"Let Lina Sing!"
My daughter loves movie musicals, and recently I thought it would be a treat for her to watch the legendary classic Singin' in the Rain starring Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, Donald O'Connor and Jean Hagen. For the uninitiated, the plot revolves around the halcyon days of cinema when "talkies" first came on the scene and rather accurately chronicles the demise of many screen legends whose voices never rivaled their on-screen personae.
In the picture we are introduced to stunt-turned-leading-man Don Lockwood (Kelly) and platinum-preening-princess of the silver screen Lina Lamont (Hagen). Mysteriously, for what feels like the whole first reel, Lina is given no opportunity to speak to her adoring fans. At the premiere of their latest film, a swashbuckling, Fairbanks-esque affair, Don always makes sure to answer all questions from both press and public.
The cat escapes the proverbial bag, however, when Don and Lina get backstage following the q-n-a session and she screeches, "What's the big idea? Can't a girl get a word in edge-a-wise?" Her shrill timbre reminds the audience of why so many men seek permanent bachelorhood; she is the forebear of valley girl and Springer-speak.
Unfortunately, the distaste doesn't end with her voice. Her manners are as abrasive as her throat. She actively works to suppress the careers of talented and budding actresses and treats everyone as if they were her personal property. Also, she has deluded herself into believing she is some kind of goddess. She goes so far as to inform the head of the movie studio, "People? I ain't people. I am a shimmering glowing star in the cinema firmament." Worse still, the public clamors for her, in spite of her villainy, egomania, and shortcomings, believing only what they see on screen. Sounding familiar yet?
Lina Lamont's comeuppance is slow in coming, but inevitable. The release of The Jazz Singer leaves studios scrambling as the market demands a shift from silent to "talking" pictures. Production is halted on all films as sets will be wired for sound and actors sent to diction coaches. Needless to say, even Rex Harrison would have no luck with Miss Lamont's elocution. The result is a sneak preview of The Dueling Cavalier where a combination of bad acting and various technical faux pas leave the audience howling with laughter and resolving never to see another film featuring Don Lockwood and Lina Lamont.
Crestfallen, Don retires to his Hollywood mansion with Cosmo and new girlfriend Kathy Selden (Reynolds) for cocaine binging, hard liquor and multi-partner dalliances. I mean, cold cut sandwiches, buttermilk and show tunes. These three single-handedly (triple-handedly?) solve all the problems for the ruined film, the movie studio, and even Don Lockwood's career by changing the flop Dueling Cavalier into a musical The Dancing Cavalier and dubbing Kathy's warmer voice over Lina's squawk.
In the end, the film is a huge success, but when Lina discovers that "little miss nobody" has been replacing her dialogue and singing, she once again moves to ruin another budding career. She threatens to sue the studio if any word of her weakness is leaked to the press. Her vanity finally gets the better of her as she demands to give her own post-screening speech and the audience jeers her, demanding to hear her sing live. Don and Cosmo hatch a plan and send Lina out with a microphone to sing the titular song with Kathy singing behind the curtain. Lo and behold, the curtain "accidentally" rises revealing a chagrined voice-over artist and effectively ending the movie career of Lina Lamont. Happily ever after ensues.
If I'm being a bit opaque, here's the sauce:
For at least the last century in the world, and especially the United States, people have been slowly duped into believing that government holds the key to solving their lives' greatest problems. These poor saps scream and cheer for "their" politicians like heartsick teens over Tiger Beat heart-throbs .
Of course, people in government have no qualms about being viewed this way. They believe themselves more than mere mortals, much like Lina Lamont, and have no problem with trampling whomever to ensure their own health, wealth, and glory, while reminding the hoipalloy that if they brought just a little comfort into their humdrum lives then it all "ain't been in vain for nothin'," to quote Lina.
If the government itself is akin to Lina Lamont, then the election of Barack Obama has resulted in the equivalent of Lina Lamont's thank you speech. He is as self-important and blankly self-humorless as any politician in history, but further, he is so solemn in his auto-adulation that he is a parody without ever having to be lampooned. He sees himself as the father of the nation, giving cardigan-clad Ward Cleaver heart-to-hearts to We the Beavers every time we disappoint him.
Best of all, though, his delusion of his own absolute moral superiority, further inflated by the bowing and scraping of television's "box populi," has led the Prime to see himself as that same "shimmering, glowing star" that Lamont believed herself to be. What has resulted is the grandest volume of unilateral movement by any Executive in recent history. From cap-and-trade, to reallocating troops to Afghanistan, to bailouts, to health care "reform," to cash-for-clunkers, Barack Obama has done more to spark the flames of liberty and secession in the minds of Americans through his actions, than Ron Paul was capable of moving with his (very correct) words.
Lina is getting ready to lip-synch and we, the everyday folks who work for a living and whose pockets are picked and whose children are being robbed of any future prosperity, have been ordered to get to the microphone and perpetuate the lie. But the curtain is rising. The cold hard reality is getting ready to wash over the audience as they realize that it wasn't Lina who gave them anything. She just took the bows for our efforts.
The government's voice is clangorous, her solutions universally self-serving, but she has conned the body politic into believing her purpose is pure and her existence life-sustaining. Let us hope that, like Lina Lamont's song, the rest of Barack Obama's term will prove to be her undoing.
