"I'm done with you. He's done with you. The world is done with you"
-Jeff Winger (Joel McHale), Community (2009-2015)
Yesterday was a historic occasion, as Joe Biden was sworn in as the forty-sixth President of the United States. This marks the end of a tumultuous, chaotic four-year period in American (as well as global) history - the Trump presidency. Of all the presidents that one could have lived under, Trump is certainly one of them, so I decided to look back on these four years with some movie picks that have coincided with the Trump era, some in more direct ways and others in various thematic and symbolic ways.
An honorable mention to this John Mulaney clip (click to watch), which honestly sums the last four years up better than any of the movies listed below.
10. Us (2019)
Jordan Peele's Us is many things - a creepy horror film, a powerhouse acting job from Lupita Nyong'o and her co-stars, an entertaining flick with a bunch of humor - and last but definitely not least, a scorching political commentary on the race and class divides in the United States. The story may be a supernatural one with evil doppelgängers living underground, but the metaphors that the film makes are startling.
Donald Trump's presidency has certainly sparked new debates on American history, the lack of education and general knowledge on certain parts of it, and the impacts that systems such as slavery continue to have to this day due to the way they've been dealt with - and Us has a lot to say about these topics, so its release in 2019 felt extremely poignant.
9. Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017)
What would a Star Wars movie have to do with the Trump era? More than you might think.
You may or may not be familiar with the debate that films like The Last Jedi have sparked over diversity in movies - the film had a more racially diverse cast than previous Star Wars films, and this upset a whole lot of people. Donald Trump's rise and fall has been quite synonymous with the phenomenon of the "dominance of the white man" in the world starting to be over, and the problems that insecure white men such as Donald Trump have had with this phenomenon.
The rhetoric in the arguments for and against The Last Jedi was startlingly similar to the rhetoric present in Trump-era politics - both even suffered from Russian interference, as studies have found that many of the negative online reviews of the film were done by Russian bot accounts for agenda-driven reasons. What a time to be alive.
8. Parasite (2019)
Much like the previous entry, Parasite is on this list mainly because its place in cinematic history represents the kind of societal change that the Trump administration has very much stood against, but has been happening despite their efforts. A South Korean film (read: a film from anywhere else than the U.S.) winning the Oscar for Best Picture would've been hard to imagine some years ago, and it still felt like a very unexpected step forward when it happened last year.
While the world celebrated the win of this foreign underdog, which might be the beginning of a significant global change in the Hollywood-centric world of movies, President Trump made his stance clear by famously mocking the film and its country of origin in one of his rallies, and suggesting we should bring back movies like Gone With The Wind (1939). I should really do a whole other post on the top 10 reasons why that statement was just the funniest and most fitting thing for him to say and for his base to echo.
7. Joker (2019)
The success of Todd Phillips's Joker, and specifically the type of reactions that it got, say a lot about the time in which the film was released. In another time, it might have been seen as mere psychological horror story about a madman who kills a bunch of people. But the scariest part of the film is this: in 2019, it resonated with a lot of people. It's not like the people who watched the film got inspired to go on a violent murder spree themselves, as some critics had feared, but many viewers felt a startling amount of sympathy for the main character.
Of course, this is due to many reasons: dialogue on mental illness has become less taboo in the last years, and the film strongly drives the point that the troubles in its story could've been avoided if Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) would've gotten the help and treatment he needed (this can also be connected to the Trump presidency, and his administration's habit of not exactly prioritizing health care). But all of this was exasperated by the fact that the Joker's main motivation was something that a lot of us were feeling around that time: total frustration in society.
The Trump era had certainly stoked the flames of this phenomenon for a lot of people, so watching a film about a guy repeatedly run over by an unjust society until he has had enough is something that resonated with many viewers. Some people blame the film for sympathizing with such a character; others blame the government for creating a situation where this film feels so relevant. And some men, I suppose, just want to watch the world burn (I'm not entirely sure which clown I'm referring to here).
6. The Trial Of The Chicago 7 (2020)
My favorite film of the year 2020 felt extremely topical in its year of release, even though this wasn't exactly planned - when Aaron Sorkin started working on the script, he had no idea of how the summer of 2020 would spark a whole new level of debate on the very issues that this masterpiece of a film grapples with. The film takes place in the late 1960's, following the legal aftermath of an infamous riot in Chicago. The court case sparks a classic question: in the case of riots that have turned violent, where does the blame lie? With the protesters, with the police, both, neither, or something else?
Apparently this isn't an easy question to answer, because over 40 years later, we've been asking the exact same questions (but more in the form of people shouting over each other on Twitter) in the context of modern-day police brutality, George Floyd's killing and the subsequent protests, and the Black Lives Matter movement. I have a feeling that I don't have to spell out why this has everything to do with the Donald Trump presidency.
