There are few issues more politically charged than the right to bear arms. So when a film more or less revolves around it folks are likely to take sides.
Now, sometimes a film will try to be “balanced” in its assessment. Think for example Dead Man Walking and capital punishment. On the other hand, many “Hollywood” and/or “independent” projects tend to be really, really liberal.
Whatever that even means in America these days. A nation where the NRA more or less has a lock on both the legislative and executive branches of the government.
After all, the “gun industry” is always going to be about the right to make lots and lots of money selling guns.
And that’s the other focus of the film: lobbying. Here, money doesn’t talk, it screams. And all throughout the capitalist political economy. This is just one more snapshot of crony capitalism. Then it’s only a matter of whether a “principled protagonist” can make a difference. In other words, put a tiny dent in it all.
The NRA promptly despised it. On the other hand…
Ironically, the film’s message is not directed at gun control as much as it pulls back the curtain on the corruption and manipulation present among high-powered lobbyists in DC politics, with gun control operating merely as its topic of debate for a lobbying endeavor central to the film’s plot.
This film exposes how “the system” works. And some voters are even aware of it. But enough of them aren’t to sustain a ruling class decade after decade after decade. It’s almost the equivalent of a game though. Pieces are moved on the board and those who think more moves into the future win.
So it’s like this tug of war between principles and profit.
It’s not “based on a true story” however. So your guess is as good as mine regarding the extent to which this is typical or atypical of how the “game” really is played in Washington.
Look for the part about ends and means – that murky line between self-interest and doing the right thing, between the personal and the political.
IMDb
Upon the film’s theatrical release, the US gun lobby mounted an aggressive social media campaign, especially across middle America, encouraging their expansive membership to boycott and excoriate the film. This attack also transpired in the wake of Trump’s unexpected election to POTUS, further invigorating his base of supporters to tarnish the film’s credibility. It’s noted that very few of the film’s detractors even watched the film, nor judged it on its merits, yet they still believed the film carried a pro-gun-control message that threatened their constitutional rights. Their efforts were largely effective in adversely influencing the film’s box-office momentum. However, the film received high praise from critics and audiences who viewed it, and its fanfare on home video and digital HD has largely vindicated the false rhetoric and manipulated ratings that was propogated by the NRA and its hardcore supporters.
trailer: youtu.be/AMUkfmUu44k
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Sloane
MISS SLOANE [2016]
Directed by John Madden
[b]Elizabeth [more or less to the camera]: Lobbying is about foresight. About anticipating your opponent’s moves and devising counter measures. The winner plots one step ahead of the opposition. And plays her trump card just after they play theirs…It’s about making sure you surprise them. And they don’t surprise you.
…
Elizabeth: I’m going to tell you a story.
Pat: Please, no!
Elizabeth: A priest is giving a young nun a lift home from church one day… and as he’s shifting gears, he rests his hand on the nun’s knee… This is offensive and inappropriate. The young nun looks up at the priest and says: “Father, remember Luke 14:10.” The priest withdraws his hand, embarrassed. Next time they stop at a light, he places his hand a little higher up on her thigh. The nun says: “Remember Luke 14:10, Father.” The priest apologizes: “The flesh is weak”, he says… So he drops her off and when he gets home, he reaches for his Bible and he flips to Luke 14:10. Anyone know what it says? Hm? What does it say, Pat?
Pat: “Friend, come up higher, then shalt thou have glory.”
Elizabeth: Know your subject, people!
…
Sanford: Our polling data is telling us that we’re not connecting with the female voter, so… we want to change the narrative… from mothers losing their kids to guns… to mothers protecting their kids with guns… from a battered wife threatened by a bullet… to fending off her violent husband with a .38. Guns as tools of female empowerment…
George: What’s the saying? God created humans…
Sanford: …and Samuel Colt made 'em equal.
…
George: I don’t remember you caring ever, one way or another, about guns.
Elizabeth: My position solidified somewhere between Columbine and Charleston. Come on, George, any headcase, felon or terrorist can buy an assault rifle from a gun show, the Internet or his buddy at the Bowl-O-Rama without so much as an ID. Heaton-Harris puts a stop to that.
George: Christ, Liz, this is the gun lobby. Do you have any idea how long I’ve been trying to reel them in?
…
George [to Elizabeth]: The only reason you and your team of gum-chewing ragamuffins are here… is that your arrogant pranks might generate enough buzz to attract clients like Bill Sandford. Meaning, if you don’t dedicate yourself to his cause. This firm won’t have any use for you. Now go away. Look into those numbers. Start getting women into guns!
