he day after Arnold Schwarzenegger officially announced his candidacy for governor of California, becoming a political joke to many, I was engaged in one of my favorite hobbies—aimless channel-surfing—and happened to come across the 1943 Irving Berlin musical This Is the Army. I paused there for a moment, captivated by the campiness of it all, when suddenly the screen was filled by two B-movie actors portraying a father and son. The names of the actors playing this military duo—George Murphy and Ronald Reagan—will be familiar to you for more than just their screen talent.
By 1943, both of these men were well-known Hollywood personalities. This Is the Army was Murphy's 31st film and Reagan's 33rd. Each would eventually become president of the Screen Actors Guild—Murphy in 1945 and Reagan in 1947. From the vantage point of 1943, their rise into those positions could perhaps have been foreseen. But what no one could have predicted or would have even dared to dream was that two decades down the road, Murphy would be elected senator of California (in 1964), while Reagan would become governor of the same state (in 1966).
Neither of these men was a great actor. But they possessed a quality that sometimes even great actors lack—likability. Whatever role they happened to be inhabiting in a movie, that important characteristic always came through. The public liked them. When they moved from entertainment to politics, they were somehow able to carry that likability along with them, allowing the public to conflate their screen and personal personas.
And so Murphy, instead of continuing to hoof it as a song-and-dance man, parlayed his film personality into a senatorial seat, and Reagan, whose football team won one for the Gipper in Knute Rockne All American, used his smile to carry the ball all the way to the White House.
Six decades later, the public likes Arnold Schwarzenegger, too, and thanks to a badly colorized movie, I was reminded that the idea of a Terminator on Pennsylvania Avenue was not as far-fetched as some would think.
Why not the best?
So Schwarzenegger would not be the first to use his fame in the entertainment field to spark the rise of a new political machine. If it happened before, it can happen again. But the question I keep coming back to is, if we're going to launch a sci-fi star into politics—why Arnold? Yes, he's rich. Yes, he's already allied himself to a political dynasty by marrying Maria Shriver. Yes, he can travel through time. But surely the genre can come up with other screen personalities whose personas would just as easily translate to politics.
In the interests of broadening the playing field, I suggest the following potential candidates:
Bruce Boxleitner: If we're going to confuse an actor's role with his political potential, here's one presidential candidate who's already held a political office—not just as governor, but as president; and not just of California, but of an entire Interstellar Alliance. He may be our last, best hope.
Sigourney Weaver: Not only is she the daughter of broadcasting legend Sylvester "Pat" Weaver, the man who invented late-night television, but the way she kicked Alien butt makes for a better sound bite than George Bush on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln.
William Shatner: Sure, he's Canadian. But if a foreign birthplace can't stop Conan, why should it prevent Capt. Kirk from beaming down? And besides, we all know that with Shatner in charge, no one in his administration would dream of trying to sweep anything under the rug.
Sound absurd? Believe me—considering the quality of politician currently at work for us across the country, anything would be an improvement.
Scott Edelman started his trek to the editor-in-chief position at Science
Fiction Weekly decades ago, when he began working as an assistant editor at
Marvel Comics. Between these two positions, this four-time Hugo Award nominee in
the category of Best Editor was the founding editor of the
award-winning magazine Science Fiction Age, in addition to editing
Sci-Fi Universe, Sci-Fi Flix and Satellite Orbit. Currently, he also edits SCI
FI, the official magazine of the SCI FI Channel. His upcoming short stories will appear in can be found in The Journal of Pulse-Pounding Narratives and Quietly Now: A Tribute to Charles L. Grant.
