Short and sweet today.
One of my favorite comedic actors was Peter Sellers. Although I could talk for hours about his Pink Panther movies, one of his greatest movies in my opinions was "Being There". It was released in 1979, and tells the tale of Chance "the gardener" (or Chauncey Gardener as he is named later), a rather simple man whose sole source of knowledge seems to have been derived from television, and secondarily from his interactions with a rather limited number of humans. After being forced out on his own, a series of random events unfold that ultimately bring this well dressed and seemingly thoughtful man to the brink of the Presidency of the United States.
The movie is an adaptation of the book by Jerzy Kosinski. The film's title, "Being There", is a direct translation of the term Dasein used by the German philosopher Martin Heidegger to describe the essential nature of human beings. Chauncey invariably responds to people and phenomena as they present themselves at that moment in time, actually living and interacting "in the moment, or here and now". Of course, another more simplistic interpretation is that the pop culture of the moment is all that is needed to succeed in the American media driven culture.
That brings us to our current President, Barrack Obama. He, similar to Chauncey, has become the darling of the media. He has command of today's pop culture, and has used this knowledge to add to his mystique. Similar to Chauncey, there are lingering doubts about Obama's real intelligence when taken out of his comfort zone. Is he the next coming, or just a pretender?
I guess we'll know when he either walks on water, or drowns.
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