Mr. Smith

I caught a little bit of Mr. Smith Goes To Washington on TV last night. It should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that I really identify with the worldview seen in Frank Capra's films, but what really gets me about this one is how it's still relevant to politics today.

I think Capra's movies sometimes get a reputation for being simplistic or naive. I think this reputation largely comes from people who's only contact with his films is ignoring It's A Wonderful Life every year at Christmas. It's not a world without darkness or corruption. Mr. Smith is a film all about corruption, but it's a realistic portrait of corruption. Sen. Smith's main opponent within the Senate is Senator Paine, who's in the pocket of the corrupt political boss. Paine is clearly corrupt, but you can see that he was once a good man, in fact I think he was probably once just like Smith. But then he realized he had to make compromises to get things done and it just snowballed from there. We all know what the path to hell is paved with. The idea that Capra is so good at capturing in his films is that a good man can make a difference.

One thing that I did notice as I was watching last night, that I've never noticed before, was that the film seemed to have something to say about race. The thing that stuck out is late in the film. The Boy Rangers (the Boy Scout stand-ins, because the real Boy Scouts organization thought the film was too subversive) are working together to get Smith's message out to the people. Right there, working along with the white boys is a young African American boy. Nothing is said about it, and other than race the kid is just like his compatriots, he's just doing his bit like everyone else. This may not seem like much, but let's put it in context. This movie was released in 1939, not a point in history particularly well known for racial tolerance in small town America. Would black and white kids be interacting so freely with each other? More to the point, for this young boy to be in the film, wouldn't Capra have specifically set out to cast an African American child? Wouldn't the default have been to have had another white boy? Maybe I'm making too much of this small detail, but it just stuck out to me for the first time last night.

Mr. Smith Goes To Washington should be required viewing for every American. It's a great showcase for our political system, both the good and the bad. And, of course, the fact that a number of the most oppressive governments of the last century have banned the film certainly argues in its favor as well.