"Compulsory" Viewing for Every Citizen
"Mr. Smith" and the Rhetoric of Reception
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8905002 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Eric Smoodin (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1996 |
| Volume | 35 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 3-3 |
| Publication date | 1996-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Cinema Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0009-7101 • E-ISSN: 1527-2087 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/1225753 |
| OpenAlex | W2334373479 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 1 |
Defending his nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court, Ronald Reagan invoked another battle against all odds: You may remember, his speech ran, the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, when Stewart stands in the well of the Senate and says that lost causes are 'the only causes worth fighting for ... I'm going to stay right here and fight for this lost cause even if this room ... is filled with lies.' Casting himself in Stewart's role, Reagan then asserted, So will I. Five years later, discussing a politician who himself seemed to be playing a role popularized by Reagan, the Wall Street Journal likened presidential candidate Ross Perot to Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, the pure idealist who triumphs over corrupt insiders. One year after this, in the Los Angeles mayoral race, Republican candidate (and eventual victor) Richard Riordan used his campaign material to characterize his position in the contest the Southern California equivalent of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.1 Half a century after its 1939 release, then, Frank Capra's film had become a cinematic allusion par excellence in both local and national politics. The story of the ultimate political outsider served as the inspiration for a phenomenally popular president, for one of the richest men in the country, and for a lawyer/investor with a one-hundred-million-dollar fortune.2 In other words, in its latest incarnation, Capra's film would be appropriated by powerful mainstream politicians seeking to make voters believe that they were, in reality, virtuous but nearly defenseless Don Quixotes jousting at monolithic institutional windmills
Art · Humanities · Rhetoric · Sociology · Theology · Visual arts · Literature, Film, and Journalism Analysis · Philosophy · Rhetoric and Communication Studies
| Citations per year | 0.13 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1995 - 2021 (27) |
| Highly cited | No |