The Final Stretch
October 30, 2008
Wherever I travelled holding Barack Obama’s book tucked under my arm, I felt for the first time a sense of civic duty. It was very a very pointed experience: I was aware of eyes on the cover, looking over my shoulder, squinting, waiting for the page turn. With the same ridiculously perceptive, childhood voice-over that plagued Obama’s concience, I felt American — I felt America.
Dreams From My Father restored my faith in politicians being people, Americans who share the same fascination with the daily stimuli of life in our country. Obama’s narration is full of refernences and reflections on his adolescence as an individual with a composite racial, cultural, and educational background operating within a hyper-consumer society. These references are charged with meaning, and are somehow framed within what is percieved as a developing sense of national duty, and urgency to rectify the complex questions of American national identity that he interfaces with…..as a nine year old.
Take for example, the deep detail of this passage:
“I finished my comic books and the homework my mother had made me bring before climbing out of my chair to browse through the stacks. Most of the books held little interest for a nine-year-old boy–World Bank reports, geological surveys, five-year development plans. But in one corner I found a collection of Life magazines neatly displayed in clear plastic binders. I thumbed through the glossy advertisements– Goddyear Tires and Dodge Fever, Zenith TV (“Why not the best?”) and Campbell’s soup (“Mm-mm good!”), men in white turtlenecks pouring Seagram’s over ice as women in red miniskirts looked on admiringly — and felt vaguely reassured. When I came upon a news photograph, I tried to guess the subject of the story before reading the caption. The photograph was of French children Dashing over cobblestoned streets: that was a happy scene, a game of hide-and-go-seek after a day of schoolbooks and chores; their laughter spoke fo freedom” (29).
I am just speechless.
This distinction between France and America is so classic — holla at DeTocqueville! His narration is the silent undercurrent of all cinema prodigy children. If only we could hear the inner meditations of Richie Tennenbaum as he painted Margot, I’m sure that Obama and he would be cosmic twins — minus the whole tennis meltdown thing. His entire work screams “I am an American” but further, “I am an American child.” His youthful connection to these popcultural elements of our society are genuine — unlike reaches to create cultural characters – *cough*mccainpalinstrategy.
As the title of the book suggests, Obama’s story is of inheritance, a weighty inheritance of American cultural heterogenaiety.
Oh man did ANYONE ELSE see The Daily Show last night???? Or should I say, did anyone NOT see the daily show last night. The orgiastic fantasy of every young liberal I dare say: Barack Obama and John Stewart TALKING TO EACH OTHER LIVE!!!!!!!!! Un.be.liev.able
