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 "Wild in the Streets" 1968
Director: Barry Shear//Based on the short story "The Day It All Happened, Baby" by Robert Thom. Christopher Jones stars as singer/revolutionist Max Frost leader of The Troopers, his backbeat and roommates at a sprawling Los Angeles mansion commune. The band includes Kevin Coughlin as his 15-year-old genius attorney on lead guitar, Diane Varsi as ex-child actor now nudist keyboardist, Larry Bishop as a hook-handed bass player and Richard Pryor as anthropologist and drummer Stanley X. When The Troopers are asked to sing at a televised political rally by Senate candidate Johnny Fergus (Hal Holbrook), who's running on a platform to lower the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen they’re all in favor—but Max stuns everyone by calling instead for the voting age to become fourteen, then finishes the show with an improvised song, "Fourteen Or Fight!", and a call to take to the streets in protest. The youth of America goes Max Frost crazy and soon enough he is commander-in-chief of the USA, making marijuana use mandatory and placing anyone over thirty in concentration camps to undergo LSD therapy. The storyline gives proof by contradiction as a reductio ad absurdum projection of certain issues from the time period taken to extremes. A type of logical argument where one assumes a claim, derives an absurd or ridiculous outcome, and then concludes the original assumption must have been wrong as it led to an absurd result. Max Frost’s term shows us with a youth in office we could face dire consequences. He would act just as his elders and the cycle of oppression would continue. What else from a millionaire pop-rock group with a lawyer for a lead guitarist and a front man that runs on the republican ballot? This is not funky! This is harsh reality! When watching this film you get the feeling there was a select few within the crew who believed they were getting away with some sneaky subversive scenes amongst vain Hollywood attempts to cash in on the hippie-activist market. The film does capture some lucid moments depicting Max and his band acting as his cabinet, with politicians cutting deals and shifting sides like our present day “super delegates”. Despite the creative crew and a stunning schizophrenic performance by Shelly Winters as Momma Frost, most doubt the film had any role in the lowering of the voting age. The Twenty-sixth Amendment made 18-year-olds eligible to vote in all federal, state, and local elections. Until 1971, the minimum age had been 21 in most states.  The election of both the President and Vice President of the United States is indirect. While many people believe they are voting for a particular candidate on Election Day in November, they are, in fact, casting their vote for that candidate's electors. Proponents of the Electoral College argue that organizing votes by regions forces a candidate to seek popular support over a majority of the country.
Although the aggregate national popular vote is calculated by official and media organizations, it has no bearing in regards to determining the winner of the election. "The public deserves to know who they are, how they plan to use their power, and what forces are working to influence them."---Superdelegate Transparency Project "The Shape of Things to Come", the movie's theme song was a top 30 pop hit for the studio group and is featured in commercials for Target Department Stores. |
