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 Depicting America in a time of cultural turmoil amidst assassinations and the Vietnam War, Medium Cool (1969) directed by cinematographer Haskell Wexler, starring Robert Forster as a television news cameraman, combines fact and fiction allowing the viewer to fill in the blanks left open by a lax plot. Juggling documentary with scripted material, Wexler uses footage from military training camps in Illinois preparing for potential student riots during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. The National Guard were split into two sides and groups from each unit would dress up as hippies and protesters while the rest of the soldiers would be instructed in how to deal with these “deviants." For better or for worse Medium Cool prioritizes the political atmosphere of the time rather than common cinematic development.
The title comes from a Marshall McLuhan theory of how "cooler" the medium is, "the more someone has to uncover and engage in the media" in order to decipher the meaning. Different media evoke different degrees of participation. A movie according to McLuhan is "hot", and a "cool" medium is a comic strip requiring more conscious participation by the reader to extract value. Medium Cool questions the role and responsibilities of television and its newscasts. In one of the opening scenes, a group of cameramen and journalists are discussing the ethical responsibilities within their profession. How does this argument remain poignant 40 years later, during the presidential election of ‘08? In one form or another, mass media has been influential in presidential elections since 1796. Through most of the first two centuries the press operated in the context of an elections system based on strong political party organizations. When Theodore Roosevelt, campaigning as an independent in 1912, established a personal press relations office, he was accused by a muckraking magazine of encouraging the ominous trend of “electing presidents by publicity.” The influence of party leaders over nominations has declined, while the influence of the mainstream mass media has grown. Television coverage has become increasingly important in rallying support, establishing likeability, and even in the scheduling of primaries and party caucuses creating fierce competition to be first in line for the best “communication care” possible. With returning correspondents and campaigns comes a financial boost to a state’s economy. Along with the profitable advantages of attracting network news coverage to once-obscure early caucuses. Candidates quickly discovered that raising money to campaign through the media, paid or unpaid, is easier than trying to organize party workers at national, state, or local levels.  The overall impact of these changes has been to disorganize and deconstruct the electoral process. “Intensified Speech!, A Gender Give Out!, Its A Race Race!, Escape Route Pipe Dreams!”….Here lays the language to be sold, replacing rational arguments for external emotions. We have let alternative candidates go unheard, cropped out of pictures, and marginalized into laughing stocks. The major media outlets ordain their front-runners and never look back. Leaving viable candidates on the ballot who receive close to zero media coverage struggling for face time. Twenty-four hour news coverage of pressing issues such as; the type of font used on posters, what kind of pants suit is he/she wearing, was it possibly showing too little or too much cleavage, has all eerily transformed politicians into additional distorted celebrities. |
