A brief political video I
Sep. 6th, 2006 12:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackScene: A packed auditorium. On stage, George Bush stands at a podium, gesticulating emphatically. The audience can obviously hear his speach, but to us it's relatively muted, generally drowned out by background noise and rustling from the audience, and any other dialog which comes at a normal volume. The camera mostly focuses on the stage, showing Bush to one side and the other people talking, but cuts to individual shots, and to the audience as appropriate.
Bush: ...an unrelenting terrorist threat from an international network of Islamic radicals...
Cheney: Something's wrong.
Bush (growing ever more vehement, and waving his arms faster and faster): ... Bin Laden! Bin Laden! Osama bloody ...
Cheney: He's out of control! We're heading toward a meltdown.
Bush: ... Osama is evil! (His voice starts to fade back in, starting to fill the room) Evil! Like Jack the Ripper! He killed people without remorse, like him! His country must be obliterated, like Jack's...
Cheney: BUSH, no!
Bush: No, not him. Someone worse. As evil as...
Male audience member: Marx?
Female audience member: Nagaski?
Secret service guard: Schicklgruber?
Cheney: Oh no, we're heading for a Godwin situation!
Bush: .. Hitler! (He has slowed down and is smiling faintly. His voice is at full volume, but he's speaking softly) Osama is Hitler.
Cheney (to guards): Get them out of here!
Audience: sounds of panic, people trying to leave their seats.
Bush: (Now loudly) Hitler! Hitler! Hitler! HITLER! H - I - T - L - E - R ! Hitler!
Cheney and the people near him flee backstage. The guards wade into the audience, pushing and shoving them toward the exit. The camera cuts back to Bush. He starts yelling, and jumping up and down. He gets faster and faster, until he starts to blur, and smoke starts coming off him. The camera pans back to show the auditorium. One of the guards at the back of the crowd looks back and shouts.
Secret service guard #1: Too late!
Young audience member of indeterminate gender: Aaah! Autogodwination, mummy. (S/he cries.) I'm SCARED.
Secret service guard #2: Down! Everyone down.
The second guard forces a couple of people down behind rows of seats. The child's mother dives on her. People everywhere are diving for cover, apart from a few near the door who throw themselves round it.
Bush jumps in the air, yelling "Hitler", and explodes. A dull thump comes from the TV, and a flash covers the screen. As it clears you see the room shattered, debris rianing on the remains of seats. A red blotch stains the stage. The camera rises into the air to show a circular area of buildings flattened.
One of the guards levers himself awkwardly up on his elbows and stares back at the stage in awe.
Secret service guard: Can anyone see Cheney?
Bush: ...an unrelenting terrorist threat from an international network of Islamic radicals...
Cheney: Something's wrong.
Bush (growing ever more vehement, and waving his arms faster and faster): ... Bin Laden! Bin Laden! Osama bloody ...
Cheney: He's out of control! We're heading toward a meltdown.
Bush: ... Osama is evil! (His voice starts to fade back in, starting to fill the room) Evil! Like Jack the Ripper! He killed people without remorse, like him! His country must be obliterated, like Jack's...
Cheney: BUSH, no!
Bush: No, not him. Someone worse. As evil as...
Male audience member: Marx?
Female audience member: Nagaski?
Secret service guard: Schicklgruber?
Cheney: Oh no, we're heading for a Godwin situation!
Bush: .. Hitler! (He has slowed down and is smiling faintly. His voice is at full volume, but he's speaking softly) Osama is Hitler.
Cheney (to guards): Get them out of here!
Audience: sounds of panic, people trying to leave their seats.
Bush: (Now loudly) Hitler! Hitler! Hitler! HITLER! H - I - T - L - E - R ! Hitler!
Cheney and the people near him flee backstage. The guards wade into the audience, pushing and shoving them toward the exit. The camera cuts back to Bush. He starts yelling, and jumping up and down. He gets faster and faster, until he starts to blur, and smoke starts coming off him. The camera pans back to show the auditorium. One of the guards at the back of the crowd looks back and shouts.
Secret service guard #1: Too late!
Young audience member of indeterminate gender: Aaah! Autogodwination, mummy. (S/he cries.) I'm SCARED.
Secret service guard #2: Down! Everyone down.
The second guard forces a couple of people down behind rows of seats. The child's mother dives on her. People everywhere are diving for cover, apart from a few near the door who throw themselves round it.
Bush jumps in the air, yelling "Hitler", and explodes. A dull thump comes from the TV, and a flash covers the screen. As it clears you see the room shattered, debris rianing on the remains of seats. A red blotch stains the stage. The camera rises into the air to show a circular area of buildings flattened.
One of the guards levers himself awkwardly up on his elbows and stares back at the stage in awe.
Secret service guard: Can anyone see Cheney?
Author's notes
Date: 2006-09-06 12:24 pm (UTC)There's no deep political points. The idea of Bush Godwinating aka spectacularly imploding, arrived whole in my head and was really funny, and the screenplay seemed the right medium for it. It could be taken as a metaphor that his political career is imploding from this point, in which case it would be decent satire, but while I might think that's justified, I don't have any particular reason to suppose it would be true.
I portrary Bush as mainly a stupid figure head, the secret service guards as doing the right thing, and Cheney as reasonably competant, fairly in charge, and possibly surviving to go on at the end; because these felt right, and follow the existing stereotypes. I tend to agree, but again have less real knowledge of it than anyone else.
Just in case anyone lacking in metaphor is reading my journal, I am saying everyone should agree that Jack the ripper is (probably) evil, that Nagasaki is not evil, and that bombing jack the ripper would be way overkill. Bombing Nagasaki may or may not have been overkill. And I use these to imply that bombing Afganistan and Iraq were overkill.