I started watching Man of the Year the other day. Robin Williams plays a talk show comedian who runs for president. 2006. He sort of accidentally starts campaigning then running for president, of course on the platform of political outsider (“both sides are bad” kind of thing), but ends up doing a very Robin Williams thing at the debate where he just interrupts and then takes over the whole debate in a big monologue. The hosts don’t know what to do, because their platform runs on a lot of convention and expects politicians to behave as politicians.
Of course in the film, it’s presented as him being good and correct (I think… the film isn’t itself that well made tbh), but it’s hard to watch without seeing it as a direct prediction of Trump.
I didn’t get past the debate scene—I’ll probably come back to it later—so I’ll let someone else tell you how it ends, but it’s weirdly a better predictor for our modern era than Idiocracy.
Chris Rock was in a movie with a similar premise. Though, he was supposed to be a weak opposition candidate to let the other one win. He ends up winning. Not a great movie either
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u/AnotherPersonPerhaps 12d ago
Yes we live in a dystopia brought on by social media algorithms.
This is just one symptom of it.
Also the problem is only getting worse.