‘Manchurian Candidate’ finds a new bad guy

updated 3:26 p.m. ET Aug. 2, 2004

NEW YORK - Don’t look for any Manchurians in “The Manchurian Candidate” remake. The only Manchurian is in the name of the villain — an evil multinational conglomerate.

Don’t look for Manchuria, either — the action stems from the first Gulf War.

But you won’t find any wacky Iraqis. The mad scientist/brainwasher is a white South African.

In John Frankenheimer’s revered original, Chinese Communists were the heavies. In Jonathan Demme’s update, the Manchurian Global corporation is the scheming enemy — which inevitably will resonate in some people’s minds with the real-life role of Halliburton (Vice President Cheney’s old company) in Iraq.

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Tina Sinatra, co-producer of the remake, concedes there are “certain parallels that one could draw to our current political setting. But it didn’t necessarily start out that way. We were writing (the script) a long time ago. We kind of predated this Bush administration, and we certainly predated the second Gulf War.

“We set it in the reality of the war, but from there it was all made up.”

She says she didn’t have Halliburton in mind, and neither did co-screenwriter Daniel Pyne. And the movie “just happened to step over a line or two because life caught up with the art,” says the daughter of the original movie’s star, Frank Sinatra.

Calling Ken Lay

‘Hollywood wants to find villains that won’t get them heat from racial/ethnic advocacy groups and who will still ‘work’ with audiences.’ — Stephanie Larson political science professor at Dickinson College

Coincidence or not, corporate executives can serve as all-purpose villains, says John J. Pitney, Jr., a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College in California. “Three-quarters of voters may own stock, but they’re worried that the guys in the suits are Enron-izing the value of their shares,” he says.

It’s certainly an old theme for Hollywood, too. Going back to 1941, Frank Capra’s “Meet John Doe” was full of paranoia about business influence, Pitney points out.

Even early James Bond movies such as “Dr. No” and “Goldfinger” focus on “freewheeling capitalists” as bad guys, notes Jeffrey Hart, professor of political science at Indiana University.

And who can forget the rapacious Gordon Gekko — Michael Douglas’ Academy Award-winning star turn — of Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street”?

Concern about stereotypes has emptied the Hollywood storehouse of stock villains, Pitney says, which helps explain why no Arabs are depicted as the prime evildoers in “The Manchurian Candidate.”

“Hollywood wants to find villains that won’t get them heat from racial/ethnic advocacy groups and who will still ‘work’ with audiences. White South Africans are a safe bet because they are not racial minorities and they can be presented as racist,” says Stephanie Larson, a political science professor at Dickinson College.

The search for acceptable villains

‘There’s only two classes of people you can portray as a villain on a television action-adventure show anymore, and that would be the Russians or white, middle-class Americans.’ — Donald Bellisario Television producer

As long ago as 1985, producer Donald Bellisario, whose credits include “Magnum P.I.,” “Quantum Leap,” and “JAG,” said on PBS’ “McNeil/Lehrer Newshour”: “I mean, there’s only two people, two classes of people you can portray as a villain on a television action-adventure show anymore, and that would be the Russians or white, middle-class Americans, businessmen preferably, right? Because they don’t have any minority group to get up and raise hell.”

The Cold War is over, so the Soviets are out; Middle East terrorists are a problem because Muslims and Arab-Americans have legitimate concerns about stereotyping, Pitney says, adding: “That leaves business people.”

“In the movies you look for somebody that everybody can hate with impunity,” says Hart, adding, only half-jokingly, that’s how aliens can come in handy. (Still, you don’t have to phone home to know that “E.T.” and other otherworldly creatures can be sweet and protective of puny earthlings.)

Kevin Hagopian, a senior lecturer at Penn State specializing in film theory and American movie history, finds it interesting that movie companies themselves typically are part of huge, multinational conglomerates. So such films can seem, on the surface, like self-hatred, or at least self-criticism, he says.

“Perhaps the movies are acknowledging that, in an era of diminished government, a weakened organized labor sector, and dramatically lowered civic participation of all kinds, the corporation has become the central organization in American’s lives,” he says.

But, he observes, “In all of the attacks on films as part of the culture wars by the right, very, very little ink is spilled on the negative portrayal of large corporations.”

The reason, Hagopian suggests, is that there’s usually redemption — “a conservative redemption.”

Davids face corporate Goliaths
While movies portray corporations as capable of great harm, they also portray them as subject to the crusading will of brave, reforming individuals — like “Erin Brockovich,” Julia Roberts’ Oscar-winning role.

Free video 'The Manchurian Candidate' Director Jonathan Demme assembles Denzel Washington, Liev Shreiber and Meryl Streep in a remake that has a good chance of standing up to the 1962 original classic NEWSWEEK

“This version of ‘The Manchurian Candidate,’ though considerably darker than many recent films which seem to demonize the American corporation, still holds out the hope that even the biggest and most criminal corporation can fall to the idealistic citizen,” Hagopian says.

Ultimately, the companies can be brought to heel. “The individual is king,” he says.

A good example of that was Bill Forsyth’s 1983 film “Local Hero,” in which the attempt by an oil billionaire to buy up a Scottish village gets faced down by a local hermit. And in 2001’s “Antitrust,” Ryan Phillipe’s computer programmer gets wise to, then frustrates, the megalomaniacal ambitions of his mentor (Tim Robbins).

In this era, Pitney says, “David would be flinging five smooth lawsuits against Goliath in a pinstripe suit.”

And the giant would fall.

“In the movies, David wins, though in the real world Goliath usually wins,” he says.

Remember: in 1983’s “Silkwood,” the real-life character played by Meryl Streep met an untimely death on her way to meeting with a reporter to blow the whistle on her company.

And businessmen are almost always Goliaths now. Characters like George Bailey — James Stewart’s humble, caring building-and-loan president in the Christmastime chestnut “It’s A Wonderful Life” — are hardly seen anymore.

One villain that does endure is the viperish virago of “The Manchurian Candidate.” Meryl Streep reprises the role so frighteningly filled by Angela Lansbury (yes, the kindly crimesolver of “Murder, She Wrote”).

“One thing that is retained in the remake is the demonizing of female power,” notes Larson, the political science professor. “That’s certainly something that our society hasn’t progressed beyond or redefined as inappropriate.”

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