Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Obama rides to the rescue
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Reginald Shareef
Shareef is a professor of political science/public administration at Radford University. He lives in Roanoke.
Professors who teach in the organization sciences love to use metaphors that help explain observed social phenomenon. Consequently, Barack Obama's presidential campaign provided ample opportunity to use historical religious figures to illustrate the power of charismatic leadership.
Thus, the president-elect either became a Moses-like figure leading American society to the promised land after eight years of the Bush presidency or a modern-day prophet Joseph whose calling is literally to save the global economy from its downward spiral.
These metaphors gave students in my Leadership in Public Administration class this semester profound historical parallels to convey the power of a positive charismatic leader.
Yet, today's American college students probably make more sense of comparisons drawn from contemporary pop culture than religious history. This led me to think about television programs or movies that provide a close similarity between Obama's charisma and cultural points of reference for my twentysomething students.
Mel Brooks' classic 1974 comedy "Blazing Saddles" is the obvious cultural metaphor to employ for this task.
Obama is a dead-on Sheriff Bart (played by Cleavon Little). Both are tall, slim, well-dressed visionaries with infectious smiles. Similarly, Sen. Joe Biden and Gene Wilder's character, the Waco Kid, are both quick-draw artists equally capable of gunning down their opponents as shooting themselves in the foot.
President Bush is a virtual knock-off of Gov. William J. LePetomane (Mel Brooks), a seemingly clueless chief executive who, nonetheless, always places corporate interests above those of the broader society.
The movie takes place in the Wild West where a railroad route runs into quicksand and has to be rerouted through the town of Rock Ridge. The governor and his Attorney General Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman) decide to get the town's land cheaply for the railroad by hiring a gang of thugs to drive the citizens out. So much for eminent domain.
At the insistence of the attorney general, Sheriff Bart is hired to save Rock Ridge. The hiring is part of a sinister and diabolical plot.
Since Bart is black, the AG hopes that latent racial prejudice and biases will cause the residents of Rock Ridge to either abandon the town or lynch the new sheriff. Thus, the race card is played here subtly and from the bottom of the deck. Lamarr represents a composite of Sen. John McCain's campaign managers Rick Davis and Steve Schmidt.
Sen. Hillary Clinton is identical to Madeline Kahn's seducer character, Lili von Shtupp, as she offered Obama the vice presidential position during the democratic primary -- while trailing him in votes. She threatened that her women voters would not vote for him if he was the candidate. Yet, Obama -- like Sheriff Bart -- turned the tables on Clinton, won the female vote in the general election, and will become the nation's 44th president. He is likely to nominate Clinton to be the next secretary of State, thereby employing one of Nelson Mandela's favorite leadership strategies: Keep your friends near and your rivals even nearer.
Mongo (Alex Karass) was the dim-witted, easily manipulated character in the movie. The enthusiastic McCain worker in Pittsburgh -- a young lady who accused a mythical Obama supporter of assault and carving a backward "B" in her cheek -- is obviously Mongo's Siamese twin.
The jazz musician Count Basie had a cameo in "Blazing Saddles." After persuading people of all colors to live in harmony, Sheriff Bart and the Waco Kid rode off in a limo accompanied by Basie's music. Stevie Wonder's "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" provided the soundtrack for Obama's successful politics of theater. Wonder also made campaign cameo appearances.
Metaphors are compact ways to convey complex ideas and are more vivid and emotionally appealing than the generalized concepts they represent. They also represent ideological worldviews about human society.
The Obama-Sheriff Bart characters believe in the family metaphor where members reconcile with each other after angry social and economic disagreements. This reconciliation occurs because of the power of the charismatic leader. In "Blazing Saddles," Rock Ridge's citizens transcend racial and class barriers to build a productive society.
Likewise, let's hope life imitates art during the Obama presidency.
