Posted by
VBushmills on Wednesday, October 28, 2009 7:40:45 AM
Portland, 28 October, 2009
Interesting segue, don't you think?
But I'm sure some of you have wondered, other than how they get away with it (which is a condition we at SICCM try to attend to) what compels a school teacher to actually line school children up to sing a song of devotion and worship to a man barely out of his own diapers.
I first saw "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" in 1969, and had forgotten the context. Last night I saw it once again, and the source of Obama-worship came rushing home to me, as I watched a school teacher in a fashionable girls school in Edinburgh, a "women without a man" (one of Moses Sands' early warning signals of a bad moon rising) fall head over heels for the statuesque dictatorial authority figures of Mussolini and Franco (the film is from the Spanish Civil War era), then pass that awe and respect on to her school girls. She was something of a sexual free spirit, as well.
In any case, she gets sacked in the end for her fascist sympathies...which was the major theme of the story...and one which I am sure, completely escaped young grad students such as myself...as there was some nice nudity in it as well.
Such worship for strong fascist types was common in those days leading up to the war, especially in countries where the men were emasculated go very young. If all that sounds familiar, it should, so I recommend the film as a good reminder. Maggie Smith, a young Maggie Smith, is superb.
Interesting too, was the give and take between Miss Brodie and the Headmistress, in her first attempt to sack her....for her tactic was also a mainstay of Clinton Administration hacks as they were called before Congress in the late 90's...I remember especially Fred Thompson inability to deal effectively with Harold Ickes. The tactic, which still works well, as Republicans almost never catch onto the gambit, is when caught red-handed, go on the attack. By beginning your defense with a dare, you raise the ante, a bet your interrogator is always reluctant to call. Had Fred Thompson simply stood up and walk over and grabbed Ickes by the collar (popinjays are always easy to jerk around that way) then ordered him frog-marched out until he was ready to talk (how come only Democrats get to issue Contempt of Congress citations?) Thompson would be president right now.
Oh, well.
BC