The movie The American President is directed by Rob Reiner and was produced in 1995. It’s about the American President, his staff, his election-campaign and most of all, it’s about his love of the lobbyist Sydney Ellen Wade. The President is played by Michael Douglas and Ms.Wade is played by Anette Bening. Michael J.Fox, Martin Sheen and Richard Dreyfuss also have central parts in this movie, and they are a great team of actors in my opinion.

 

In the movie, the President falls in love with the beautiful and hard-working lobbyist, Sidney Ellen Wade. That doesn’t seem that bad, but as it’s election-year, this is not good. Now his opponent has something to use against him, which the opponent, played by Richard Dreyfuss, does. Now the struggle to hang on to his popularity as the President begins.

 

Does this movie give a realistic picture of the President and the life in the White House? Yes, I think so. I can’t really be certain since I don’t know the American President, and I have never been to the White House, but that it is almost like in the movie, I’m certain of. There are several things in this movie that make it realistic. The President in this movie, Andrew Shepard, is a Democrat, which means that in real life he would be in the same party as John Kerry and Bill Clinton. Shepard is figthing to get his crime bill passed, but he has to pass an Environment bill first to get enough votes. Here he gets help from the GDC (General Defence Council) to get the votes needed in Congress to pass the bill, so we really get to see politicians use their contacts, and we get too see that there can be corruption, because some of the votes can be bougth. In the movie, the President also attacks Libya, and he talks about the troubles in Israel, and he hosts a formal state dinner for the President of France and his wife. We also get to see how hard the Presidents staff work. They work very hard and very long hours to get all the work done.

 

Another thing that is really important in this movie, and the part that is maybe the most realistic one, is how the press covers the President's life. They are always on guard, and they write about the President's every move. When he brings Sydney Wade as his date on the formal state dinner, the press really has something to write about, and they take advantage of it. They start to follow Sydney, and they start to dig up her past, were they find a picture of her burning a flag in the 80s. The press makes this into a huge deal, and this is not good in the conservative America. Now there are reporters around Sydney all the time, and they start making up stories about her so that they can have even more to write about. This has also happend in the real world, with Princess Diana of Wales, and in the States you could mention Monica Lewinsky. They were both involved with powerful men, and they were both followed around every hour of the day. I really think that this movie is realistic, because there are so many things that happens in this movie, that have also happend in the real world. This is the life of the American president.

 

In the movie, the President struggles to get his crime bill passed. In the end he change the bill and says that, and I quote; you can not adress crime-provention without gettin rid of assult-weapons and handguns. I concider them a treath to national sociaty (..) and I’m gonne get the guns!

 

This inpired me to write about restricting the use of guns. So, if I were a lobbyist and got the chance to talk to the real-life President, George W. Bush, I would talk to him about this issue

 

Mr. President, my name is (fyll inn navn), and I represent the parents of the victims on Columbine High School, and I am here to talk to you about restricting the use of fire-arms.

 

Every single year, an avarage of 11,127 people are shot and killed in the United States of Ameica. 11,127 people in the United States alone! And every single one of theese people are someones mother, father, sister og brother. This issue isn’t just a problem between the violent gangs in the cities anymore, this is a problem all over America, because when children started bringing guns to school, killing their teachers and fellow students, it became everybodys problem!

 

In the Constitution, it says that every man has a rigth to bear arms. I want you to remove that paragraph, because this gives people a rigth to have the guns that kill 11,127 men and women every year! The use of guns should be restricted and they should only be used for hunting. That’s what they were made for. A Tech 9, semiautomatic, 30 bullet weapon, like the ones that were used in the Colombine school-shoothing, is not made to kill deer. It has no perpous whatsoever! So, why are theese weapons being made? And why is it so easy to get guns? In Bowling for Colombine, Michael Moore shows how easy it is. He saw an ad for a Michingan bank, that said that if you signed up for an account, you would get a free gun. Excuse me? Sign up for an account in our bank and we’ll give you a gun, free of charge? Do you really think that it should be this easy? There’s accually a city in Utah, called Virgin, were they have passed a law that requires every citisen to own a gun. That is the worst thing that I’ve ever heard in my entire life. Why was this law passed? Don’t anyone stop and think, well, maby this isn’t such a smart thing to do? Apparantly not.

 

Guns are becoming more and more popular. Before, you got a mini-firetruck or a Barbie Dreamhouse on your 7th birthday. Now you get a gun and a membership in the National Rifle Accosiation (NRA). Happy birthday! I think it’s very desterbing that there are so few people who are questioning this developtment.

 

I think that the American people are getting to paranoid for their own good. They have guns to protect themselves from other people with guns. Well, if no one had guns, this wouldn’t be a problem. People keep loaded guns in their homes, just in case a burgular, rapist or murderer shows up in the middle of the nigth. This is crazy. To keep loaded guns in your house is just foolish, and it should not be allowed! Statistics say that the amount of crime in America has been dropping a lot in the last decade, but the fear of crime has gone up, up, up. The funny thing is, when you ask Americans why they have all this violence and murders, they blame it on their history, the rock music, movies and video games. I get angry when I hear people say that. Violent history? What about Germany? During World War 2 they killed 12 Million people. And Great Britain? They slaugthered thousands of people in India. And France. They beheaded people as soon they got the chance to. There the executions was accually used as entertainment. Rock- and Goth music? Well, I also listen to Marilyn Manson, and Goth-music comes from Germany. Movies? I watch the same movies that you do, and so does everybody else in the moderne world for that matter, but we don’t go around with guns shooting people because of it. And when it comes to the video games, most violent video-games come from Japan. But in none of theese countries, more than 400 people are shot and killed each year. So, what is so different about you Americans? Could it be because you have such an easy access to the weapons? That you can go in to a bank and get a free gun? I see a connection here.

 

April 20th 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shot and killed 12 students and one teacher at Colombine High School in Michigan, before they shot themselves. This was a tragedy, no doubt about it, but the reactions that followed was, in my oppinion, wrong. To make almost every high-school student in America go through a metal-detector every day before school, is a little to harch. To expell every student that, in the teachers opinion, shows signs of violent behavior is unfair. When a ten year old is expelled for bringing a nail-clipper to school, something is wrong. I think that the reactions after the Colombine-shooting should be to restrict the use of guns and other fire-arms. And to remove the paragraph in the Constitution that says that every man has a rigth to bear arms.

 

Isn’t America supposed to be the land of the free and home of the brave? Well, Mr.President, I don’t think that it’s a sign of eighter freedom or braveness when people have guns because they think that they need them to protect themselves, and that 11,127 people get killed because of that every, single year. Please, Mr.President, put a stop to this, and restrict the use of firearms, now!