BY BEN WINTERS
 |
We
may never know exactly how many newspapers worldwide ran headlines employing
the slogan 'Hasta La Vista' the morning after Arnold Schwarzenegger took
the governorship of California. But conservative estimates put the number
around 70 kajillion. There were two ways in which the catchphrase'made
famous by Schwarzenegger in the second Terminator movie (circa 1991)'was
deployed: either as a 'so long' aimed at ousted Governor Gray Davis ('Hasta
La Vista, Davis'), or as a farewell from Schwarzenegger to the film career
that made him famous. The San Jose Mercury News was in the latter category,
going with 'Does politics mean Hasta La Vista for Arnold in Hollywood.'
'Will
Schwarzenegger Say Hasta La Vista to Hollywood?' asked Hollywood.com.
The answer seems to be yes, according at least to the New York Post ('Hasta
La Vista, Hollywood'). Arnold has vowed not to make any more pictures
while serving as governor. He made this plain in his first press conference
as governor: ''I will do that'nothing else'I will work as much as I can'so
there will no time for movies or anything else.'' (A similar pledge was
made, once upon a time, by another actor who became the governor of California:
Ronald Reagan's last film role was in 1964, as a bad guy in The Killers,
two years before he became California's top banana.)
But
Arnold fans have at least one film to look forward to. About four seconds
after he was elected, the A&E television network announced 'it is
developing a two-hour movie entitled See Arnold Run, based on Schwarzenegger's
successful gubernatorial bid'the movie should be ready in late summer
2004.' (That's from the Washington Post write-up on the project.)
Indeed,
what might prove most interesting about Arnold's new role isn't some bold
jump from Hollywood into politics, but the bold integration of Hollywood
into politics, as the 'governator' (another favorite phrase from headline
writers and columnists) brings all the trappings and excitement and idiocy
of pure celebrity with him to the governor's mansion. Curious incidents,
like the criticism of talk show host/comedian Jay Leno for publicly celebrating
Schwarzenegger's victory, will be part a new chapter in the epic story
of American political celebrity.
In
running, Arnold made no real effort to make a shift in his public persona;
he didn't have to, and, as several media writers noted, it could only
benefit him to remain a famous actor, rather than a politician, in the
public mind. '[The] star of three Terminator films turned to 'Tonight
Show' host Jay Leno, talk show queen Oprah Winfrey, shock radio jock Howard
Stern and entertainment news shows such as 'Access Hollywood' and 'Entertainment
Tonight' to spread his message,' wrote St. Petersburg Times columnist
Eric Deggans. 'He used his personal fame to take his message directly
to the public.'
And
as the election results demonstrate, the public loved every minute of
it. Not loving any minutes of it was noted actor, director, and liberal
scold Tim Robbins, who told one news agency: 'Who knows; six months down
the road the voters could recall Schwarzenegger. Then we'll get Jean-Claude
Van Damme.'
SINSATIONAL
AGAIN?
Magic
shows involving dangerous animals are supposed to be dangerous, but nothing
is ever supposed to actually happen. Someone forgot to tell that to Montecore,
the giant white tiger who mauled Roy Horn of Siegfried & Roy fame
early in October.
(The
incident in Las Vegas, which left the famous magician fighting for his
life, curiously coincided with the discovery of an adult tiger in an apartment
building in Harlem; the New York Times, probably for the first time in
history, ran a tiger story on the front page plus a teaser plugging more
tiger-related news within.)
There
has been some back and forth in the media over whether the tiger was trying
to protect his keeper or kill him'Siegfried told Larry King that 'a cat
is a tiger and when he wants to protect his pal he does it the way a tiger
does, with his strength''but it's also been a good chance for journalists
to head back to Las Vegas and ask what's news in the city that radically
remade its image a couple decades ago. The consensus seems to be that
days of Family Fun are over, and it's back to the City of Sin. Neil Strauss's
article in the Times was typical: He says that the mauling marks 'the
potential end of an era of family-based acts that were ushered in with
the debut of [Siegfried and Roy] in the early 1980s.' Meaning a refocus
on the big bets, big buffets, and big boobs that made Vegas Vegas.
The
most hideous embrace of the Roy versus The Tiger story was from USA Today,
where the cheeky Trend Mill column announced that the phrase 'Going Postal'
is 'out', and 'Watch it, or I'll go Montecore on you' is 'in.'
USO
IAGO
'The
$368 billion defense bill recently approved by Congress includes $1 million
to bring performances of Shakespeare to troops at stateside military bases.'
So writes Rob Hotakainen of the Minneapolis Star Tribune's Washington
Bureau; his focus is on that city's Guthrie Theatre, one of the seven
theatres to be involved in 'the unprecedented effort.'
The
story is curiously underreported elsewhere; Mary Pemberton's AP piece
on the unusual allocation ran in only a handful of papers, among them
the Knoxville News-Sentinel. Pemberton's story was bylined in Alaska,
because it was Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, who heads Senate Appropriations,
who made the money available.
NEA
Chairman Dana Gioia explains that the program is part of the larger effort
to reintroduce Shakespeare to American communities. 'If we are truly going
to fulfill our charge of bringing art of indisputable excellence to Americans,'
he said, 'we have to reach into communities where we've never gone before.'
American
soldiers who miss the old fashioned USO tours, with the Playboy bunnies
and B-list celebrities, are advised to go to Vegas.