Thrilling Days of Yesteryear

Darth Nader

As I was glancing at some e-mail earlier this week, I came across a piece of Spam that, under normal circumstances, I probably would have filed unceremoniously under “C.S.” (“Chicken shit,” as Paul Le Mat explains to Mackenzie Phillips in American Graffiti).  But this spam had the temerity to mention “Free donuts for a year” in its header, thus getting a temporary reprieve.  As an individual who shudders at the mere thought of passing up free donuts, I decided this needed further investigation.

Sure enough, the junk mail touted that Dunkin’ Donuts was offering the willing individual—presented in the form of coupon cards—free donutage for an entire year…and all I had to do was answer some questions on a survey…simple consumer inquiries about…well, you can see where this is going.  You spend what scientists have measured as “a complete waste of time” clicking on various pop-up offers until you finally give up in disgust.  In retrospect, I really don’t know what the hell I would have done with those cards in the first place—I live in Savannah, a city relatively uncontaminated by the Dunkin’ Donuts chain because the behemoth known as Krispy Kreme ran them out of town years ago like something out of a B-western.  The only competition for KK is some outfit called Donut Connection, which also sells ice cream (Kaleidoscoops) and (I swear I’m not making this up) barbecue.  (The Connection closest to us has a sign outside boasting of “the best barbecue in town.”)  Maybe I just thought it would have been cool to hand out these coupons like business cards, so that people would remember me as their arteries started to slam shut.

Since it’s a bit late to make a long story short, in the final analysis I ended up with nary a free donut…but somehow manage to re-up with the online movie rental service known as Netflix.  That was one of the deals that you had to click on to stay in the running for the Dunkin’ Donuts prize, a necessity because if I were to click on any of the credit card offers with my credit history I could hear them falling down on the floor in hysterics all the way in Savannah.  I have to say, though, my returning to the Netflix fold was certainly not something I had in the works (though I did received some junk mail about the subject earlier that week).  I’ve subscribed to the service in the past, and I’ve had no personal complaints—my on-again-off-again status dictated merely by the fact that I had difficulty finding the time to watch all the stuff I rented.  I decided this time to opt for the one-at-a-time, unlimited-monthly rental (at $8.99), figuring that I’d have a shot of at least finishing one film.  Since my previous hitch with Netflix found me renting a good many documentaries, one of the first “recommendations” that popped up was An Unreasonable Man, a fascinating documentary on consumer-advocate-turned-leftist-pariah Ralph Nader…though I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that the reason this doc came so highly recommended was that it was produced in tandem with the company’s Red Envelope Entertainment.

An Unreasonable Man, directed by Henriette Mantel (a former Nader employee who you might recognize as “Alice” in both The Brady Bunch Movie and A Very Brady Sequel) and Steve Skrovan, is a pretty even-handed, critical squint at the man still castigated by liberals and Democrats for being the “spoiler” that scotched Al Gore’s chances of being elected president in 2000.  (Even when I was a Democrat I found this analysis to be delusional; the Bush people effectively eased out Gore by putting the kibosh on a fair counting of the votes…something that I’m reasonably sure Ralph had little to do with.  Plus, it didn’t help that, as former New Republic scribe James Ridgeway wryly observes in the film, Gore “ran a shitty campaign.”)  Nader’s political fortunes occupy the last hour of Man, and though his detractors—including liberal media critics Todd Gitlin and Eric Alterman, and many former Nader colleagues—are allowed a generous say, the movie ultimately comes down on Nader’s side (“by a margin a little larger than the one that separated Gore and Bush,” remarks Leonard Maltin).  There were (for me) two particularly revealing moments in Man; the first being a juxtaposition of footage between filmmaker Michael Moore’s support for Nader in 2000 and his 180-degree rejection of the man four years later.  The second is a wonderful moment from Ralph’s co-chair in 2000, former talk-show host Phil Donahue, who laments that all the positive things that Nader accomplished during the 1960s and 1970s (auto safety, cleaner air, major steps in consumer protection, etc.) will be wiped out by his ill-fated Presidential runs in 2000 and 2004, labeling it “a Shakespearean tragedy.”  Donahue sums up my take on Nader’s “spoilage” to a T when he comments, “…they killed him for saying there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the two parties, and they killed him…and then…the Democrats spent the next four years proving he was right…”  I strongly recommend this film as a must-rent—though if you’re a patient individual, PBS will give An Unreasonable Man its broadcast debut on December 18th of this year.

- Posted by Ivan G. Shreve, Jr. - 11:28:40 AM - comment []