…
Rodolfo: Will you admit that the present system is broken?
Elizabeth: I remain committed to the Second Amendment.
Rodolfo: Dildos are illegal in Texas, but Joe Public can walk into a sports store and walk out with a shotgun.
Elizabeth: That would explain the low rate of dildo-related murders in Texas.
…
Elizabeth [to Jane on the phone]: Listen, uhh, if Socrates never wrote anything, how is it anyone’s ever heard of him?
…
Elizabeth [to her team]: I am leaving Cole Kravitz and starting work as the lead consultant for the Brady Campaign at Peterson Wyatt. I’ve secured positions for everyone in this room without changing your current compensation. So who’s with me on this?
Pat: I just spent the last hour wiping your shit off Bill Sandford’s shoes. Assuring him that your the right lady to broaden his membership. We’re INCHES from a green fuckin’ light! Elizabeth: So you’re saying I should put you down as a “Maybe”?
…
Elizabeth: Ramirez, how many TEC-9s do you own again?
Ramirez: Enough to defend my property. Plus two more to piss of the lefties.
…
Sen. Sperling: Ms. Sloane. Welcome to the party.
…
Elizabeth: Calm down, Daniel. You’re starting to look like you care.
Daniel: No, I don’t care about you any further than I can throw you. I work for the one ethical lobbying practice on the Hill and I wind up defending the…the poster child for the most morally bankrupt profession since faith-healing.
…
Sanders: Look, there’s over 5 million of us and we’re armed. We’ve beaten this kind of Bill before. We’ll beat it again. They’ll make a lot of noise, they’ll wave their banners. But in the end, it’s so predictable.
Jane: She’s not predictable. She aims to surprise. She’ll share things with her team but she won’t share everything. She’ll have a plan for certain people but they won’t know until they’re dropped right into the middle of it.
…
Elizabeth [to the team]: We’re all here to ensure safe passage of the Heaton-Harris Bill into Federal law. How do we do it?
Esme: Realistically, we don’t. We fight as hard as we can, build a strong base of support… so we have a better chance when we introduce the next Heaton-Harris or the one after that. I didn’t just move across town with the aim of losing as slowly as possible? Name and seniority?
Esme: Esme Manucharian. 9 years.
…
Elizabeth: Ok, Esme, why are we gonna lose?
Esme: For every dollar Brady spends on campaign contributions do you know how much the gun lobby spends?
The team in unison: 38!
Elizabeth: So politicians bow to money…but why? It’s not going into their pocket that’d be bribery.
Cynthia: Like what the Indonesians just did to Senator Jacobs?
Elizabeth: That was legal bribery for educational purposes but yes…A Senator’s priority isn’t representing the people. It’s keeping his ass in office.
Cynthia: That is so cynical!
Elizabeth: Cynical is a word used by PollyAnnas to domate an absence of the naivete they so keenly exhibit.[/b]
Cue the reality:
[b] Clara: If senators only care about protecting their positionwouldn’t that make them slaves to public opinion? Polling data puts a majority of Americans in favor of Heaton-Harris.
Elizabeth: And that’s exactly why you keep losing…
Rodolfo: Well, this is actually our first crack at guns but I take your point.
Team member: What point?
Rodolfo: Public opinion is overrated. Return re-election for senators was 82%. The voter turnout was 36%.
Esme: I’ll bet most of them were paid up members of the gun lobby.
Elizabeth: Thank you!
Rodolfo: Our opposition has created a base of voters vast and fanatical who go out and vote exclusively on the issue of guns.
…
Elizabeth [to the team]: Come on, arguments and rebuttals. Let’s have it! Wake up!
Team Member: It’s the first step toward a National Register of firearms.
Elizabeth: Scaremongering, no one’s even come close to proposing that. And if they did, it would have it’s own day in Congress. Next.
Team memnber: And it’s 2 steps away from confiscation.
Elizabeth: The gun lobby’s rhetoric is based on the falsehood that we want to take something away from people. We don’t. We want to make it more difficult for dangerous people to buy firearms. If we can’t burst this fallacy, we may as well go home.
Team member: The new rules will increase wait times by 2 weeks.
Elizabeth: Welcome to America, where you’ll wait 6 months for an X-ray but hey you can buy an AR-15 in 5 minutes flat![/b]
Then there’s this part:
[b]Elizabeth: Forde, human interaction is an exchange, my money for your…
Forde: Dick.
