  Robin Williams. |
LOS ANGELES -- Comic actor Robin Williams is a political animal, but he would never contemplate running for dog catcher, much less president of the United States.
"No!" he exclaims to entertainment reporters at a press conference about pursuing a political career. "Not for me! Like my character, I believe that I serve a better purpose being able to make fun of everything."
The question comes up because of that movie character: He plays Tom Dobbs, the scrappy protagonist in Barry Levinson's $20- million political satire, Man Of The Year. Dobbs is a comic talk show host nudged into running for president as an independent in the 2008 campaign.
Like the movie, Williams' press session careens madly from comic outbursts to serious socio-political talk. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger's name pops up because he did what Williams vows he would never do, and is now running for re-election as the governor of California.
"I'd probably vote for him again," Williams, a Democrat, says of the brusque Republican governor (whom he nevertheless lampoons by imitating his gutteral Austrian accent). "Right now, the Democrats aren't bringin anything that is that unusual or different." Schwarzenegger is an exception, Williams says.
"Arnold won and has done very well. He's actually a kind of anomaly right now. He's a moderate Republican. (He is) a lot like an Amish tech rep -- there're aren't that many.
"And I think he is using his power to actually try and maintain a stance: 'There have to be some changes made!' Change is not popular. We're creatures of habit: 'I want it to be the way it was!' But, if you continue with the way it 'was', there will be no 'is.' "
Levinson's movie, despite the presence of liberal commentators such as James Carville, is not partial to either the Republicans or the Democrats. Both sides are seriously satirized. "This is not about one party or the other," Williams says with an angry tone. "This is about (how) the whole system sucks! What you have right now is a lot of special interests running politics."
In an earlier one-on-one interview with the Sun , Williams explained the movie more specifically, with a shout-out to Levinson because he wrote as well as directed it. "What he's talking about with Man Of The Year is: What have elections become, except extended infomercials? And debates are just basically duelling soundbites. What do they offer you? Very little, but they'll have emotional issues that they'll scare you on, like gay marriage and burning flags and terrorism."
The proposed anti flagburning amendment to the U.S. Constitution really gets Williams riled up because he believes it is a phony issue, a diversionary tactic used to ease pressures over more critical issues.
"I was driving today," he says about flag burning, "and I didn't see one on fire!" Then he pretends to be a newscaster with a menacing voice: "Don't go out today, flags have been burning all over the country!"
Williams is not pro-burning. He respects his country's flag and what it represents. "If you're a vet, it is offensive. If you're a vet, I think it is also offensive to know there are flag thongs." But this is an emotional issue, he says, and not exactly a priority for constitutional changes. "There are a lot of other things that I would put away ahead of that."
Man Of The Year is an American political satire shot almost entirely in Canada, speciflcally in Toronto. Williams sees the irony. "It's like doing a movie about alcoholism in an Arabic country.... God bless Canada! But we're coming for your water, you know that. Be careful! protect it! Be careful of the little Bush Baby, too." That is his nickname for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whom he saw get elected while working in Canada.
Man Of The Year makes no references, caustic or otherwise, to U.S. President George W. Bush. Williams himself, who loathes Bush's administration over the war in Iraq, and over domestic issues such as the abandonment of New Orleans, resists new insults. Instead, he cracks a joke about George Senior and his Texas drawl:
"He's basically John Wayne and you tighten his ass!"
Meanwhile, it is dfficult to say if America is ready for a political satire such as Man Of The Year. "We'll see," Williams tells the Sun with a weary tone, resigned to the possibility that it might not find its audience.
Wag The Dog failed to score in the 1990s, in part because people thought it was too far-fetched, Williams says. "In retrospect it's kind of hideously on the money!"
Bullworth, Warren Beatty's political satire as writerdirector- star, bombed. " Bullworth ," says Williams, "was a great comedy. But studios are afraid of political comedies because nobody goes. Yet Bullworth was dead on the money -- a candidate who suddenly flips out and goes hardcore."
The voting on Man Of The Year begins Friday at the box office, not in the polling booth. For the future of American political satires, it could be a crucial election.
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