5. Da 5 Bloods (2020)
Of all the points-of-view that the legendary social critic filmmaker Spike Lee could've taken with his latest feature film, having one of the main characters be a Trump-supporting African-American is not one I would've expected - then again, Lee never does quite what you'd expect. It is no secret that the director isn't a fan of Trump, but with this film, he made the smart move of diving deep into the reasons why people support him, instead of painting his supporters as horrible people in a black-and-white fashion.
The character arch of Paul (Delroy Lindo) is a fascinating look at the societal bitterness that often opens its doors to the brand of populism that Trump represents. Da 5 Bloods also deals with a variety of other subjects that go hand-in-hand with the Trump era, from civil rights struggles to equality within the military.
4. 13th (2016)
This Netflix documentary was released before Donald Trump was elected into office, but his campaign was already a big deal and even made its way into the tail end of the film. But the larger reason for 13th's placement on this particular list is that it happens to deal with many issues that the Trump presidency would go on to blow out of proportion. Watching the film feels almost prophetic, as it warns us of problems that would just get worse if nothing is done, which is exactly what happened in the following four years.
If you've been following the conversation surrounding systemic racism in the U.S. and have trouble understanding what the phenomenon really means, this film gives you the answers and explains the issue in a crystal-clear way. If you're wondering who is right when activists insist that the country needs large structural change while Trump and his fellows insist that there is no systemic racism, watching this documentary should leave no doubt in your mind. I might sound biased or black-and-white here, but trust me - if you watch the film, chances are you'll agree. 13th is one of the most shocking, honest and downright important films I have ever seen, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone.
3. The Great Hack (2019)
Much like the previous entry, this is a documentary that may help clarify a complex issue that is thrown into conversation all the time in the media but is often left unexplained - specifically the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and how things like targeted ads, misuse of private information, Facebook and Russia all had a role to play in the 2016 election. These four years have certainly been a strange time, and it gets a whole lot stranger once you immerse yourself in the world that this documentary dwells on.
The world of Trump has been a world riddled with internet-age woes, as the political divides in the U.S. have been blown out of proportion through social networking - whether it's people using the anonymity of the internet as a reason to hurl insults one way or another, bots pretending to be people as a means of spreading an agenda, or companies like Cambridge Analytica tailoring ads in order to win elections, many pre-existing issues have gotten a lot worse thanks to the power of social media. This documentary will certainly make one think of their media usage and online behavior, and it helps explain some of the weirder causes (and implications) of the 2016 election results.
2. Bombshell (2019)
The #metoo -movement and the Trump presidency aren't just two things that happened to take place in the same few years - they are very intertwined with one another in many ways. Some experts say that Trump would've lost the 2016 election if the rise of #metoo would've happened just a year earlier, as voters might have taken the accusations against Trump himself more seriously. We'll never know for sure, but what we do know is that many aspects of the Trump administration are very much tied with the phenomenon of sexual harassment and misconduct being talked about more due to the awareness raised by various movements in the last years.
And that's where Bombshell steps in. It is the gripping true story of what went down within the ranks of Fox News, the favored network of Trump and his base. The film deals with many issues that the Trump presidency has sparked a lot of conversation on, from hush money and assault allegations to the propaganda-like philosophy of Fox News. Much like 13th, it is one of those movies that everyone could benefit from watching, as it may open the eyes of many viewers concerning just how serious the issues in question really are.
1. BlacKKKlansman (2018)
Who here is surprised that more than one Spike Lee joint made the cut for this particular list? No one? Yeah, that checks out.
And so we arrive at the definitive movie of the Trump era. It is quite fitting that the film in question is filled with depressing realities, hysterical moments of tragi-comedy, and white supremacists with pointed hoods burning crosses. By the end of the film, Spike Lee makes it pretty damn clear just how connected the country's history of white supremacy and the Ku Klux Klan movement are with the Trump presidency, thus creating one of the most powerful and relevant movies I have ever seen. I don't want to give away the film's ending for those who haven't seen it, but let's just say that the lines that are drawn between past and present are likely to leave quite anyone speechless. The old shtick of history repeating itself unless people learn from the past has never rung quite so true.
I'd also like to add that I made this list before January 6th - if I had done it later, perhaps disaster thrillers like Olympus Has Fallen (2013) or violent cult dramas like The Wicker Man (2006) would've made the cut.
Let's hope that things start to get better in the years to come! I'll be back next week with a list of the top 10 Last Week Tonight with John Oliver episodes.
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