scripted, and edited, this film follows in the tradition of Animal House in another manner as well - it perfectly integrates contemporary music with a powerful story so epically that it can only compared with Yankovic's colossal UHF in terms of scope and raw emotion. Moving on.
My first several viewings of this film challenged both my intelligence and my grasp of political literature. I was nearly convinced, if you can believe this, that it was a comedy! Well, luckily I recently read, at my friend Doug's urging, Ayn Rand's Anthem, the libertarian tome which, mirroring Socrates' Allegory of the Cave, powerfully asserts the need for messianic leaders to force, yes force, the illiterate (literally and/or metaphorically) into the light of individualism and, dare I say it, the Weberian Protestant Ethic. Unlike many such works, however, this film grasps the need of the messiah to undergo a traumatic transformation, preparing him for the responsibilities inherent in his or her knowledge of the truth of individual rights and responsibilities.
Furthermore, Taj's exploration of himself and his sexuality, a Freudian correlation of his self-value and successful ego-expressions, is a powerful commentary on psychologically medieval puritanism of American sexual culture. Indeed, Taj's experience has been used by numerous authors as a metaphor for the experiences of minorities in every culture (Issac's "The Pump and the Pimp: Race Relations in New England"), not to mention its prominent role in feminist literature (Crutchfield's magnificent "Alien as Feminine: Feminine as Weak: Weak as Immoral; Van Wilder as a New Melian Dialogue").
As to the incredible symbolism of having the actor who played Eric Stratton in Animal House play Van's father, one must defer to the interpertation of John Hayes of Oxford University, who wrote, "Bringing Eric Stratton in as a representative of the establishment and ego-repression as the means of truly freeing Van Wilder from his own ego-repression can only be seen as groundbreaking. . . the propensity of every generation to rebel and rediscover what makes the individual the key unit of society is contrasted with the horrible truth that eventually every generation establishes, and seeks to enforce, a new puritanism, a new orthodoxy."

To say that tears fill my eyes as this film ends is to lie - I weep.

Further Suggested Viewing: Ferris Bueller's Day Off - A further exploration of Rand's individualist ethos.

Figure 4. Frank "The Tank" Ricard - an advocate of the gradualistic
"evolving" revolution advocated by Adam Smith and, of course, David Ricardo -
essential to the theories of both, however, is that the system
continue to functionfor the betterment of its participants as
a whole, rather than as a plutocracy

IV. Old School: Hedonism, apparently for the sake of hedonism, is in fact a reinterpertation of the themes first explored (in the medium of film) in the masterpiece Fight Club. Modernity's tendency to alienate and isolate is manifest from the beginning of the film - Frank, ultimately "Frank the Tank," one of our everymen, bares this point clearly - he is surrounded by wealth and the accoutrements thereof - a huge wedding with a beautiful, wealthy woman; a conspicuous automobile; indeed, he even defines his days and nights in terms of consumption ("Well, um, actually a pretty nice little Saturday, we're going to go to Home Depot. Yeah, buy some wallpaper, maybe get some flooring, stuff like that. Maybe Bed, Bath, & Beyond, I don't know, I don't know if we'll have enough time.").
Coincidence, a deus ex machina cross-reference of timing and trauma, set off the explosive mix which American consumerism has prepared, and three men begin a revolutionary movement. Variously compared in the popular press to the Freemasons and Illuminati, their fraternity is far more radical - a libertine (or, arguably, anarchist) expression of discontent and rage. When their rebellion is detected by the ruling elite, the result is a standoff that leads them to argue over whether they should opt for violence or merely accept the orthodox paradigm. Instead, reflecting their American discomfort with both terrorism and guerilla tactics, they opt to lead a "revolution from within." Their inevitable victory calls to mind the great bloodless revolutions of the the last fifty years - specifically the collapse of the Soviet empire, the Ukrainian Orange Revolution, and the American Civil Rights Movement.
It should be noted that Frank's "running scenes" were intended by the director to emulate a more violent series of events - specifically the history of Washington's Army of the Potomac. When Frank nakedly runs through the streets of the college town, wearing only green shoes, he represents the chaos of the Valley Forge winter, while his cross-country chase of and ultimate fight with Dean Gordon 'Cheese' Pritchard is reminiscent of the Yorktown campaign. When pressed why he elected to use this imagery, director Todd Phillips stated that he felt Washington's use a guerrilla techniques against conventional targets only demonstrates better than any other historical episode that excessive force in the name of liberty is never an answer, even when force is the only option.


I hope you've enjoyed my informed and brilliant analyses of these movies. Feel free to faun. Please be sure to e-mail me your credit card numbers as soon as possible, that I might buy more DVDs and therefore write more world-changing critical literature.

Cheerio.