Strikingly, Bulworth prefigures the rise of Trump but more importantly enlightens us on the corporate takeover of our democracy and a way out of this corporatocracy.
In this extraordinary year of not one but two populist presidential nominees (e.g., Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump; more on this element below), Bulworth (1998, Warren Beatty) takes on even more resonance today. As it had already famously engrained in the imagination of people, Bulworth registers an electorate hungering for a figure who radically breaks from the transnational corporate sponsored establishment, speaking REAL truth to power and becoming an authentic agent for the people.
Symbols That Speak To Our Corporatocracy
We see this element in the film via numerous uses of symbolism, symbols that speak to our “corporatocracy,” a coined term that registers how our democracy has literally been usurped by transnational corporate power. That is, Beatty purposely highlights American symbols throughout the film, particularly the Capitol building and the American flag (and the colors red, white, and blue), so as to then register their lack of what they should signify. For example, through the opening image of the “Do Not Enter” sign conspicuously placed in front of the Capitol building, and a conspicuous dissolve of an American flag into limousines later in the film, Beatty seems to be saying that what these symbols once represented – democracy, liberty, freedom, equality, “unalienable rights,” and so on – has been subverted into something else. In particular, in terms of the “Do Not Enter” sign, Beatty seems to be saying that the Capitol building, this symbol of all American symbols, and what it stands for is not about “we the people…” anymore but now owned by transnational corporate interests.
Dissolve of flag into limousines, “Do Not Enter” sign (placed in front of Capitol Building) symbolizing the transnational corporate takeover of our democracy
Bulworth, The People’s Voice
As suicidal Bulworth chucks his corporate status and returns to his progressive roots (established in that opening image of those photos on his wall, e.g., Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Justice Thurgood Marshall to name a few), we see the meteoric rise of an authentic “change agent,” his agency though coming in an unusual way. That is, Bulworth is not some “savior” figure come to “save” the people — he doesn’t just magically figure it out (though via his nothing-to-lose sensibility and his mental breakdown, his “spiritual” shift is entailed by his initial “truth telling” spiels) — Bulworth is just as much “saved” by the African American figures he comes into contact with (especially L.D. and Nina) as much as they are “saved” by him. That is, agency and empowerment is mutually reciprocal but most definitely begins with Nina and LD filling him back up with social collectivity, solidarity with the working class (against power), class consciousness, and just a real sense of engagement with issues that matter to the people. We see this in how he literally becomes a receptacle for Nina and LD’s words.
Becoming a (red, white, and blue) receptacle for Others’ voices
Who Tried to Assassinate Bulworth?
Further informing this deeply allegorical dynamic is the two assassination attempts, Beatty smartly not making it an individual killing Bulworth but rather allegorizing his assassination attempts. That is, by not actually showing an individual killing Bulworth (in the obscenities speech in particular, it wasn’t Crockett up there above Bulworth and even in the final assassination attempt, Beatty never actually shows us Crockett shooting Bulworth) – coupled with I think making Crockett already an allegorical figure – Beatty wants to make it clear that Bulworth was brought down not by a specific individual but by corporate power; he had to be shut up because he was threatening the transnational corporate machine!
We never actually see who shoots Bulworth, making this assassination attempt a deeply allegorical figuration of power shutting Bulworth up
It Really is About Class
In the obscenities speech, Beatty also has the pathological Bulworth radically emphasize that it really is finally about class (“Rich people have always stayed on top by dividing white people from colored people. White people got more in common with colored people than they do with rich people”), subversively doing something few mainstream films do, raise class consciousness, stress that the only way to fight (corporate, Wall Street) power is through breaking down racial divisions and coming together as a collectively empowered working class against that which is actually conquering through a divide and conquer strategy, e.g., the transnational corporate apparatus.
Nina and L.D. raise class consciousness (Bulworth then literally transmits their thoughts)
“You can’t be no ghost, be a spirit!”
Breaking the fourth wall (direct address), we can’t be “no ghost”!
Finally, the other crucial ingredient to this film’s empowering agenda is the recurring “you can’t be no ghost, be a spirit!” refrain from the African American bum, or Rastaman, as he is referred to in the credits (significantly, played by activist poet and playwright Amiri Baraka). Most potently, in the final shot of the film, where Rastaman speaks these words directly into the camera, breaking the fourth wall (us), he is now not directing his words at Bulworth, but instead directing them at us. As he stresses to Bulworth his simple but profound message, he now challenges us to act on what we have seen and heard, to not be an empty, aimless “ghost” but to be an (inspirational) “spirit” – to have a soul (or conscience), to literally be human – to be plugged into (connected to) what is going on in the world and engage the serious social and political issues that impact our lives.
The Bulworthian Lesson From Trump’s Rise to Prominence
As way of punctuating all of this let me return to the Trump spectacle. While I’m as horrified by Trump as other progressives, I think it would be crazy to ignore at least one very real Bulworthian lesson we can learn from Trump’s rise to prominence. And let me make it clear that I do not think Trump is a populist (serving the people) figure – in short, his whole life he has played the role of the consummate ruthless capitalist, only caring about making himself richer and deifying himself – but in his populist bribe to the people, he becomes an inauthentic figure of projection that at the very least offers progressives a Bulworthian model of the power an authentic populist approach to serving the people could enact if done not in terms of hate and fear but rather done in terms of empowering ALL the people through class consciousness (e.g., addressing the real economic issues of the working class), collective engagement, “spiritual” (reciprocal) agency, and solidarity. That is, Trump (and Sanders!) speaks to the yearning that the people have for an authentic voice that authentically speaks for them, “transmits” their anxieties, wants, needs, and desires, truly represents the people and democratic principles, in short, has a “soul,” forwarding a progressive agenda that is all about the needs of the people and the planet and not doing what they have been doing instead, representing the singular needs of the transnational corporate apparatus, e.g., putting profit, unsustainable growth and expansion before people.
The Democratic Party Has Lost Its “Soul”
In this specific context, then, the figure of pre-spirit politician (“ghost”) Bulworth represents, well, most politicians today in general, though specifically represents the Democratic Party itself, a party which is as much in the pocket of transnational corporate power as the Republican Party, a party that has lost its “soul,” a party that is a “ghost” not a “spirit.”
For more on Bulworth, see my essay on the film: “Allegorical Figurations and the Political Didactic in Bulworth” (Cineaction; 2004, Issue 65, p54)