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Let down the curtain: the farce is done. (Rabelais) [Zucker ad, analysis]
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Comedy
director David Zucker goes to GOP? You can't be
serious!
[Nu,
so what took you so long?]
- by Marc Ballon,
Senior Writer
The Jewish Journal Of Greater Los Angeles
10-06-2006
David
Zucker, the producer and director of "Airplane," "The Naked
Gun" and "Scary Movie 4," embraced the Republican Party in
2004 and voted for President Bush, largely because of
security concerns. Once a liberal activist and campaign
adviser to President Bill Clinton, he made a low-budget
anti-Kerry ad that ran mostly in Ohio and kept his political
change-of-heart largely under Hollywood's radar.
Not now.
Zucker sees threats to America and Israel mounting, and he
believes the Democrats are unable or unwilling to confront
those challenges, so he has decided to go public with his
belief that the Democrats have lost their way. Starting Oct.
9, the first of two ads Zucker directed and co-wrote will
begin running on the Internet in hopes of helping the
Republicans retain control of the House in the November
elections. Like his movies, Zucker's edgy spots employ his
trademark fast-paced, gag-a-second-slapstick humor that has
made him the undisputed king of spoof.
But Zucker believes his Republican boosterism carries some
professional risk, as well. Hollywood happily forgives
druggy actors and boozy directors, Zucker said, "but I don't
think a Republican can be rehabbed." Still, at 58, he has
decided to take a high-profile stand.
Zucker's first Internet ad spoofs the Democrats' reputation
as the party of tax-and-spend liberals. It opens with a shot
of a couple peacefully sleeping in bed. A narrator's voice
interrupts the calm: "What if you woke up a year from today,
the Democrats had taken over and you were able to see their
new taxes?" Suddenly, a man in a dark suit, the Democratic
tax man, appears in the bedroom and holds out his hand for a
payoff. He shows up again and again. He hits up a woman who
has just given birth and even demands payment from her
newborn. The 90-second spot ends with an army of
ominous-looking Democratic tax men, briefcases in hand,
marching down the street like some spooky army.
A second spot charging Democrats with being soft on foreign
policy is expected to be posted soon.
Funded by pro-Republican, tax-exempt 527 groups, the ads
will appear on YouTube, the Drudge Report and America
Weakly, a new parody site run by the Republican National
Committee (RNC) that purports to show what the country would
look like under Democratic control. The RNC asked Zucker to
make the spoof ads because of his "stellar reputation and
high-quality production," said Tara Wall, director of
outreach communications.
Political strategist Arnold Steinberg thinks such ads "can
be very effective" in making an impact. Although Steinberg
had not seen Zucker's Internet ads when he spoke to a
reporter, he said humorous spots might generate lots of
media coverage, thereby broadcasting Zucker's message to a
larger audience extending beyond the Internet.
Zucker's foray into political advertising comes at a time
when he is taking stock of himself. Having spent nearly 30
years spoofing police dramas, disaster flicks and horror
films, beginning with the 1977 cult classic, "The Kentucky
Fried Movie," he now wants to turn his withering satirical
eye to politics.
Without divulging too many details, Zucker said he plans to
make a film lampooning politics, sandwiched between a
superheroes spoof and "Scary Movie 5."
"You have people like Michael Moore going into foreign
countries saying Americans are the stupidest people in the
world," Zucker said. "I want to tell the real America story,
that America is a force for good."
Politics became deadly serious for Zucker on Sept. 11; he
was disturbed by liberals who, he said, blamed America or
spoke of root causes. Zucker said he found himself
supporting Bush's robust response to the attacks on the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon. As time passed, he
tired of listening to calls for "talk, talk, talk" and the
United Nations to solve the world's most tangled problems,
including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Despite his continued pro-choice, anti-nuclear power,
pro-environmental beliefs, he found himself drawn to
Republican national security policies. In 2004, he
re-registered, made the anti-Kerry ad, appeared on a few
talk shows to discuss his political conversion and "fell in
with the dark side," quipped his brother Jerry Zucker,
director of "Ghost" and "Rat Race," among other films.
"I still can't believe I'm a Republican," Zucker said.
