The 1998 Mike Nichols film Primary Colors that was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Adapted Screenplay is a movie that indirectly portrays the 1992 presidential campaign of Bill Clinton. The main roles of the movie were played by the infamous John Travolta, Emma Thompson, Billy Bob Thornton, Kathy Bates and Adrian Lester. The movie is based on the same-named novel written in 1996 by an Anonymous, who turned out to be Joe Klein, a columnist for Newsweek magazine, who also covered Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign. The movie depicts the presidential campaign of a Southern Governor Jack Stanton in all its details, primarily focusing on the maintenance of a positive image of the candidate for the media and people. The creation and support of such image and style becomes one of the central themes of the movie, as the scenario unfolds and exposes the dirty wash of the Governor and the possible choice before the team to use unfair competitive practices to get ahead of the other candidates. The movie, thus, underlines the prominent place image making holds in election campaigns in the modern America, where meeting the electorate’s needs through the development of a solid election program is not the focus point anymore.
In the movie, Stanton is accompanied by his team that includes his wife Susan Stanton, strategist Richard Jemmons and later his old friend Libby Holden. Henry Burton, whose grandfather played an important role during the Civil Rights Movement, is hired by the team of Stanton to join them in the electoral campaign. At first, Burton does not want to join the Governor, as he is an idealist, who does not believe in the honesty of the presidential candidates. However, soon he learns more about Jack and starts liking the man for his attention and care of the people he meets, which seems sincere. Nonetheless, over and over again, Burton has to work with the team to hide as much flaws of the Governor as possible from people and the media, and these flaws and somewhat dirty past deeds keep on coming to the surface. Richard Lemmons suggests that either participation in the Vietnam War protest and personal request to conceal this fact from public, or drugs, or being a womanizer might destroy the chances of Stanton to win the elections, as one of this will surely come up in the media (Primary Colors). Burton seems to have become a part of some surreal activity, where people are engaged into creation of a perfect image, rather than working on the real personality of the Governor and the real problems he should be focusing on as a future president. However, Burton gradually changes his mind about Stanton when he sees the man talking to strangers about their problems and really taking their matters to heart wanting to provide help to these people. Burton understands that the Governor is a good and sincere man, who cares about what he is doing, but is just as flawed as all other candidates and has skeletons in the cupboard just like any other person. Matters become serious when Henry and Libby discover intriguing details of the new candidate’s past. The two of them do not wish to use this information for moral reasons, while Susan and Jack want to do so to win the elections. In this intense scene, Libby accuse the couple of having lost their beliefs and having become too political about everything to the extent, where Susan cares about Jack’s reputation as a politician more than about his infidelity as her husband (Primary Colors). Being disappointed in them, Libby commits suicide, and Henry decides to leave the campaign but is persuaded by Jack, who says that lying to people and using unfair methods is a usual electoral practice and that such beautiful lie is needed to gain power and be able to promote good things later (Primary Colors). Henry stays in the team, and the last scene shows Stanton as a newly-elected president.
Primary Colors film portrays the presidential elections in the United States as a competition, whose contestants are evaluated on the basis of their public presentation. The public image is created by a huge team of professionals, who work 24/7 to monitor the media coverage and even hire a specialist, Libby, after the threat of the leakage of information about Stanton’s infidelity in order to find out about the personal history of the candidate and his wife in order to prevent possible disruptions in case some unwanted information appears in the news (Primary Colors). Apparently, the maintenance of such a big team, constant travelling and meetings with electorate and supporters requires a huge lot of money that could be spent on more useful causes. Nonetheless, they are spent in order for Stanton to win and be able to make a bigger difference as a President of the country. Unfortunately, such pattern is not exclusive, as all other candidates use the same tactics to win, and this tactics has been widely popularized since the penetration of television in the American homes.
According to the movie, the team of a presidential candidate is usually focused primarily on the self-presentation of a candidate, who needs to know what topics to raise, what words to use and how to smile and behave rather than on the honesty of the candidate and the essence of his speeches that should be truthful and not deceive the voters. In one scene of the movie, after the team learns about the possible affair of Stanton with a hairdresser, Daisy, a spokeswoman, tells Henry and Richard a bold truth that Hitler, who never cheated on his wife, cannot be considered a better person that Stanton and many other candidates and presidents, who actually did. Richard responds that this truth cannot be the official line for the interviews and that is why they need to come up with something not so honest, but more appealing to the public (Primary Colors). This scene demonstrates the quintessence of the whole campaign, which is to give people what they want to see or hear in order to feel good about voting for Stanton, even if it requires the concealment or embellishment of the ugly truth.
