Political debate goes to the movies this fall

Sen. Barack Obama was kind of wrong. ‘We are not as divided as our politics suggest,’ he said… Sen. Barack Obama was kind of wrong. ‘We are not as divided as our politics suggest,’ he said in his famous ‘Yes we can’ speech after the New Hampshire primary. Maybe, but we surely are as divided as our political humor suggests. Case in point: ‘An American Carol,’ coming to a theater near you next Friday. All signs indicate that it’s the lamest attempt at conservative humor since Fox News premiered (and quickly canceled) ‘The Half Hour News Hour,’ a right-wing take on ‘The Daily Show’ ‘mdash; you can probably guess which of the two didn’t win any Emmys this year. In this Dickens-inspired tale, a Michael Moore-esque, America-hating liberal filmmaker is visited by three spirits from America’s past. And country music sensation Trace Adkins. Just what lesson does the neckbeard-sporting protagonist have to learn? As Adkins so delicately puts it, ‘This is the greatest country in the whole wide world.’ And don’t you forget it! I don’t think Republicans are very funny ‘mdash; not intentionally, anyway, and I think the ‘George W. Bush Quotes’ section of the mall’s calendar kiosk would agree with me. But that’s just because I’m not a Republican. A conservative sense of humor might not be any worse than a liberal one, just different. Just look at Oliver Stone’s upcoming Bush biopic, ‘W.’ Josh Brolin plays America’s decider himself, grabbing women’s asses and racking up DUIs. Again, liberal humor suggests that a Republican can be unintentionally funny. Conservative humor suggests that a liberal can be a ‘turdhead’ ‘mdash; thanks, Trace Adkins! ‘An American Carol’ is perfectly indicative of how divided America really is. People will undoubtedly see it, and people will undoubtedly laugh at the idea of lesbians and men being physically indistinguishable from one another. Liberals might be watching ‘Raisin’ McCain’ on YouTube for a good ironic laugh, but people could be jamming out on their iPods to that very song while in line for ‘An American Carol.’ Does our political affiliation really dictate our sense of humor? We can only hope ‘mdash; it’s much scarier to think that it could be the other way around. Every copy of ‘The Blue Collar Comedy Tour’ on DVD would come with a ‘NObama’ bumper sticker and a Sarah Palin bikini calendar. The movie theater might offer a special: Buy two tickets for ‘W,’ get a medium popcorn and a smug sense of superiority for half off. Fortunately, this isn’t the case, and moviegoers are free to cross party lines. If you’re positively titillated by the idea of Bill O’Reilly bitch-slapping a Michael Moore look-a-like in a port-a-potty, it doesn’t mean you have to go to Obama headquarters Downtown and turn in your hemp necklace and your ‘Rolling Stone’ subscription. Likewise, if you’re one of those 30-ish percent of Republicans who finally agree that Bush is a tool, feel free to see ‘W.’ I won’t tell anyone how much you hate America. If we’re going to unite this nation, though, comedy is the place to start. And no, you hippies, the answer is not for Ralph Nader to star in his own sitcom. Less than one percent of the country would watch it, and they probably wouldn’t even like it, they would just watch to make a point. At this point, though, it could be a lost cause. Obama said that we are one people and one nation, but maybe that’s not true, and America is finally so broken that we can’t even laugh with one another anymore ‘mdash; only at one another. But who knows. ‘Burn After Reading’ is still the No. 1 comedy in America, so maybe we can all agree that Brad Pitt dancing on a treadmill is universally amusing, and we’ll leave it at that.