"Little by little the look of the country changes because of the men we admire..." It's a complex line. It warns us not of such men but of ourselves for admiring them. The cool and cold nihilists, the Huds, are no danger so long as we withhold our admiration. But it was cautionary nonetheless because when the film was made there was a widespread fear that we were turning from the Eisenhowers and Churchills of past admiration and toward the cool guys epitomized on film by Paul Newman and Steve McQueen. In those days these personae were known as anti-heroes, and the fear was that their cool would make equally attractive their denial of values, their just not giving a damn. We can't forget that many middle-Americans, as they were termed in the Sixties, saw confirmation of the warning in the social morphing between the decade's first half, when "Hud" came out, and its second. And taken out of the movie's context it is a still richer line for being double-edged. Whenever a demagogue or mountebank emerges and commands the admiration of a significant part of the public it is that part's admiration of such a scoundrel that changes the look of the country. Even if eventually repudiated a mark has been left. Moreover, if you are IN that part of the public suddenly the "little by little" line is not a warning but a jubilation. It is a complex line, and it is a loaded line. It could have spoken for both those who feared the consequences of a national Elvis Presley infatuation and those who looked forward to them. It can speak for those who find a Father Coughlin, a Joe McCarthy or a Glenn Beck to be a scourge against public rationality, but it can speak for those who feel at home with their pronouncements. It speaks for those who view Obama an alien, a socialist and a Muslim, but for others it holds out hope that the country is growing up. So while I know it's a tempting line to wield it is rather also like a very complex tool or weapon that can be employed cynically, recklessly and ruthlessly.
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