Wednesday, July 23, 2008

It could be the greatest election season movie of all time!


National politics thrives on the ridiculous, so a friend of mine at The Morning News of Northwest Arkansas in Springdale once told me about the idea of for a movie he had.

The concept struck me as brilliant and we talked about it a couple of times but never came up with a screenplay. Well, it's about time I gave him a call, dusted that old idea off and got to work.

His plan was to have a movie about two former wrestlers running for the presidency. Naturally, you'd have the candidates yelling into video cameras, calling each other out, swinging folding chairs and the whole nine yards. Indeed, you can certainly take the wrestler out of the ring, but you can't, err, take the ring out of the wrestler.

Something like that.

Anyway, my friend figured the two candidates should be from opposing parties, but I've refined the idea a bit. Seeing how much fun the Democratic primaries were this year, why not have the two former wrestlers be in the same party and compete with each other for the nomination?

There are a few advantages there. Our wrestling/president movie could avoid the whole Republican vs. Democrat issue and keep from making half the audience mad when one party loses the election. Heck, let's avoid Democrats and Republicans completely by making the two ex-wrestlers/candidates members of a third-party.

So, you don't make Democrats or Republicans angry and you cater to a growing audience who would love to see a third-party get strong enough to make a serious run at the White House. Yes, it seems that keeping Democrats and Republicans from getting irate while appealing to the people who hate both parties is certainly the way to go here.

We'd also have the nifty twist of setting up that shocker of an ending -- the losing candidate signs on to be the running mate of the victorious one. There are all kinds of possibilities there as the primaries would certainly be contentious throughout the movie.

The lads would clean up and put on suits, but they would still act like wrestlers, see? Therein lies the comedy as you'd have all the ranting, red-faced shouting matches and a general sense that a riot could break out whenever two candidates are in the same room. Campaign ads would naturally be packed with the crudest forms of libel and both campaigns would work together to generate some orchestrated controversy.

Just picture this. Let's say Candidate A is on a live broadcast defending some statements he made about Candidate B (we'll work on their names later) in the New York Times. Candidate A grabs the mic from the interviewer, points at the camera and starts insulting Candidate B's mother.

Just then, Candidate B rushes in and tries to cram the offending issue of the edition of the New York Times in Candidate A's mouth! The whole thing would devolve into a mess that only ends when one of the candidates is beaten bloody with a folding chair. The interviewer could even assume the role of the ineffective referee who gets shoved out of the way, beaten up or ignored in "pro" wrestling matches.

Following the whole wrestling theme, the candidates could brag about crushing the opposition in events such as the Iowa Throwdown (i.e., Iowa Primary) and could call each other out for debates. Debates, of course, would be billed as the Boston Brawl, the Cage Match in Dallas and etc.

Of course fans for both candidates would attend debates and constantly disrupt them with sign waving, booing, cheering and the occasional fistfight. Throughout the film, you'd see how the old guard, amazingly formal candidates will eventually be mowed down because of the wrestle boys clever use of rabble-rousing to excite voters.

Does this all sound like it's trivializing national politics? Believe me, we couldn't possibly make elections more ridiculous than they already are.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is not only humorous, without poking to much fun at US politics, I can actually imagine it happening - and a movie as well. Wouldn't take much to script either.
Dugg, Stumbled and should be framed :)

HawgWyld said...

Thanks, man. My friend and I were always talking about various screenplays.

In addition to the "wrestler" one, we also thought it would be great to have one called "The Mullet Family." In that one, you'd have the "oddball" of the family would be the clean-shaven one who went to Harvard Business School and you'd have moral quandaries such as, say, the father can get a promotion is he shaves his mullet -- would he sell out or remain true to his hair?

Of course, some blasted network ruined that idea by having a show called "The Mullets" which lasted for about two season...

Willy said...

Hillbilly Willy here! Great idea on the wrestler - politics theme - If you dont mind I will probably mention this in a day or two on my Hillbilly Willy side and link back to here.

By the way Willy is a licensed realtor in inactive status. - I loan money on Real estate.

10-4 Willy

HawgWyld said...

Mind? Heck no I don't mind! I'd be honored, in fact.

It seems we have a lot of real estate agents in Arkansas going inactive these days. Ah, the market is a mess, after all.

I hope your new venture is a little more stable...

Willy said...

Willy was a little unclear in his statement about his real estate license. Willy has been a lender for about 30 years. Just got the real estate license as something to fall back on when he retires in a few years. Company policy will not allow me to have it active.

Willy will probably be at realtors convention in LR in September.

Maybe we will meet!

HawgWyld said...

Willy:

I'll be hard to miss -- as the director of media relations, I'll be all over the place.

I'll be sending you an e-mail when I get to work. If you have a connection to real estate, you need to get our ARA magazine, housing market stats and etc....

Willy said...

Replied to your official email.

Am interested in info and Arkies get together.

Thanks
Willy