“Not all white people are the same, don’t get me wrong, but they all have a few things in common that make them inescapably white.”

In Martin Mull’s pioneering 1985 mockumentary, The History of White People in America he makes a journey into the heart of whiteness examining the life of a stereotypical white suburban family, the Harrisons of Hawkins Falls, Ohio. They own a Weber self-cleaning barbecue grill, they all have personal jars of mayonnaise and they are not terribly self-aware people. (Sound like anyone you know? Of course not, I’m only joking.)

“No bargaining, no finagling. Full price. The white person’s way.”

The Harrison family’s patriarch is played by Mull’s Fernwood 2Night co-star Fred Willard in what is probably one of his best-remembered roles. Certainly it’s a role that he was… er… born to play, having been type-cast for his entire career as the ultimate clueless Caucasian guy. Cast as Willard’s wife is another Caucasian comedic genius, the very wonderful Mary Kay Place (Mull’s Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman co-star in the mid-70s). Mull and his mockumentary crew also visit The Institute for White Studies in Zanesville, Ohio (where scientists try to prove that white people aren’t boring) and Dinah Shore Junior High School.

“Look how clean this place is!”

Written by Martin Mull and Alan Rucker and directed by Harry Shearer for the Cinemax Comedy Experiment. Produced by Mull and future Friends producer/director Kevin S. Bright. There were two sequels, the superior The History of White People in America Volume II (on YouTube in several parts) and Portrait of a White Marriage, which was still funny, although less successful than the first two installments.
 

 
After the jump, part II

 
Between playing bassist Derek Smalls in the immortal metal spoof This is Spinal Tap and voicing dozens of characters on The Simpsons, Harry Shearer has been a key performer in two of the most oft-quoted entertainment franchises in living memory. For his latest project, however, Shearer’s the one doing the quoting. He’s re-enacting, verbatim, moments out of the presidency of the disgraced Richard M. Nixon, recasting the tragic president as a comic figure. The series, created in collaboration with Nixon scholar Stanley Kutler, is called Nixon’s the One. It already ran in the UK on Sky Arts earlier this year, and will soon be webcast weekly on YouTube’s My Damn Channel, starting on October 21st.

The scripts are taken from Nixon’s actual White House tapes—those notorious recordings that figured so heavily in the Watergate investigations that left his presidency and his legacy in utter ruins—and shot in a fly-on-the wall style that makes viewing feel like eavesdropping. A teaser was released about a week ago, in which Henry Kissinger is played by British actor Henry Goodman:
 

 
To play the former president, Shearer underwent some serious transformation—prosthetics, makeup, wig, the whole megillah, as this photo sequence attests.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos courtesy of Hat Trick Productions Ltd.

Terrific work, but this can’t go unsaid—is it maybe a little much? Shearer’s voice isn’t his only great gift as a performer, he has a marvelously expressive face, and it seems a shame to obscure ALL of it with latex appliqués. It strikes me that he could have made a better-than-credible Nixon just with the addition of a nose and some jowls. One possible reason for the full-face prosthetics could have been to DE-age the actor—this surprised the shit out of me when I looked it up, but Shearer is 70 years of age. Nixon, in the time period being recreated, was around 60.
 

 
About a month ago, to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of Nixon’s resignation, Shearer released a similar verbatim re-creation of the unsettlingly awkward moments leading up to Nixon’s resignation speech. I’ve included the actual historic footage for comparison. The way Nixon tries to casually goof around with the news crew makes him seem more like your embarrassing perma-bachelor uncle trying to flirt with a waitress than the leader of the free world about to abandon his career in the face of nearly unanimous public contempt. Shearer’s take on that massively uncomfortable frisson works quite well as cringe comedy.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds
White House memo suggests Nixon ‘neutralize’ Johnny Cash, 1970
Wasted Richard Nixon talks, slurs his words to Ronald Reagan on the telephone, 1973
Reefer man: Did Louis Armstrong turn Richard Nixon into his drug mule?
Let Nixon play Nixon: Listen to tricky dick tickle the ivories, on a composition by Richard Nixon

 
This coming Monday in Los Angeles, The International Documentary Association is presenting a special evening with satirist Harry Shearer at Cinefamily, showing clips from his new documentary on Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath:

One of the nation’s sharpest voices, comic or otherwise, turns his gimlet eye and informed mind on exposing the true facts around the flooding of New Orleans, on the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Employing an oft-ignored trope in conventional media—science!—Shearer and his impressive assemblage of engineers and whistle-blowers carefully and persuasively show audiences how this tragedy could have been avoided (disaster, yes—natural, no) while also warning of the rebuild, in which the very same mistakes are being made. In this special Doc U session, the multi-talented Shearer will screen extended clips from the film, and reveal the passion and persistence that went into making it, in conversation with Eddie Schmidt, IDA’s Board President and himself an Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker. This will be an honest, irreverent, eye-opening Q&A with a man who believed in a cause so much he independently set forth to spread the word to the public—keeping the true spirit of investigative journalism alive. For Shearer, a longtime New Orleans resident, this time it’s personal.

IDA’S DOC U: Harry Shearer Takes It “Uneasy”: Conversation & Clips From The New Feature Doc The Big Uneasy.Monday, September 20th | 7:30pm at Cinefamily. Buy tickets here.