"Obama is a very good actor. He knows how to play it. And he is very adept at creating this 'Obama' - this character who is there whenever the world needs something"
About this Quote
Voight’s line lands like an onstage compliment with a knife taped to the bouquet. Calling Barack Obama “a very good actor” borrows the vocabulary of craft to argue about authenticity: the presidency as performance, leadership as a role calibrated for camera angles and global crises. “He knows how to play it” isn’t admiration; it’s a suggestion of calculation, the insinuation that charisma is technique rather than character.
The most revealing move is the doubling: Obama is “very adept at creating this ‘Obama’.” Quoting the name turns a person into a product, a brand that can be switched on “whenever the world needs something.” That clause smuggles in two claims at once. First, that the public’s desire for reassurance is so predictable it can be serviced like entertainment. Second, that Obama’s appeal is less about policy than about being a symbolic prop for a frightened audience - the steady protagonist in a story of American competence.
Coming from Voight, an actor who has publicly aligned himself with conservative politics, the critique is also a professional flex: I know performance when I see it. It’s Hollywood language used to delegitimize a rival medium’s star power. The subtext isn’t simply “Obama is fake,” but “you were manipulated by a well-made character,” a way of recasting political support as aesthetic gullibility.
It works because it weaponizes a truth about modern politics - image management is real - while quietly pretending the speaker’s own side isn’t playing to the same cameras. The sting is less about Obama than about the viewer: if you bought the performance, what does that make you?
The most revealing move is the doubling: Obama is “very adept at creating this ‘Obama’.” Quoting the name turns a person into a product, a brand that can be switched on “whenever the world needs something.” That clause smuggles in two claims at once. First, that the public’s desire for reassurance is so predictable it can be serviced like entertainment. Second, that Obama’s appeal is less about policy than about being a symbolic prop for a frightened audience - the steady protagonist in a story of American competence.
Coming from Voight, an actor who has publicly aligned himself with conservative politics, the critique is also a professional flex: I know performance when I see it. It’s Hollywood language used to delegitimize a rival medium’s star power. The subtext isn’t simply “Obama is fake,” but “you were manipulated by a well-made character,” a way of recasting political support as aesthetic gullibility.
It works because it weaponizes a truth about modern politics - image management is real - while quietly pretending the speaker’s own side isn’t playing to the same cameras. The sting is less about Obama than about the viewer: if you bought the performance, what does that make you?
Quote Details
| Topic | Movie |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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