Talk:The American President (film)

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Contents 1 Tagging for Cleanup 2 Bias 3 Curious 4 Aaron Sorkin "Liberals Can Win" Paradigm

[edit] Tagging for Cleanup

Someone had marked this for cleanup in December without any explaination. Please take advantage of the talk page when you tag a page with something so people who have the time or inclination to go through the entire article will know where others had problems. --Torourkeus 00:22, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bias

The below paragraph was recently drastically edited:

It has also been considered an unabashedly liberal film by some, who say that the filmmakers portrayed all Democrats as noble, forthcoming and trustworthy while the Republicans are portrayed as uneducated, pro-gun, and deceitful. In one scene, Lewis Rothschild (Michael J. Fox) advocacy for tough gun control laws, a staple of lilberal policy goals, are shot down President Sheperd due to the realities of American politics, rather than the protection of constitutional rights.

I removed the edits for two main reasons:

• The problem with the movie isn't because it is liberal but specifically because it was unabashedly liberal. It's been argued that all hollywood movies are liberal, so that alone shouldn't be a problem. The problem is that this movie is supposedly drastically liberal to the point that it is immediately on the attack of any conservative views.
• I also didn't like that the last statement was removed to avoid bias. The only problems that I can see with the sentance is that gun control laws are a staple of liberal policy goals (It could be argued that gun control isn't a Democrat issue but it is decidedly a liberal issue. Also, the main argument FOR gun control laws is the protection of constitutional rights. I think the sentance represents both sides fairly well without stating that either view is better than the other.
• By the way, I'm a liberal so believe me I wasn't meaning to attack liberals on this issue. --Torourkeus 17:04, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Curious

How could the film present an apologetic view of the Lewinsky scandal when the film predated the scandal by over 2 years? Rhobite 05:20, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Aaron Sorkin "Liberals Can Win" Paradigm

Pre-dating his "West Wing", "The American President" is the primary example of a paradigm held by writer Aaron Sorkin that a "honest and courageous liberal" can win over the American populace, even on ideas that moderate or conservative Democrats oppose...the gun control issue primarily.

Sorkin expanded on this idea in "The West Wing", with "President Bartlet" and his team invariably (and typically OFF-camera) winning on some piece of legislation or policy initiative "unabashedly liberal", despite opposition from both Republicans as well as some Democrats. Like a magic trick, how this was pulled off is never exactly revealed, but it's implied that it's the result of their superior intellect and the "natural rightness" of the cause.

In "The American President" this is most prominently noticed in "Andrew Shepherd's" final speech at the end. "Coming back" as a forceful and ideological liberal, he states "I'll go door to door, if I have to. But I'm going to get the guns!".

In the real world, such a statement would IMMEDIATELY be leaped on by both the NRA, Republicans, and even many Democrats and used against Shepherd, costing him many gun-owner and even libertarian votes, and likely his re-election.

In the "Sorkin world", it results, no doubt, in a post-ending triumph for him. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.150.208.34 (talk • contribs).

Did you copy this from somewhere and just slap it here, or is this your original opinion? In either case, what does it have to do with the article? — Frecklefoot | Talk 17:49, 29 January 2007 (UTC)