"Being There" was only half the challenge, the hard part was looking in the mirror afterward...
vincerizzo.substack.com
Donald Trump reminds me of Chance Gardiner, the satirical character in Being There, a 1971 novel by Polish-born writer Jerzy Kosinski. The story follows Chance, a simple reclusive gardener with intellectual disabilities who due to a series of events, ends up mistaken for a political genius. The novel was turned into a 1979 movie starring Peter Sellers as Chance the clueless savant whose simple-minded observations are reinterpreted by the media as sagacity. Chance is rechristened “Chauncey,” a mistaken genius whose worldview is informed by garden references and his television habits. While the comparison may not be perfect given Trump’s outsized life as a wealthy real estate developer and TV star, recent events have suggested that there’s a lot of Chance in Donald— a reinvented media creation that some news outlets have monetized and introduced to their audience as an “alt guru” of politics. Not to be mistaken, the comparison is uncomplimentary to the slow but disabled Chance.
"Being There" was only half the challenge, the hard part was looking in the mirror afterward...
"Being There" was only half the challenge…
"Being There" was only half the challenge, the hard part was looking in the mirror afterward...
Donald Trump reminds me of Chance Gardiner, the satirical character in Being There, a 1971 novel by Polish-born writer Jerzy Kosinski. The story follows Chance, a simple reclusive gardener with intellectual disabilities who due to a series of events, ends up mistaken for a political genius. The novel was turned into a 1979 movie starring Peter Sellers as Chance the clueless savant whose simple-minded observations are reinterpreted by the media as sagacity. Chance is rechristened “Chauncey,” a mistaken genius whose worldview is informed by garden references and his television habits. While the comparison may not be perfect given Trump’s outsized life as a wealthy real estate developer and TV star, recent events have suggested that there’s a lot of Chance in Donald— a reinvented media creation that some news outlets have monetized and introduced to their audience as an “alt guru” of politics. Not to be mistaken, the comparison is uncomplimentary to the slow but disabled Chance.