"There are just certain things ingrained in our Jewish
roots. Our fathers voted for Roosevelt, and we voted for
JFK, [Hubert] Humphrey and Clinton. But the
Democratic Party has changed."
He is not the only Jew to have defected to the Republican
Party in the post-Sept. 11 world. Concerns about American
national security and Israel have helped the Republican
Jewish Coalition attract thousands of new members in recent
years, RJC California director Larry Greenfield said.
Jews still vote overwhelmingly for Democrats, and the party
is fighting back against the Republican strategy of
portraying them as weak on terrorism or anti-Israel (see
story, p. 17).
But in 2004, this state's RJC had 2,000 members and three
chapters. Today, it has 7,000 members and 10 chapters.
Zucker will speak at a national RJC gathering in
December.
Sitting in his Santa Monica office, Zucker exudes the calm
and confidence that comes with age and success. He looks
much younger than his years but not in that unnatural
skin-stretched-tight-as-a-drum sort of way. Perhaps having a
4-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son keeps him
youthful.
Alternately energetic and thoughtful, it quickly becomes
clear that his actions are considered. Which is why he
called his business manager before agreeing to make these
new attack ads: He wanted to know whether he could afford a
Hollywood shunning. The answer: "I'm OK as long as I don't
buy an $8-million mansion," he said.
Surrounded by Davy Crockett memorabilia, including comic
books, a framed first-edition autobiography and a rifle
owned by the legendary 19th century American folk hero,
Zucker said he admires Crockett's willingness to speak out
for his beliefs. In the early 1990s, Zucker spent two years
working on a Crockett screenplay with University of New
Mexico historian Paul Hutton. The historical drama never got
made, much to Zucker's chagrin.
"I see great similarities between [Crockett and
Zucker]," Hutton said. Both have stayed true to their
principles.
He likens Zucker's political change of heart in Hollywood to
Crockett opposing President Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal
Act on moral grounds, a stand that cost him his House seat
in the 1830 elections.
Raised in Milwaukee, Zucker said he grew up in a loving,
tight-knit Jewish family. At dinner, brother Jerry Zucker
recalled, "getting a good laugh was a value in our home."
Their deadpan father became the inspiration for "Airplane's"
Rex Kramer, played by Robert Stack. David Zucker said he
developed his iconoclastic ways from his mother, who would
often talk back to characters on TV.
After graduating from the University of Wisconsin at
Madison, Zucker, brother Jerry and friend Jim Abrahams moved
to Los Angeles in 1972. The trio, later known as "ZAZ,"
opened the Kentucky Fried Theater, which featured filmed and
live sketches of biting satire.
In 1980, the trio co-directed "Airplane," a comedy without
comedians that helped create a whole new film genre: the
spoof. ZAZ later collaborated on the secret-agent spoof,
"Top Secret!" with Val Kilmer and the hit, "Ruthless
People," starring Bette Midler and Danny DeVito. Despite
that film's success, the threesome split amid increasing
desires to do independent projects.
After the breakup, David Zucker kept the spoofs coming with
"The Naked Gun" and the "Scary Movie" series.
Despite his rightward drift, Zucker said he has lost little
of his inner 14-year-old kid.
"On movie sets, including my own, I'm the oldest guy
around," he said. "I've had people young enough to be my son
say, ëYou can't do that.' I say, ëYes, you can.
You've got to go for it.'"
Broad
would have us believe we are watching "Being There"
and not "The Manchurian Candidate." His
argument is superficially appealing as most
reasonable people would conclude that it requires
the simplemindedness of a Chauncy Gardener (in
"Being There") to reason that instructing China and
a motley assortment of terrorist nations on how to
beef up their atom bombs and how not to omit the
"key steps" when building hydrogen bombs would
somehow blunt and not stimulate their appetites for
bigger and better bombs and a higher position in
the power food chain.
...
While America appears not to be ready
for a female president under any
circumstances, the post-9/11 realities
pose special problems for a female
presidential candidate. Add to these
the problems unique to missus clinton.
The reviews make the mistake of
focusing on the problems of the generic
female presidential candidate running
during ordinary times.
historically
antimilitary--(an image,
incidentally, that is only enhanced
today by her clumsy, termagant parody
of Thatcher), 
