A Horror Movie for Palinites?
Posted by Adam Benforado on January 19, 2011
Despite my love of cinema, I tend to always fall behind on catching the latest movies.
Case in point: during the past weekend, I finally had the opportunity to see The King’s Speech, which my own grandmother watched and wrote me about . . . last year.
As a sort of New Year’s resolution, I’m attempting to be a bit more up-to-date on this front, and, thus, I’m going to dedicate this blog post to a film that hasn’t even been released yet, but that should be of interest to Situationist readers.
What caught my attention about the preview for the film was that it seemed as if it could easily be modified into a Sarah Palin 2012 political advertisement.
In the opening frames, we watch Senate candidate David Norris (Matt Damon) as he first crosses paths with the ballet dancer Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt). There is clearly an attraction, but, as the film website explains, “just as he realizes he’s falling for her, mysterious men conspire to keep the two apart.”
Who are these mysterious men?
“[T]he agents of Fate itself—the men of The Adjustment Bureau—who will do everything in their considerable power to prevent David and Elise from being together.”
As one Adjustment Bureau agent explains, “We are the people who make sure that things happen according to plan. We monitor the entire world.”
David (er, Matt) is then faced with a momentous decision: “let her go and accept a predetermined path . . . or risk everything to defy Fate and be with her.”
In the trailer, David explains, “All I have are the choices I make, and I choose her,” as the following lines scroll across the screen:
If you believe in free will.
If you believe in chance.
If you believe in choice.
Fight for it.
So . . . yes, perhaps I’m off my rocker (watch the trailer below for yourself), but I think the narrative of the film could have been pieced together straight from Palin’s tweets: (1) Americans are rational actors who can make their own choices and should be allowed to pursue freely their own conceptions of the good; (2) the agents of big government are extremely dangerous and are intent on controlling our environments; (3) Obama’s regulatory state (including the new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection) is a paternalistic nightmare; . . . and, of course, (4) we must let our values and guts tell us what is right, and not allow regulators with their misguided “science” and “reason” to direct us (in one of my favorite moments in the trailer, one of the agents of the Adjustment Bureau is heard saying, “Remember we tried to reason with you.”).
Okay, readers, consider yourselves provoked. What do you think?
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For a sample of related Situationist posts, see
- “Promoting Dispositionism through Entertainment – Part I, Part II, & Part III,”
- “Do NOT Read This Post!,”
- “Sarah Palin a Naive Cynic?,”
- “Naive Cynicism,”
- “The Problem of Old Fears and New Dangers,”
- “Naive Cynicism: Maintaining False Perceptions in Policy Debates,”
- “Naïve Cynicism in Election 2008: Dispositionism v. Situationism?,”
- “Us & Them Politics,”
- “Without the Filter,”
- “The Recovery Within Us: The Human and Legal Situation of “Wall Street 2″,”
- “Are Debtors Rational Actors or Situational Characters?,” and
- “Conference on the Free Market Mindset.”
The Situationist 
Tamara Piety said
Didn’t notice that Adam but now that you mention it…..
czrpb said
Hi! Not just hard-core Righties have “anti-gov” issues: i am a hard-code Lefty and believe ALL large organizations create the “Situationism” that this site is about and documents. I believe all large orgs (govs, corps, religions, militaries, universities, etc.) become self perpetuating, with a “culture”, processes/methods for new member inculcation … yada yada yada. As I am sure you know the rest so I probably do not need to say it. As such, I am not terribly impressed that this is “Palinesque” all that much.