Elizabeth: I was gonna say skill-set. But that’s only exchange I’m willing to make.
Forde: You sound like a banker.
…
Elizabeth: Everyone turn to tab 9, please.
Cynthia: I don’t have anything at tab 9.
Rodolfo: Security, lock down Cynthia Green’s desk. Secure her files and her hard drives and escort her off the premises. Your Blackberry, now! Now! Let’s go.
Cynthia: He offered me a partnership track.
Elizabeth: Good luck with that.
Rodolfo: Clear the office. Come on, come on! Everybody out!
…
Little Sam: Ever hear the expression: “fly on the wall”? Meet the cutting edge in eavesdropping. Rodolfo: It’s a cockroach.
Little Sam: Which can be retrofitted into the cybernetic robo-roach. We glue electrodes to it’s antennae perforate the thorax so we can control it’s movements from our link.
Elizabeth: Don’t call PETA, Schmidt.
Big Sam: These guys can crawl under doors, into crevices, bags… completely undetected. They can go weeks without food and still be mobile.
…
Jon [on television]: There were 372 mass shootings last year…64 school shootings…and there are over 300 million guns in our country. If background checks are to be of any use they should apply to all gun sales, not just some. Isn’t that what Heaton-Harris is proposing?
Pat: The Bill expand the scope of gun regulation. And it’s yet another affront to Americans’ constitutional rights…
Elizabeth: No. The Bill closes an absurd loophole which allows people on Terrorist Watchlists to buy guns without any check whatsoever.
Pat: It’s an incursion into individual liberty by an all-powerful government…
Elizabeth: What, like Drivers licenses?
Pat: Drivers licenses?
Elizabeth: It’s illegal to operate a car without going through rigorous theoretical and practical assessments…You know, in Japan, chefs train for 7 years before they’re allowed to serve a poisonous blow-fish call Fugu.
Pat: What does any of this have to do with background checks?
Elizabeth: Does anyone in this room think that the government should abolish drivers licenses? That’s absurd. Why? They are a government incursion into individual liberty. We accept them because they make sense. The more dangerous the machinery, the more rigorous the test should be. I think we can extend our definition of dangerous machinery to semi-automatic firearms.
Pat: Except the Second Amendment to the Constitution doesn’t guarantee the right to drive cars… or operate machinery or serve blow-fish, for that matter. It guarantees the right to keep and bear arms. Perhaps you haven’t read it lately. The bill infringes the rights of the people to keep and bear arms!
Elizabeht: Nothing in the bill infringes on the rights of the people to keep and to bear arms. The Second Amendment was signed in a time when the average life expectancy was 38 and it was common practice for our Founding Fathers to resolve their differences at dawn, in a gunfight. What may have been perfectly sensible in those alien times, is wholly inadequate to solve the problems of the present…
Rodolfo [watching the debate on TV]: That’s not a rebuttal! What is she doing? [/b]
Then she really goes off the deep end. Straight from the heart and the gut.
[b]Elizabeth: If they could produce a rational winning argument, I’d gladly migrate to their side… but because it says so in the Constitution, the Bible or my horoscope…What? It’s not a winning argument. It’s a ripcord. An intellectual equivalent of a yellow, pant-pissing wimp cowering behind Mommy’s skirts.
Pat: Why don’t we bring this back…
Elizabeth: No, no, no! Let’s not! Why don’t we ask all the mothers out there who lost their children to an armed sociopath if they believe in his unimpeachable, constitutional right to bear arms. Why not ask a terrified girl who locked herself in a janitor’s closet at Bloomington High, forced to listen as her peers were massacred? Go ahead, ask her! Her name is Esme Manucharian. She’s standing right there!
[she points towards Esme]
…
Elizabeth: I won’t insult your intelligence by claiming that that came out in the heat of the moment.
Esme: How far back?
Elizabeth: Once I started getting used to all the media.
Esme: Ok. Day 1. Wow! That dinner that night, you asked me if I’d go public like if it was the difference between victory and defeat. What if I’d said no? Would you still have done it? Elizabeth: Probably. I was hired to win and I have a responsibility to use whatever resource I have. The press we’re gonna get from this, it’s practically a dereliction of duty not to…
Esme: That’s it? I’m a “resource”?
Elizabeth: Professionally, yes!
…
Rodolfo: You’re a piece of work, Elizabeth. If you want to set yourself on fire to service your need to win, I won’t protest… But Esme?
