![]() ![]() At first, Jackson is not taken seriously by a political elite that assumes ignoring him will make him go away. And whenever he can find a convenient scapegoat - most often American Indians - Jackson will point toward it, something that ends in tragic consequences for an entire race of people. Throughout, Jackson (played in the original production by a magnetic Benjamin Walker) rides a wave of voters who are more interested in what he seems to stand for than anything else. Yet if you compare it with the current presidential campaign, the parallels are uncanny. Seemingly, the show had missed its moment in history. ![]() (The original production was mounted in Los Angeles during his first presidential campaign.) And while contemporaneous reviews attempted to tie the show to Obama's brand of left-leaning populism, it was never an easy fit. The show's failure may have been a matter of timingĪs mentioned, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson hit Broadway in President Obama's first term. ![]() Through that context, we can examine how often our votes are manipulated by raw, unchecked emotion of the kind that drives the musical's pulsing rock score. (Hence, also, the joke, "Thanks, Obama.")īloody Bloody Andrew Jackson reignites these ideas via a 19th-century president whom no one alive today voted into office but whose visage will continue to adorn our $20 bills through 2030, despite the horrible things he was responsible for (mostly having to do with the extermination of American Indians). That makes it similarly easy to assume that backing someone else might right those wrongs, no matter how ridiculous that might seem. Whether we're unhappy because the person we have a crush on won't date us, or because our job has been shipped abroad, or because our town is filling with some nebulous "other," it's easy to turn to the highest office in the land and assume the person occupying it is to blame, however subconsciously, for our problems. ![]() And if they're not, we tend to support those who promise to blow up the status quo.īut you can also stretch that idea until it snaps. If they're going well, we support the incumbent. Instead, as many studies have suggested, we vote based on how we feel things are going at the time of the election, whether on a macro level (with the entire national economy) or micro (in our own lives). You can probably see where I'm going with this.Īs written by Michael Friedman (music and lyrics) and Alex Timbers (book), Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson takes one central idea to ridiculous extremes: Many of us don't really vote in terms of whose policies we like best. However, it quickly pivots to set itself in the world of former President Andrew Jackson - "But it's the early 19th century, and we're gonna take this country back." And I was just nobody to you." Initially, it seems like your typical rock song - about a girl who doesn't like the guy who's perfect for her, something she'd realize if she would just open her eyes. In a punk rock sneer, the singer asks, "Why wouldn't you ever go out with me in school? You always went out with those guys. The musical's opening number, "Populism, Yea, Yea," neatly encapsulates the forces that drive populism in all its forms. It was called Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, and if it had opened now instead of then, it might have found its window, instead of closing quickly. It captures not just the rise of Trump, but the rise of another divisive figure in American politics, with parallels that prove downright eerie. The exception: a musical that ran for just 120 performances on Broadway in 20 (where hit shows usually run several years and for more than 1,000 performances). And that's because the people who write American fiction in all its forms are usually members of the upper class, who have trouble understanding the kinds of emotions that drive Trump-like figures. And, of course, The Simpsons frequently turns the town of Springfield into an unruly mob.īut for the most part, fictional American political figures tend to be either aspirational, like the characters on The West Wing, or behind-the-scenes Machiavellis, like the Underwoods on House of Cards. Sure, there are films like the cynical classic A Face in the Crowd (in which Andy Griffith plays a rural radio host who becomes a political player) or the Oscar-winning All the King's Men (about a Southern politician who profits from "us versus them" strategizing), which embrace the side of American politics that's driven more by anger than anything else. Pop culture has always struggled with the sort of raw populism that leads to a figure like Donald Trump. ![]()
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