[Marxism] Oliver Stone's Oedipal Problem

[Louis Proyect]

Counterpunch, October 31, 2008
Oliver Stone's Oedipal Problem
Bush Ultra Lite

By SAUL LANDAU and FARRAH HASSAN

At a time when we need Marx's analytical abilities, Oliver Stone 
offers Freud. In his one-dimensional biopic, "W," we do not gain 
insight into how a less than brilliant president circumvented 
carefully constructed procedures to safeguard the military industrial 
complex. Instead, Stone offers a pastiche of biographical scenes, 
from Bush's raucous boozing days at Yale to his ascendancy to the 
Oval House and fateful decision to invade Iraq.

In this cinematic attempt to pseudo-psychoanalyze Bush, Stone alludes 
to his Oedipal premise: W idolizing and simultaneously resenting his 
over achieving father and un-accepting mother. These cinematic 
allusions to a rich, dysfunctional family, visual hammers pounded on 
the audience's head, should somehow help us understand how this 
chronic underachiever booked the highest office of the land and led 
him to invade Iraq.

full: http://www.counterpunch.com/landau10312008.html