Frost/Nixon

[sabotabby]

I saw Frost/Nixon last night (thanks to the lovely brownfist, who had an extra ticket). I thought it was great, despite the mixed reviews it's been getting, but then, I've been a bit Nixon-obsessed lately. The more I think about him, the more I think that he was an actual clinical sociopath—the play is quite lovely in that, in parts, you really feel a bit sorry for the guy, and then you realize that he's manipulating you, and then you almost respect him for being a master manipulator because that does take talent, and then you remember that he's among the most evil men to ever live. So I really enjoyed it on that level.

Also, it's interesting to see a story about a confrontation between an ideologue and someone who is basically in it for the lulz, where the former is a right-wing bastard and the latter is the protagonist. I may have been on the internet for too long, but I kept thinking that what Frost was trying to do, and almost succeeded at, was simply the ultimate PWN.

Except—and this is where I think the play is really a tragedy—he didn't succeed. He won the battle—the interview, which was this amazing moment where you saw the true potential of the media and particularly that of television—and ultimately lost the war. Because where are journalists like that now? (And Frost was a bloody talk-show host!) What real consequences did Nixon face after his "trial"? In the end, it's the same thing that makes all of those stories where The Truth Is Exposed To The World completely fall apart—he got Nixon to admit wrongdoing on a lesser crime (the larger crimes, Vietnam and Cambodia, he didn't take any sort of fall at all), and then, nothing. Retirement and long-postponed death.

I like it when I come out of a play feeling really angsty. Go figure.

Comments

[nom-de-grr.livejournal.com]

I remember when he died, this guy I knew declared that Nixon was maybe one of the greatest presidents ever. I didn't even know what to say, it was such an astounding statement.

[erotetica.livejournal.com]

There is, I think, a serious case to be made for this.

[nom-de-grr.livejournal.com]

O RLY? Please, do tell.

[erotetica.livejournal.com]

In his defence, I would offer the establishment of diplomatic relations with China, the consequent establishment of detente with the Soviet Union, and the negotiation of a ceasefire with Vietnam. The first two were triumphs of Realpolitik; the latter couldn't be described as such, but I can't see how that morass could have been resolved less painfully.

Watergate was a bit of an embarrasment, however.

[nom-de-grr.livejournal.com]

Bullshit. Watergate wasn't just "a bit of an embarrassment", it was a brazen attempt to undermine the democratic process, such as it was, through vulgar black bag criminality. Hardly the act of a president that might be a contender for greatest president EVAR.

Oh yeah, also: Cambodia.

[culpster.livejournal.com]

I like Alexander Cockburn's argument for Gerald Ford as greatest president: "Transferring the Hippocratic injunction from the medical to the political realm, he did the least possible harm."

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn12272006.html

And uh the morass could have been resolved less painfully by not escalating the war in the first place. Like he promised when he ran.

Worse Than Just Retirement

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

As nom_de_grr noted anecdotally, Nixon didn't just retire to grow roses in his back garden, he spent much of his latter years working hard to repair his reputation — and with enough success to make me sick. Among many circles down south (and, no doubt, up here too), Watergate came to be seen as a tragic mistake and the war crimes don't get acknowledged at all.

[culpster.livejournal.com]

I doubt it's anywhere at all these days, but one of my favourite political books ever is Paul Slansky's "The Clothes Have No Emperor" - a day-by-day account of the Reagan era - and one of my favourite things about the book are the Nixon cameos. He keeps getting his picture taken with clowns. He describes a bad case of shingles in detail to reporters ("I bled through three shirts"). And he goes to eat at Burger King and signs a napkin "Best wishes to Burger King, home of the Whopper - love, Richard Nixon".

So, yes. Sociopath. Also see Emile de Antonio's "Millhouse: A White Comedy" - a glorious hatchet job.

[kappsgurl.livejournal.com]

Ah, you're making me regret not going when they were doing it here a couple months ago.

[holy-chao.livejournal.com]

I sort of grew up hearing how Nixon was this awesome president who was abandoned by his country and forced to resign. It really wasn't until college that I learned what a fucked up individual he actually was. Yay, American public school system.