On the subject of film awards, we now have a whole new classification: “Best Recycled Film for a Visiting Head of State.” In today’s Wall Street Journal, Rob Long demonstrates that the answer to successful diplomacy lies no farther than the DVD discount bin at Wal-Mart.
You never really grasp just how many countries there are in this world, President Obama will soon discover, until you try to buy DVDs for all of them. The good news here is that even though most countries are reflexively anti-American, most Hollywood movies are, too. So it’s easy to come up with a thoughtful title for your Hugo Chavezes and your Fidel Castros — just grab an American film that touches on the business or financial world. It doesn’t matter which one: “Wall Street,” “Erin Brockovich,” “Silkwood.” It’s a safe bet that any movie you pick will portray American businessmen thoughtlessly pillaging everything in sight.
For Ahmadinejad, he suggests the 1947 Gregory Peck film “Gentleman’s Agreement” about anti-Semitism. For the curious pair Putin and Medvedev, “Brokeback Mountain.”
It’s easy to play diplomat in this audaciously changed world of foreign relations. (Never mind giving handsomely mounted red buttons to our erstwhile cold war nemesis.) I might suggest “Good Neighbor Sam” for Canada, “The Mouse that Roared” for Venezuela, and “Lonely Are the Brave” for the Czech Republic.
For any country wanting to reciprocate with a housewarming gift for the administration that started this diplomatic fiasco, what title could better sum it up than “A Thousand Clowns”?
Comments on this entry are closed.
{ 1 trackback }