Elizabeth: The end is my concern…you liberal goodie-goodies can fret over the means. You need me. [/b]
Then she tells him why.
[b]Elizabeth: My God! I tell you we’re back in the game, and all you can say is that?
Rodolfo: You knew you were going to screw Esme tonight. So you kept this from me to blindside me before I had a chance to fire you…
Elizabeth: You have an unusual insight for a boutique lobbyist.
Rodolfo: You’ve been pulling all the strings all along.
Elizabeth: Lobbying’s about foresight, you anticipate your opponent’s moves, you devise countermeasures…
Rodolfo: I am not your fucking opponent! Were you ever normal? As a child? Or were the the twisted thought processes in your mind hardwired in the womb? Because I am having a really hard time understanding how somebody gets to this.
Elizabeth: I guess I’m just a piece of work.
…
Elizabeth: I didn’t know where the line was, Esme. I never, never know where the line is. Obviously, take all the time you want and when you’re ready, we’d love to have you back on the campaign. Your own terms. No media, you can work behind the scenes. If you don’t want to work with me, I’ll resign from the campaign. If that’s what you want.
Esme: Is that your move to get me back at my desk? You want me in front of a camera to counter Frank McGill? It even crossed my mind that this was all you. You just didn’t account for an armed civilian right behind me.
Elizabeth: Esme…
Esme: I’ll keep fighting, Elizabeth. Wherever I can make a difference. But as far as possible away from you. You crossed the line when you stopped treating people with respect. You’re smart enough to know that. You just don’t care.
…
Sen Sperling: I’m committed to Heaton-Harris. I can’t vote for it with one hand and choke it with the other.
George: Under cover of impartiality, sure you can. You’ve been a vocal critic of lobbyists in the past. You’ll begin an inquiry into Sloane’s affairs in response to growing media pressure regarding her litany of misdeeds.
Sen Sperling: The cost of hearings is paid from the public purse.
George: Ron, our clients have identified you as the man to pull this off. If you refuse, I can’t stop them from blitzing you with negative finance. They won’t stop until they annihilate you. You know the root of the word “annihilate”? It’s Latin. It means reduced to nothing.
…
Elizabeth [before the Senate committee]: I have been censored by the press and by this hearing as a parasite on American democracy. It’s insinuated that I led the fight for increased gun regulation in the interest of my career. Sometimes we act not for ourselves but because we believe, plainly and simply, it is the right thing to do. I believe the Heaton-Harris Bill is the right thing to do. But I also recognize that this wasn’t what motivated me. When I was offered a position on the campaign, I was enthralled at the challenge. My decision to accept was based on my desire to win and to win bigger than I ever had before. It’s clear that my behavior has fallen well short of acceptable ethical standards. I’ve crossed lines with devastating consequences in the service of my obsession. I have betrayed the people closest to me. I have endangered lives. I deserve censure for this far more than any filing irregularity. When they consider the Heaton-Harris Bill I wish that each member of Congress would follow the example set, not by me but by the group of people that sit behind me who have made great sacrifices in the name of doing what they believe is right. I wish that those members would use their votes not in the interests of their political advancement but for what they believe is right for their country. But I know my wishes are wasted and that this will never happen because our system is rotten. It doesn’t reward honest politicians who vote with their conscience it rewards rats who are willing to sell out their country to keep their noses in the trough. Make no mistake. These rats are the real parasites on American democracy. I anticipated, if we had sufficient success in lobbying for the Heaton-Harris Bill there may be an assault against me personally to stall our momentum and to damage our credibility…Lobbying is about foresight about anticipating your opponent’s moves and devising countermeasures. The winner plots one step ahead of the opposition and plays their trump card just after they play theirs.[/b]
The standard liberal agenda, isn’t? Maybe, but then she reveals her own trump card. Cue the cockroach.
[b]Jane: I’d like to discuss my future.
Pat: This is hardly the time, cookie.
Jane: Actually, it is the time.
[She hands him an envelope]
Pat: The fuck is this?
Jane: My resignation. Academia is more my scene.
…
Elizabeth [to the room]: Input the following address into your browser: 193.184.216.449. Download a file named: “earthquake”.[/b]
If only it could be like this in “reality”.
[b]Pat [visiting Elizabeth in prison]: You look good!
Elizabeth: Prison’s not so bad if you don’t have a penis. We don’t shank each other, we form self-help groups. There’s a black market in lip gloss.
…
Pat: Was this really worth your career?
Elizabeth: Career suicide’s not so bad when you consider the alternative is suicide by career. [/b]