by David Christopher Bell
So, Barack Obama is keeping his job as our next President of the United States. Neat. While morale is no doubt varied because of this, I’m sure the one thing we can all agree is that 100% of us would rather see our mother get punched in the face than deal with another second of politics.
So to ease us back into reality and adjust our eyes to the light, here is a list of made up presidents in films. Guys who, no matter what party affiliation, we can all agree would beat out either of this year’s candidates. And by “beat out,” I mean with fists.
President Thomas Wilson – 2012
I know what you’re thinking. He never so much as raised a fist in this film. While Wilson never fought a bear or ordered a nuclear strike, his badassery came when every high up official was kickin’ it to the apocalypse boats and this guy was all like, “Nah. I’m good.”
Being the last ever president of the United States is, in itself, pretty boss – however this guy gets extra points to standing there covered in the ashes of god’s rage fire and meeting oblivion head on. He don’t run, this guy. Even when a freaking aircraft carrier is putting the hammer down – he don’t run. And forever after this day will he be remembered as Thomas Wilson: Last President Of The United States, killed when the USS John F. Kennedy was thrown at him by a giant goddamn wave.
Seriously, when he got to heaven the first thing God said to him was, “Did you just see that shit?”
The President — Escape From New York
“You’re the Duke of New York – you’re A-number-one!”
Anyone else find the Duke’s need to be praised as “A-number-one” just a little weird? Feels like something a child would ask for. In fact, there’s a lot of childishness going around with some of these badasses. Snake Plissken, for example. At the end of the film he goes to the President to ask him what he thinks of all the lives lost, and gets a fairly half-assed answer.
While that kind of sucks, my guess is that the President is still probably processing the whole ordeal – and considering that he saved Snake’s life, you’d think that Snake would take it easy on the guy. But no – he literally sulks off and destroys the guy’s tape. Come on, man. Grow up. I’m not saying that the President isn’t most likely an asshole – but are you really gonna go mope about it like that?
Anyway – this unnamed president still gets a badass pass because he killed Isaac Hayes and saved Kurt Russell. That’s pretty good. Also, any president who is in command of a dystopian New-York-Is-A-Prison United States automatically gets some cool points as well.
President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho – Idiocracy
You know, I honestly think that if we had a president like Camacho, way more would get done in this country. You bet your ass we’d tackle climate change if some behemoth commander-in-chief gave scientists a week before he “kicked their smart balls all the way up to the roof of their smart mouths.”
Also, death by monster truck rally is just good for everyone really. It would create way more jobs than how we do capital punishment today, what with all those drivers and vendors and the clean up. Not to mention admission prices and pay-per-view. That’s just smart thinking. Imagine if that’s how we got rid of Bin Laden.
Sure, in the case of Idiocracy this doesn’t work only because everyone is like the president – but in our world today I think this could work. This is why I propose we all get behind Undertaker for president in 2016. With your help, I know that we can choke-slam the problems of tomorrow, starting today.
President Thomas “Tug” Benson – Hot Shots! Part Deux
Not many presidents out there can say that they sword fought Saddam Hussein. In fact, I’m pretty sure none of them can, but I don’t want to completely close the door on that.
Benson, the half-artificial war hero that he is, makes a perfect POTUS. He’s dense, able to roll with the punches but stick to his guns, and is virtually indestructible. Not to mention that he has a clear grasp on the time-honored Navy fighting tradition that the ‘first guy to die loses.’
Lloyd Bridges man. We have so much to thank him for. Playing the ex-Navy Admiral Benson was pretty fitting considering that Bridges served in the Coast Guard during WWII. In fact, both of his sons, Beau and Jeff Bridges, have also served in the Coast Guard for eight years. Good for them.
President Walter Emerson – Deterrence
This guy…off the hook, this guy. While I can’t condone his techniques, in a single hour he manages to turn America from diplomatic superpower to crazy strong guy who might shiv you in prison. His message is clear – don’t mess with us, because we be nuts.
His method? Dropping a 100-megaton bomb on the city of Baghdad in response to Iraq invading Kuwait. Yeah. No peace talks, no tactical military action…just a big ol’ reset button on every man, woman, and child in Iraq’s capital city. So, yeah…aside from his cigar smoking, this entry is less about the “badass” and more about the “crazy.”
And yet, the real coup de grace has yet to even come – for when the Iraqis retaliate with a doomsday-level 23-missile nuclear strike to various cities around the world, not a single one detonates. You see, the U.S. had apparently been working through France to arm the Iraqi government with nuclear duds for just such an occasion. It’s something that Emerson knows about the whole damn time.
This means that all the fear, the back and forth threats, the worldwide nuclear panic, all of it could have gone away if this dude just opened his mouth. But no, he wanted it to be a surprise. God damn.
President Thomas J. Whitmore – Independence Day
There was no choice in including Whitmore to the list. You can’t blow up aliens and not be counted as one of the most badass fake presidents. What makes him go above and beyond is that even if he never got out of his chair for the whole damn film he’d still be a massive hero. But of course, Whitmore did much more than that – he went up there, in a freaking jet, and went after those stupid aliens.
This was not only huge on his part, but also a pretty big failure on the secret service’s behalf. Had I been Whitmore I would have fired every single one of those guys the moment I landed. Seriously, way to protect the president, people.
Anyway – you saw the film, you know the score. Hey – let’s talk about something new. Anyone hear anything about the ID4 sequel? According to Dean Devlin, the writer and producer of the first film, they are shitting out a script this very moment.
Personally, I can’t wait. The beauty of Roland Emmerich is that his films never disappoint – mainly because they don’t demand high expectations in the first place, but whatever.
President Frankenstein – Death Race 2000
There should be a law that exempts every president in office from being charged with vehicular homicide so long as they are actually driving the car and not just being chauffeured. Obviously the immunity would be lifted once they leave office, but I think it would really change the face of the people who’d run. There’d be a lot of new third party candidates who clearly just want to take a life.
Failing that, we should at least aim to have a president named Frankenstein sometime in the next few decades. I mean – how nifty would that be? Extra points if he wears a gimp mask.
You know that the system is broken when someone becomes president simply by hitting the last president with his car. That’s probably the laziest process you could ever come up with.
How does that even work? Is there some blanket policy where if you kill the commander-in-chief you automatically take his job? Or did they all just shrug and elect the nearest person at the time who, in this case, happened to be the guy who killed the president? It just seems like they are missing an obvious step along the way here.
President James Marshall (of course) – Air Force One
Yeah. Lists like these are always so frustrating when there’s one clear winner from the start. It takes away all the fun of making it because there’s very little choice involved in the number one spot. I mean…he breaks Gary Oldman’s neck and throws him off a plane…all after saying, “Get off my plane.” There’s no topping that, ever.
What I want to know is how the rest of the presidency went. Think about it – the last president to ever kill a person while in office was probably Andrew Jackson, and that guy was freaking Buffalo Bill crazy. How are the people going to handle a president that not only took a life, but several? And best of all, he did it like a lunatic! Seriously – who is going to run against the guy who single-handedly murdered his way through a plane? How do you even oppose his policies at that point?
His Hall Of Presidents animatronic at Disney probably doesn’t even give a speech, but rather just stands there for three minutes staring coldly at the audience.
