What Donald Trump’s five favourite movies say about him
The controversial 45th US President, Donald Trump, is a peculiar human oddity, the sort of person that would have been brought to life in John Hughes’ Weird Science had Kendall Roy and Michael Fabricant been the stars of the surreal Frankenstein knock-off. Having made a mockery of the American political system over four years of political power, Trump has stained the White House with a lasting toxic legacy, much like how cheap fake tan stains even the most luxurious of linens.
A rather unsuccessful businessman, Trump has always enjoyed weighing in where his ‘expertise’ isn’t wanted, like a dog trying to help you make the bed, but without the tireless good nature. Aside from the obvious, his comical stint as the President of the United States, Trump also graced us with his opinion on cinema in 2020 when he criticised the Bong Joon-ho classic Parasite, seemingly just because it was a foreign movie.
“How bad were the Academy Awards this year?” he moaned. “The winner is… a movie from South Korea. What the hell was that all about…Was it good? I don’t know. Let’s get Gone With the Wind’ Can we get Gone With the Wind back, please?”.
Trump didn’t just pluck the dated Victor Fleming film from nowhere, however, Gone With the Wind happens to be one of his all-time favourite movies, which makes sense considering its rather controversial approach to race. Set during the civil war and Reconstructive period of American history, the film features a number of problematic black caricatures. As the poet and educator Melvin B. Tolson highlighted: “Birth of a Nation was such a barefaced lie that a moron could see through it. Gone with the Wind is such a subtle lie that it will be swallowed as truth by millions of whites and blacks alike”.
Speaking of the ‘glory’ of 20th century America, it’s no surprise that Citizen Kane joins Gone With the Wind as one of Trump’s favourite movies, though, it seems as though the true message of the movie was lost over the former President’s wispy blonde locks. A powerful movie that explores how power and wealth can corrupt an individual and swell their ego to their detriment, Orson Welles’ classic also analyses the pitfalls of the American capitalist system, not that Trump took much of this in.
Instead, Trump likely favours the 1972 Francis Ford Coppola classic The Godfather when it comes to its breakdown of the American dream, seeing himself in Don Vito Corleone despite the fact that Brando’s character would defeat the President in a duel quicker than the latter could say “he’s a great guy’”.
Similarly, we don’t think Trump would fare too well against Clint Eastwood’s ‘Man with No Name’ from Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, another one of the former president’s favourite movies. Also set during the American Civil War, the spaghetti western set in New Mexico is a classic that brings the myth of the frontier to life, an era that he is likely referring to when he spouts, “Make America great again”.
But, we feel that Donald Trump can be best described by his all-time favourite movie, the Jean-Claude Van Damme martial arts movie Bloodsport.
In a bizarre profile written by Mark Singer in The New York Times, the writer describes a flight where he watched the movie alongside Trump. Calling the film “an incredible, fantastic movie”, Trump bathed in the film’s violence, “ By assigning to his son [Eric] the task of fast-forwarding through all the plot exposition — Trump’s goal being ‘to get this two-hour movie down to 45 minutes’ — he eliminated any lulls between the nose hammering, kidney tenderizing and shin whacking”.
Beneath Trump’s beefy exterior, novelty-sized hands and venomous beliefs, there is an unloved child who just wants to punch and kick his way through life and fast-forward through all the ‘boring bits’.
Donald Trump’s five favourite movies:
- Bloodsport (Newt Arnold, 1988)
- Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
- The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
- Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939)
- The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1966)
Check out a bizarre video of him reviewing Welles’ Citizen Kane below, which, despite looking as though it was made using AI, wasn’t.
