George Clooney directs and plays a supporting role in The Ides of March, which stars Ryan Gosling. It is the kind of film with a great cast that is also somehow forgettable with its slick machinations to shock its audience that *gasp* sometimes politicians are not as honorable as they pretend to be. Primary Colors called to say hiiiiiiiiii. It was also made in a time when Presidential election winners were automatically thought of as genius Machiavellian movers and shakers playing life size chess and cool in their professional predation, not prehistoric trolls who belong in their family’s basements hiding from sunlight if they did not stumble upon so many other bottom feeders even less spectacular than they or their candidate. It is less seen as a victory of brilliant minds than hell bound souls.
Timing is everything. Today’s political climate when compared and contrasted with 2011 is considerably worse so the movie is somewhat optimistic in comparison—if only our corrupt politicians even campaigned on ideals that would improve the world! The Ides of March can still culturally contribute as a lens into our world by unintentionally showing us what the world looks like through the eyes of the men behind #metoo. Disclaimer: I am not saying that anyone associated with the film is directly responsible for sexual harassment, but some of the people who shall remain nameless are well known associates or friends of people who have been exposed as sexual harassers. They all claim ignorance and denounce the abuse NOW that it is exposed, and maybe I live in a world of unicorns and rainbows where they honestly did not notice that something was wrong, but if that is true, inversely, we can learn a lot from what they think is right, particularly men who consider themselves as allies and are progressive politically-with friends like these.
The Ides of March struck me as odd when it chose to villainize certain characters and uphold others.
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Jeffrey Wright plays the worst character according to all the characters, particularly the ideal candidate played by Clooney, the Governor of Pennsylvania, but you have to work with him to win, which the Governor refuses to do. The movie never shows us why the only black male politician is bad, but he is y’all. The dog whistles are free. Even as the other men betray and almost mortally wound each other, they greet it with measured equanimity and amusement-after all the challenge has made them step their game up. Life is the campaign, and the only women characters are either opportunistic predators who use sex or adoring spouses. The neutral women are extras, background, wallpaper. They get no lines. One of these femme fatales is a twenty-year old staffer who aggressively and successfully pursues the main character. His focus is really on the campaign, and she is a distraction until her sudden downfall provides an unexpected opportunity. Her storyline then morphs into the vehicle for him to see his friends and colleagues as enemies, give him the moral high ground to defend himself, abandon his ideals and play dirty to become successful.
The storyline: she had (un?)consensual sex with the married candidate once. She was there to work, but when they met in the hotel room, he closed the door. She never says that he raped her, but her whole bold demeanor transforms into despondent and suicidal after she shares her secret with the main character, who, like the married candidate, is an older man and a work colleague. Her father is an important man, and she is Catholic. She needs money for an abortion. During this entire scene, I was thinking, “Are we still talking about the same candidate,” not because it is not plausible, but I could not recall if the two were ever in a room together, forget any hint of sexual tension. The candidate is never visually depicted as a sexual being, and Clooney, one of the sexiest men alive according to People Magazine, which we all know is scientifically based, plays him. In contrast, because of everything that the movie has shown us about her character, her credibility is shot according to the narrative. She is not entirely seen as a victim, which she may not be, but an inconvenience, a stumbling block. If this brazen hussy was never there, maybe all these poor men could have just worked on making the world a better place. The movie tidily disposes of her, and the closest that she gets to an epitaph is that Philip Seymour Hoffman knew her as a kid, which is closely followed with Hoffman’s quip of pride to Gosling’s character one upping him by comparing him to an adolescent girl becoming physically mature-an odd, Freudian juxtaposition which was likely intentional. Her work is irrelevant. We only see her programming cell phones. She is solely defined based on her relationships with men. In a movie that values ambition, she has none except to sleep with Gosling and get an abortion.
The only real ambitious woman is a reporter played by Marisa Tomei. She jokes about being willing to cheat on her husband to get a story, but later gets a speech about not being anyone’s friend and ends up becoming professionally stagnant as her only source gets to save face by resigning, but is really fired. She does not get to save face, but is openly banished from the inner sanctum to her space as a reporter behind a line, but there are no other reporters clamoring at that line, only her. She is literally put in her place. The men will bounce back eventually and win the next round. The women get put away.
Unlike Primary Colors, there is no equivalent to Kathy Bates’ character, a woman mover and shaker who is one of the big guns in politics. The message is very clear in The Ides of March. Women are distractions, obstacles, tools or assets, but they are never colleagues or equals. Male friends stabbing each other in the back is less venal and understandable because work is the most important vehicle to prove your worth. Men are primarily logical beings, but women are emotional, sexual manipulators that are better if relegated to the sidelines. Men’s kryptonite is women.
I am not saying that women cannot be sexual manipulators. Men can also be the private dancer working it to get what they want. To pretend that is not a thing for all people is to ignore the world. The best part of Girls Trip was when the friends called each other out on being dickmatized. The problem with movies like The Ides of March is not that it defines women by their sexuality and men as sexless, suited beings, it is that it only depicts their characters in that way. The only man depicted in a sexual manner is Gosling, and he learns the error of his ways by abandoning that sexuality to become ascendant above all, including the ideal presidential candidate.
The Ides of March creates a false dichotomy that has existed since the hysterical womb in ancient Greece. The #metoo world exists because men in Hollywood may mistakenly believe that they are in a world where men are primarily vulnerable to female predation otherwise men would just ruthlessly compete with each other to make the world a better place. They are the victims of female sexuality. The grey areas are solely of her making, and men are not emotional.
How did George Clooney become the voice of progressive America? His films tell another story. The Ides of March and Good Night, and Good Luck. are not even that good. If I rewatched Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, would I hate it?