Maybe Hollywood conditioned us to brace for a disaster
May 2, 2016, 6:44 AM | Updated: 10:57 am
President Barack Obama smiles while making a joke during his speech at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner Saturday at the Washington Hilton. (AP)
(AP)
Of course, the high point of the White House Correspondents Dinner over the weekend was the Trump segment where President Obama congratulated the media for creating the story they wanted.
“The guy wanted to give his hotel business a boost and now we’re praying that Cleveland makes it through July.”
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But it was the closing act, comedian Larry Wilmore, who explained why all this may be happening.
“But guys, I’m not surprised that Donald Trump is happening to America because I watch movies. I do. Every time there’s a black president, something always comes to destroy the Earth.”
I did some fact checking and he’s right. In quite a few disaster movies the president is black.
In “The Fifth Element” a giant ball of fire appears in deep space headed for earth. The president is black.
In “Deep Impact” a seven-mile-wide comet is headed straight for earth. The president is black – played by Morgan Freeman.
In “The Idiocracy” – kind of a cult film – set in the year 2505 when all the crops die because farmers are irrigating them with a sports drink, the president is a black professional wrestler.
Of course, in the movie “2012,” which played off the end of the Mayan calendar – where the icecaps melt, earth is flooded, and California sinks into the ocean – the president again is black, played by Danny Glover. He has to load 400,000 people into arks to save humanity.
So Larry Wilmore had a point. But I doubt if that explains the Trump phenomenon. It certainly could explain why so many people apparently thought Barack Obama would be the end of the world.
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