Man of the Year: Barry Levinson and Technology

Formulaic, that's the word you want. Ask somebody under thirty to tell you what kind of story would entertain older people will like and they will use words along the lines of "corny" or "trite". What they mean is "formulaic". That's the perception, what you need is a movie with an old guy as lead actor, without any CGI nonsense and a script that reminds you of something you have seen before. I point this out because I recently saw Man of the Year starring Robin Williams and it struck as one of those movies that could only have been made because of the stereotype of older Americans, because young people think older people want to see movies that are formulaic. This is not a review of the film, by the way, this is a review of the perceptions that allowed this film to be made.

The movie was written by Barry Levinson, the man who made movies like the Addams Family and Envy, whose stock in trade seems to be American nostalgia, also known as old-people entertainment. Levinson makes movies directed at older people, people who stereotypically might be interested in a contemporary version of an old TV show, in older actors, or, in the case of Man of the Year, in politics. The movie takes a minor trend, that of stand-up comedians doing political commentary and blows it out of proportion by, well, making a movie out of it. The core of the movie is the idea that television fake-news hosts like Jon Stewart wield much political clout and something that maybe could happen as a result of this. Maybe one of these TV people could be elected president.

The means by which Levinson gets his movie president/ television commentator elected is a computer error in voting software. This is accomplished with the kind of extremely vague read-article-about-this-in-the-New-York-times-once jargon that makes it clear that Levinson knows nothing about how computers work, did not consult anybody who did, is not trying to convince anybody otherwise. This is where the age-gap is made clear. This is where you see Hollywood's stereotype of the older American and what they are interested in. This is why this movie will not, and cannot, appeal to very many under, say, fifty. Levinson's apparent ignorance is clear to anybody who uses computers regularly, and overwhelms the rest of the unfunny script.

The idea is that older people know nothing of technology, and are not interested in learning. Oh,and they are the only people interested in presidential politics, hence, a movie about presidential politics need not be technically accurate. Also, it does not have to be particularly funny since seniors laugh at anything Robin Williams says.

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