Bad Omen?- Peter Stothard - On Gladiator

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Monday, March 20, 2006

Russell W. Crowe?

 

by Peter Stothard on Monday, March 20, 2006

 

" Did George Bush's commanders really organise a special screening of

Gladiator to fire themselves up for the Iraq War? " , I was asked in

Oxford at the weekend. (See An Iraqi Hell Mystery, below)

 

" After all, Ridley Scott's movie shows a mentally indequate son failing

to live up the foreign policy wisdom of his father.

 

Didn't anyone in Washington think this might be a bad omen?

 

George W. Bush as the delinquent Emperor Commodus, his father George

H.W.Bush as Marcus Aurelius, his rather more thoughtful predecessor, not

to mention the hordes of unpacified and ungrateful barbarians? "

 

I said I doubted if the folks at Tommy Franks' film show, described by

Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor in their new book, Cobra II, were

interested in anything much more than an opening battle scene where the

bad guys get a bloody nose.

 

But I took the Oxford teachers' point. Shares in the Bush

administration, never highly valued in the university of Bill and

Chelsea Clinton, are now not saleable at any price.

 

Parallels between Ridley Scott's Roman empire epic and current American

politics began as soon as the film came out - conveniently in the

aftermath of the attacks of 9-11.

 

At that time, of course, George W. Bush was equated not with the

demented emperor Commodus, the son of the famous philosopher ruler, a

boy born to the purple, bidding to impose his own Golden Age values upon

an unwilling world. That would have been quite wrong for the time.

 

No, the President was the Russell Crowe character, brave, honest,

Maximus. The recently retired CNN reporter, Bruce Morton, once gave a

cod preview of the 2002 Oscars in which the President won best actor for

his war leadership, 'more forceful than Crowe but with the advantage of

better weapons', as he put it.

 

In as much as Roman history was on the minds of Franks and his men as

they psyched up for war in 2003, that was most likely the way they saw

it too. If the tribesmen don't know what's good for them, let's unleash

that hell.

 

Maximus is a wholly fictitious character, created in one of those

Hollywood factories where fact recedes with every redrafting of the

script. But so what? He is an all action hero who can teach the enemy

where their best interests lie.

 

Tommy Franks, who went to the same Texas high school as Laura Bush, may

now have time to consider the parallels for himself. He is quite a film

buff, according to the Cobra II authors, taking a portable DVD player on

trips and having a special fondness for The Nutty Professor.

 

The authors also reveal that the other constant companion on Tommy

Franks' journeys is Mrs Franks. His personal seat on military planes is

labelled with four stars. Hers has four hearts. Sweet or what?

 

I am enjoying Cobra II - though not quickly enough. Still 530 pages to go.

 

Meanwhile Ridley Scott, according to reports this week, has signed to

direct a new film about the War on Terror.

 

 

http://timescolumns.typepad.com/stothard/2006/03/did_george_bush.html