Most media about D.C. focuses on Congress or the President, for the simple reason that those are the things that most people think about when they think of D.C. And admittedly, that is a lot of it. But some movies, TV shows and songs try to find their own angle, for better or for worse. Here are nine of the most notable depictions of Washington, D.C.
9. St. Elmo’s Fire
To clarify: “St Elmo’s Fire” is not a particularly good movie. It’s on the lower end of the Brat Pack-movie spectrum, featuring the same stereotypes and melodrama of “The Breakfast Club” without much of the charm. But it’s notable for D.C. residents for the way it depicts the way students and young adults commiserate at whatever District watering hole is convenient. In the movie’s case, it’s St. Elmo’s Bar, which is in turn based on the famous Georgetown establishment The Tombs. The attention to detail is enough to convince us that the producers of this film did enough drinking in this town to know better.
8. Bones
Bones deserves a shout out for a number of reasons. It is not only a solidly-built crime procedural centering on a group of engaging characters rather than simply the next amusingly absurd murder (like another city-ranging crime-scene-investigation program we could mention). Its executive producer is AU alumnus Barry Josephson, class of 1978, who partially based the series on books written by novelist and AU alumna Kathy Reichs, who graduated in 1971. The small references to AU — in the first episode the characters meet in a lecture hall that looks suspiciously like one we’ve all taken classes in — adds a little enjoyment for AU students.
7. Smart Guy
Seriously, if schools in D.C. were this good, Michelle Rhee really shouldn’t have that hard of a job. In this WB series from the late ‘90s, the titular smart guy, TJ, skips from the fourth grade to the tenth grade with gross indifference to his social maladjustment. TJ and his siblings deal with serious problems (homework is pretty hard) while still managing to get a quality education out of a D.C. public school. We’ll assume the metal detectors and armed officers were too expensive for the WB to add to the set designer’s budget.
6. Get Smart
From 1965 to 1970, Get Smart nicely parodied the entire spy genre, taking the zeitgeist of the Cold War and squeezing gags out of the normally overwrought and patently ridiculous scenarios of some spy thrillers. Creator Mel Brooks mined the self-serious topic for laughs, using a cartoonish version of D.C. as his chief backdrop, though the bumbling heroes may have been closer to reality than we might be comfortable with.
5. National Treasure
Though it only spends its first third in D.C. before moving on to other areas of historical interest, “National Treasure” manages to make the National Archives interesting and the Declaration of Independence more than that scrap of paper you had to memorize in the fifth grade. American history becomes truly engaging when brought to you by our host Nicolas Cage, but the biggest draw is still the small hope that our knowledge of Benjamin Franklin’s bifocals and the undiscovered crannies of D.C. will make us fabulously wealthy one day.
4. Thank You For Smoking
In this insider view of the amoral world of lobbyists, Aaron Eckhart plays Nick Naylor, whose job is to sweet talk politicians to end restrictions on the sale of tobacco. Naylor may be the quintessential Washington insider — smooth-talking, though rarely saying anything of substance — but he is humanized by both his crusade for individualism and his own family troubles. This anti-hero shows us what much of Washington life is too-often like — an act of selfishness fixed up with a veneer of public service.
3. The Simpsons - Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington
“Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington” is a fairly straight parody of the classic “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” but it has that Simpsons’ streak of cynicism that translated the original’s idealism for Generation X sensibilities. Among the classic bits of D.C. touristry: a come-alive Thomas Jefferson memorial complains to Lisa that everyone goes to Lincoln to get advice and never to him and an oil lobbyist tries to get the drilling rights to Teddy Roosevelt’s head on Mt. Rushmore.
2. Bad Brains – Banned in D.C.
For those with an interest in the native music of Washington, Bad Brain’s “Banned in D.C.” is a perfect introduction to hardcore punk. From their second album “Rock for Light,” it’s a fast, thrashing song that never slows down, not even enough to understand the lyrics. D.C. served as an incubator for the surprisingly influential genre.
1. Schoolhouse Rock – I’m Just A Bill
In this short film, a manic-depressive, anthropomorphic piece of paper rests like a vagrant on the steps of the Capitol, hoping to lure in impressionable and unaccompanied children with a ditty about his hopes and dreams of becoming a real bill. It is still profoundly unnerving. It is notable for pandering to the powerful “School busses should stop at train crossings” lobby.
mrichardson@theeagleonline.com
