The week before the launch of Senator Clinton’s book, there were two news items about two former First Families–mine and the Clintons. A four-hour mini-series is being developed about the Reagans. A television movie is being developed about Hillary (with Sharon Stone mentioned as the lead.) I thought about this as I watched the Barbara Walters interview. I hoped Mrs. Clinton wasn’t deluding herself by believing that telling her own truths in her own way would influence how others tell her story.
Unfortunately, history is not told only by scholarly types doing laborious research and paring away all details that can’t be substantiated. These days, history (or what passes as history) is often produced as television movies–biopics or mini-series–in screenplay format, with an emphasis on drama and a disregard for authenticity. People watch and often believe everything they see. From that perspective, it doesn’t matter what Hillary has written in her book. The producers of the movie about her are going to tell the story they think will attract viewers and get ratings.
When the mini-series about my family airs, I won’t watch it, but I will roll my eyes and say something disparaging if anyone asks me about it … and I will make no apologies for that apparent discrepancy. The people producing it don’t know us, have never met us, and even if they had they still wouldn’t know us. I am fairly certain that the Clintons will have the same reaction to the movie about Hillary–nope, didn’t see it, but it’s garbage.
Remember the story years ago about Hillary throwing a lamp at Bill’s head? I haven’t yet read her book, but I’m pretty sure that story isn’t in there. I suspect it never happened. It could end up in the television movie about her, though. People will watch it, and remember it, and in some part of themselves believe it is part of her life story.
Remember the television movie, “The Day Reagan Was Shot”? I didn’t watch it, but I couldn’t miss the trailers, with the actress playing my mother running down the hospital corridor clutching a jar of jellybeans, saying, “Honey, I’ve got your jellybeans!”
I could tell you that my mother never brought a jar of jellybeans to the hospital on that horrible day when John Hinckley opened fire, and that never in her wildest dreams would she have tried to feed candy to my father while he was bleeding to death internally and fighting for his life. I could tell you that, but you’re still going to have that image in your head. Why? Because you saw it on television.
We want to know the true stories about people; it’s human nature to be curious and a bit voyeuristic. But we want the stories to be entertaining. We want everything to be like a reality-TV show. However, real lives don’t generally unfold in that format.
Here is the truth about almost all of us: we want to come home at night and see a light on in the window. We want to believe that somewhere in this whole, wide, vast world there is someone we can love–wholly, deeply, completely. We hope that person will love us just as earnestly and passionately. We hope that whatever obstacles or rough patches we go through in our relationship–even infidelity–won’t destroy what we have built. We hope love will be stronger than anger.
I hope Hillary Clinton can look at the book she has written and feel secure that she has told her truths–in the way she wanted and within the boundaries that she feels are appropriate. I hope she doesn’t have any illusions about influencing how other people are going to tell her story. I hope she knows that the television movie about her will probably not use her book as source material. If she doesn’t know this, she could be in for a huge disappointment. It could make her angry enough to throw a lamp.
