.
By Ray Hanania
.
We know that the mainstream news media (news and entertainment) harbors an unrelenting hatred of former President Donald Trump. They despise him.ccccc
It isn’t surprising someone would produce a movie that taps into that hatred of Trump, even though the director denies it.
I am an avid movie-goer. I saw “Civil War.” And nothing is more obvious than the underlying theme that the movie is about killing an authoritarian president who has taken over the country, like Trump.
The unnamed president is played by actor Nick Offerman, who played Ron Swanson in the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation.
Spoiler alert: The movie opens with an image of the unnamed president practicing his speech in which he asserts that he has defeated the forces of the Western Front, who initiated the civil war in response to his “authoritarian” policies.
The unnamed president is serving his third term, suggesting that he violated the U.S. Constitution’s 22nd Amendment that limits a president to serving only two terms or a maximum of 10 years.
The movie intentionally doesn’t explain what caused the civil war or who is who in the civil war, and instead focuses on scenes of massacres and violence from the perspective of three journalists who are trying to get an interview with the unnamed president.
The fact that the director doesn’t give the president a name is a sure giveaway that the chubby president, who is introduced trying to convince himself that he is winning the war (substitute election) is symbolic of Trump.
The movie takes us from one violent scene to another as the three reporters — played by Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura and Cailee Spaeny — drive towards the White House. They are accompanied by a reporter from the New York Times, a newspaper described as struggling to survive.
But the movie comes to a shocking conclusion as the army of the Western Front states enters Washington, D.C. and kills everyone trying to protect the president.
In one scene, the president’s press secretary urges the soldiers who lay siege to the White House, led by an African American female unit commander, to accept the president’s surrender with agreement to send him to another country. She’s shot dead.
The unit finally discovers the whimpering, overweight president hiding under the resolute desk in the Oval Office. They drag him out at gunpoint, and the reporter with them demands, “I need a quote.”
On the floor, the president pleads, “Please don’t let them kill me.” The reporter responds, “That’ll do.” And the soldiers shoot the president dead.
The movie ends with a screen shot of four smiling soldiers posing over the dead president’s body, like the soldiers who killed Osama bin Laden.
Director Alex Garland denies it’s about Trump, but that’s hard to believe. People are going to debate this forever. I can’t imagine Hollywood making a similar movie in which the president, who is under siege, is black and murdered in the White House, pleading for his life following a military siege by a white unit commander.
My guess is Garland wanted to be the first to open the door to the celebratory imagination of Trump being killed so mercilessly. Garland gives them something to fantasize about, if they’re not daydreaming about that violent outcome for Trump already.
Ray Hanania is a former Chicago City Hall reporter and award-winning columnist. Visit hanania.com for more opinion.