'The Campaign' Is an Election Year Comedy for Better or Possibly For Worse

Friday, June 1st, 2012

Politricks

'The Campaign' Is an Election Year Comedy for Better or Possibly For Worse

by Jesse David Fox | June 1st, 2012

It would stand to reason that an election year would be a perfect time to release a movie or a book related to politics, since the masses are most in the political mood. However, the opposite tends to be true. The conventional wisdom is if there is any perceived bias whatsoever, you will instantly cut your potential audience in half. Well The Campaign is trying to buck that trend. The New York Times writes, "It is unusual for any picture to go as far as The Campaign in satirizing contemporary political practices…while struggling to avoid charges of partisanship." For the people behind the film, the target was just too obvious not to mock. Producer Adam McKay: “At a certain point politics just started going into a land of crazy we had never seen before." The plan is to make the film as nonpartisan as possible, by mocking politics in general, instead of any political party. McKay continued, “Focus groups love that it’s not right versus left… It’s just two creepy guys who want to win.” (And who can hate creepy guys? Nobody!) The question, however, is whether left-leaning creatives can actually make an unbiased film. The Times asked Ben Stein this and with an allusion to his favorite character in The Princess Bride countered with, “It is simply inconceivable that Hollywood could make an evenhanded movie about politics.” We'll see this summer, when The Campaign gets released, if Ben Stein is right (if not, do we all get his money?) or if it will be a mockery free for all or if there will be a large creepy guy backlash. Creepy guys are the new soccer moms (they both go to kids' soccer games).