Poe-litics as Usual

Oscar Isaac as Poe-lish local politician, Nick Wasicsko.

I selected Show Me A Hero from the in flight entertainment options on a long post-holiday Virgin America flight last week, largely because of Oscar Isaac. I was fully prepared to just watch the first hour-long episode, get my fill of his 1980's pornstache, and then move on to other shows. But it turned out that Oscar Isaac got way more mileage out of that pornstache than one would ever expect, so I ended up watching all six hours.

The late 1980's. It was well after the Civil Rights Era, so everyone knew--or was supposed to know--that deliberate racial segregation was unlawful. The problem was that the people in power remembered a time when it wasn't, even in northern states like New York and cities like Yonkers. And those people were not going down without a fight.

That's the climate in which Nick Wasicsko tries to make his political mark. Elected as the youngest mayor of any U.S. city, he inherits a decades-old housing desegregation lawsuit that is threatening to destroy the social and financial fabric of Yonkers. Wasicsko is a new guard politician who sees the inevitability of desegregation and takes on the city's enduring leadership (played to greasy perfection by an unrecognizable Alfred Molina). He succeeds in getting the integrated housing construction off the ground, but almost in spite of himself and his ambition.

The show was really remarkable for several reasons. First, I expected that the conflict would be between white property owners and the racial minorities who would be the beneficiaries of the desegregation settlement. But in fact, virtually all of the tense confrontation scenes were about white people shouting at and attacking other white people.

Looking for a vulnerable exhaust port, maybe?

The explanation? There's a scene maybe midway through the series where Wasicsko observes how, by the late 1980's, racists had learned that society would no longer tolerate overt racism. But bigots had adapted, learning to speak in code and cloaking their prejudice in terms of "property values" and "personal autonomy." Instead of burning crosses, racists warned and punished minorities by letting their dogs defecate on the lawns of public housing. Racism had become (and largely remains, with alarming exceptions of seemingly increasing regularity) a matter of passive-aggressive suburban nuance and neighborly menace, which the miniseries portrayed with chilling accuracy.

The second thing that impressed me was, of course, Oscar Isaac. Wasicsko saw in the desegregation fracas an opportunity to make a name for himself. He certainly felt that he was also doing the right thing, but Isaac played that almost as secondary motivation. And in a later scene, as his career is in ruins, the camera lingers on his conflicted expression as he is left to ponder his own question, posed to an embattled resident of the new public housing: "Was it all worth it?"

You're pretty sure he thinks it wasn't.

The portrayal is nuanced and balanced between narcissism and sincerity. You rooted for him even though you can't help but question his motives and, ultimately, his tactics. It's not an easy thing to do for an actor to do, especially with the molester-y mustache and bad Cosby-era sweaters.

And you know who else is in it? Winona Ryder! She's just terrific, and ably proves that someone in my generation can have chemistry with Oscar Isaac, which somehow, some way proves that a Poe Dameron-focused Star Wars fan blog by a middle aged gay guy is not at all weird.

Damn it.

I definitely just made it weird.