He even looks and acts like him, when you think of it. The overblown expressions and mugging for the camera. The bad hair. The pointless, repetitive gestures. The smarmy manner. The banal comments.
They're similar in character as well. Self-pitying, self-centered, self-righteous. Desperate for fame and approval. Willing to do anything to obtain and maintain status. Conceited in a pathetic kind of way. Self-proclaimed king of something, anything.
Pictured above is Rupert Pupkin, the self-described "King of Comedy." He is the main character (I can't say protagonist) of Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy, a movie which came out in 1983. Robert De Niro played Rupert, and convincingly portrayed him as a sociopath who thought himself a major talent and, after his request to appear on a national show was rejected by his idol, a Johnny Carson figure played by Jerry Lewis, kidnapped him and thereby forced his way onto the show by threatening him with harm.
Almost as disturbing as Rupert himself and the actions he resorted to for the sake of fame was the audience's reaction to him and his very uninspired performance as a comic. They thought he was hilarious. They especially enjoyed it when he noted, truthfully, that he had the star of the talk show tied up in his living room.
The film is a condemnation of the star culture in our Great Republic and the desire for fame which is characteristic of us as a people. It's also, I think, is a commentary on what we are willing to tolerate, and even admire, of those who participate in public affairs with whom we associate for one reason or another, and what is given attention by the media, traditional and now social.
Perhaps we now admire and are willing to support those who are not specially talented and experienced, who are not able, but who we believe are thereby like us, like us "common people." Nothing special, in other words, but able to silence doubters and critics with mere bluster and appeal to our prejudices and our desire not to be bothered. Most of all, having the nerve to display their lack of ability for all to see, to flaunt it, in fact.
Their brazenous in the absence of specialness distinguishes them from mere clowns or figures of good-natured amusement. They're admired because they don't care that they're not experts, or that they don't have any special talent or ability, but still have the perverse kind of courage needed to insist they know what's the right thing to do almost by virtue of those facts. They defeat and defy their critics by bluster alone. It seems Americans have a fondness for those who triumph through bluffing, who can con the elite.
Rupert Pupkin lives and breathes in the United States. Perhaps his time has come.
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