Tuesday was the last day of Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign, and the senator went out with a bang, telling reporters, “I’m going to tell you what I really think of Donald Trump,” before giving a lengthy speech about the presumptive Republican nominee’s personal and political shortcomings, up to and including venereal disease. It’s rare that a politician faces the end of a campaign with such open contempt for his or her opponent, especially in a primary: Certain delicate fictions are required of losing candidates in the name of party (or national) unity. (Cruz’s concession speech simply didn’t mention Trump at all.)
But however rare it is in real life for a candidate to give that sort of speech, it happens all the time in the movies. (In fact, a cynical person might think Cruz’s sudden burst of clarity—wrapped in an admission he’d been lying about Trump up to now—might have been a staged attempt to tap into our love of this sort of thing in fictional politicians.) Regardless, now that Cruz is gone, it’s unlikely that any remaining candidates are going to go on this kind of tirade—at least until November. So to fill the months to come, here are five of the greatest examples of fictional politicians with nothing left to lose finally saying exactly what they think.
All the King’s Men
Broderick Crawford won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1950 for his performance in Robert Rossen’s adaptation of Robert Penn Warren’s novel, and as in the novel, the key is the moment where small-town politician Willie Stark takes control of his doomed gubernatorial campaign. Calling his audience hicks is more of a Donald Trump move than a Ted Cruz move, but the animating force of his political career has always been “I’m on my own, and I’m out for blood.”
Bulworth
Warren Beatty’s 1998 passion project was an attempt to take the pleasure of watching a politician unexpectedly tell the truth and draw it out to feature length. Some of it’s aged badly, some of it was already out of touch in 1998. But the stony silence that greeted Larry Wilmore’s jokes about the press at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner shows Beatty’s Sen. Bulworth had one thing right: “We got a club!”
Nixon
Richard Nixon’s concession speech after losing the 1962 California gubernatorial race should perhaps be disqualified on the grounds that it actually happened, but Anthony Hopkins’ mix of flop sweat, shame, and unalloyed malice pushes this over the edge. It’s a reminder of a bygone era when politicians felt shame.
Election
Tammy Metzler’s campaign for school president is motivated by anger at the girlfriend who spurns her for her brother rather than any real desire to win. So nothing’s stopping her from condemning the whole rotten system. It’s worth noting that this is a school election: As the events of the primary have shown us, campaigning on the platform of immediately dismantling the government isn’t as foolproof on the national stage.
Batman Returns
Sure, the Penguin didn’t plan to be honest with Gotham’s voters, but once Batman gave him a hand, he really took things to the next level. Lots of real-life politicians have had a certain amount of contempt for their constituents—so far none of them have used a machine-gun umbrella to express it. Though now that Trump has become the presumptive Republican nominee by expanding the boundaries of acceptable political discourse beyond all recognition, it’s probably only a matter of time.
