[ad_1]
The most obvious question raised by the title of Tom Arnold's "Trump Hunting" is: which are (supposed)? Outtakes from "The Apprentice"? Recordings of the Miss Universe contest? Surveillance footage captured in a Moscow hotel room or in the Trump tower, or God knows where else?
The answer, in the eight-episode series that begins Tuesday on Viceland, is one of them. And none Full of sound and fury and producing few recipes, the series seems very concerned about the band that rolls in the camera of Mr. Arnold, the one that will bring him back to the television.
Mr. Arnold, the former husband of Roseanne Barr and co-star of the 1994 action film Arnold Schwarzenegger entitled "True Lies" (a credit with which "Hunt" will familiarize you), took an independent concert after the election Donald Trump. a mosquito buzzing around the president's head, insisting on interviews and tweets that there were horrible recordings about the private behavior of the president.
The logic behind "Hunt" is that this video brought Mr. Trump to the White House and that the video will bring him out. At a pre-Emmys party, two days before the premiere, Mr. Arnold would have fought with Mark Burnett, the "apprentice" producer that Mr. Arnold accused of covering his former star.
But he produced more publicity than results. Calling "Hunt" nothing is insufficient. Until now, it is no longer a thing. (I've seen two episodes of eight, but Mr. Arnold said that he had found a band would not have withheld until the arrival of air.)
Much of the first episode is devoted to a "research" of Mr. Trump's radio interviews with Howard Stern, the audio for which Arnold has published articles online. But these interviews were sought and found well before "Hunt": offensive extracts were reported during the campaign and referenced in the debates. The transcripts, the notes of the episode, are available online.
There is more and less in the second episode. Arnold asks Penn Jillette, a former "Celebrity Apprentice" competitor, to lay charges on Trump's language – "homophobic, racist, misogynous things" – but Mr. Arnold does not follow through on the details. It features a dramatic reading of similar claims from "Apprentice" crew members. He remade a story of Mr. Trump calling rapper Lil Jon an "uncle Tom" who, again, released in 2016.
Arnold recognizes the absurdity of his way of playing Bob Woodward – a minor celebrity investigating a minor celebrity – and "Hunt" is at least a half-comedy, putting off the obsession with manic and D-list status. his star. It's good that he has a sense of humor about himself, but after a while, it plays like a joke on anyone in the audience who has seriously put his hopes on him.
At one point, Mr. Jillette describes Mr. Arnold as being shameless and he agrees. In his defense, some of Mr. Trump's most effective antagonists – Stormy Daniels, Michael Avenatti, Michael Wolff – have a gift for the outrageous. Perhaps trying to do better than Mr. Trump, cluttered with shame, is like diving for sharks while carrying blocks of cement.
In August, Omarosa Manigault Newman, the "Apprentice" candidate and former assistant of the nebulous Portfolio White House, published "Unhinged, "an insider report" from the White House, filled with tantalizing indications that there was an "N-word strip" of Mr. Trump using a racial insult on the set of his reality show.
Ms. Manigault Newman did not produce this tape, but staff reports were troubled by the possibility that it exists. But she responded to the offensive against her book by posting recordings of conversations with Mr. Trump and other officials.
One thing that this multi-time reality star understands is the corollary of "cassettes that did not happen": if you produce cassettes – cassettes – people will assume that other things have also happened. The other is that there is a proven market for people who promise the dramatic and imminent downfall of the administration.
Belief in the totemic power of the bands is the key to the angle of the resistance trade with which Arnold and her work: the fervent hope that there must be an irrefutable artifact to show everyone, that will make Mr. Trump fall as quickly as dropping the One Ring into Mount Doom. According to Arnold, the alternative is to "stay in the 2020 election for this clown to be elected".
Still, Mr. Trump is not exactly J.D. Salinger. There are Trump bands everywhere. There is a video of him who boasts of having caught women by the genitals. There is a gang of him who classify Mexicans as criminals and rapists. There is a tape of him that insists that "very good" people have paraded in the streets with the Nazis.
This is not an argument for cynicism. If there are images of the president saying something reprehensible, it should come out that it changes or not.
But the interest is greater than the entertainment. It comes from the very real concerns of ordinary people, their fears and their decency. You can exploit this anguish and passion for political action, or you can launch it for another round in front of the camera. On this company, the band never stops rolling.
[ad_2]
Source link
