Pivoting towards the election, it retrenched Obama's status as the defender of the American mainstream, evoking a blissful, pre-Palin era when “small town” and “liberalism” could be spoken in the same sentence, and no problem seemed too big that it couldn’t be solved by an afternoon of sombre, sun-dappled reflection by decent, reasonable men in horn rims and seersucker suits.
“He is the protagonist for middle American aspiration, pathfinder to the straight and narrow and able to suggest a false ease and gloss that go with probity,” as critic David Thompson has put it. He was writing about Gregory Peck but he could equally well be talking about Obama, who is cut from exactly the same liberal oak as Peck’s Atticus Finch. “If you just learn a single trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks,” Atticus tells his daughter. “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view – until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” It’s pure Obama – the unrufflable paterfamilias and empath-in-chief, with his beer summits and no-drama managerial style – right down to his favoured use of the word “folks”.
- Obama as Atticus Finch is the defender of the American mainstream, Gardian.co.uk, April 8, 2017.
About the author:
Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.
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