At the same time the film shows that the maintenance of a good public image is not always followed by the fair competition practices. Although Stanton tells that he is not going to use speeches that compromise his opponents, when another candidate Lawrence Harris does so, Stanton does not hesitate to resort to the same means, as he meets with a community of old Jewish people and challenges the views of Harris on the role of Israel in the U.S. foreign policy in front of them (Primary Colors). Another example of creating a negative image of an opponent is a conversation with Harris during the radio talk show, during which Harris confronts Stanton about his campaign tactics and lies to people, while Jack start pointing out the gaps in the campaign of his opponent (Primary Colors). The third important part is the investigation of the dirty past of a new candidate Governor Fred Picker, who suddenly becomes a leading candidate after Harris suffers from a heart attack. The Stanton team decides to find as much information as possible to use against the candidate and succeed in doing so, while the Stantons do not hesitate with the decision to use this information (Primary Colors). These scenes show the importance of not only creating a positive image of a candidate, but also creating a negative image of his opponents in case they start leading in the race. Thus, the movie teaches the viewers that the victory in the elections does not depend solely on the election program of the candidates. It also does not fully depend on their ability to defend their position and rationally explain why they are right. Instead, their popularity is gained by passionate speeches and promises instead of thorough explanations on how certain goals of the program will be achieved. It is also gained by the aggressive accusations of the opponents in case such necessity arises. In most scenes people are shown fascinated by Stanton’s heartfelt words and partially improvised stories that help the voters connect with the candidate on a personal level.
Nonetheless, the movie shows that despite penetration of such tactics and image making in the election process in the United States, the candidates are not necessarily bad people, but rather people with their own personal history that is as humane as the lives of the voters. In that same scene, where the team decides on how to deal with the rumors of the affair with the hairdresser, Henry Burton walks up to the window and observes Jack Stanton talking to the employee of the Krispy Kreme Doughnuts (Primary Colors). When he enters the café, Jack has already listened to the story of the employee and seems fascinated by it. His sincere support and understanding of the guy makes the latter like the candidate as a person. In this scene Jack shows how he truly is interested in people’s lives and improvement of the conditions of their living, and Henry knows that the Governor is a good person. In another scene, Stanton meets Picker after the death of Libby and warns him that they already have the information on him and that it might leak into press and then comforts the man as he understands his emotional stress and feels for him. Thus, while he is not ideal, Stanton is still a good human being interested in people’s lives, although wanting to use any means in order to become a President. The core issue is that he wants to become a President to actually help people. It is interesting to notice that the movie is about the road to Presidency of Bill Clinton, who was the President of the United States at that time. Thus, the film served as a support for the actual President and improved his image in the eyes of the public by showing that everyone has flaws, but at the end of the day the deeds and good intentions are what matters most.
The movie shows that the presidential campaigns in the United States are all about developing a candidate’s positive image and concealing his or her flaws as much as possible, even if it involves lying or harming other people’s lives. At the same time, the candidates do not hesitate to discuss and criticize the negative aspects of the opponent’s campaigns, thus, creating negative image of the competitors, which cannot be considered a fair practice. While huge amount of money is spent on such campaigns, it is the society that agrees to such practices by merely sitting and discussing the images of candidates and their wives and their personal affairs as if they were the participants of a soap opera. Although such practices are already a part of the modern reality, they do not necessarily mean the all candidates who reach the top positions in the race are liars, who only want to win by deceiving the voters. In reality, no candidate is ever a perfect being, but a person with own history of mistakes, and it is important to judge the candidate not based on his or her projected image, but on the actual deeds and steps toward fulfilling promises and goals and on the concrete steps the candidate suggests to improve the well-being of the society.
Works Cited
Primary Colors. Perf. John Travolta, Emma Thompson, Billy Bob Thornton, Kathy Bates, Adrian Lester, Maura Tierney, Larry Hagman. Universal, 1998. Film.
