Dazed and McCracken
The mayoral candidate obviously sees himself in Dazed And Confused. But where?
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It takes gumption to jump-start your mayoral campaign with a film that once used the tagline “Weed rules”—as Brewster McCracken will do tonight with a Richard Linklater-hosted screening of Dazed And Confused—but then, such is McCracken's bold m.o. Truth be told, gumption and charisma are really the only things setting McCracken apart from his opponents: After all, even boring old Lee Leffingwell and “Grandma” Carole Keeton Strayhorn have the same ideas about transparency in government, focusing on quality of life issues, and exploring alternative energies and “green collar jobs” as a way of staving off economic freefall.
Where McCracken really stands out—besides having a name that’s fun to say repeatedly, and not being 100 million years old—is his commitment to developing Austin’s creative sectors, particularly his interest in film and digital media. So it makes sense that filmmakers like Linklater would throw their support behind McCracken, and why the Mayor Pro Tem with an unpublished novel in his desk drawer and photos of himself playing guitar on his website would want to be seen as the “cool” candidate. But is there a deeper meaning behind his choice of Dazed And Confused for a campaign fundraiser (when he’s one of the few men on this earth who could have gone with Brewster’s Millions—or even better, Brewster McCloud)? Does McCracken, in fact, actually see himself in the film—and if so, which character is he?
Let’s get this out of the way: It’s not the movie’s ostensible hero Mitch (Wiley Wiggins)—though it would be easy enough to draw parallels. True, just as Mitch is a freshman getting his first taste of running with the big boys, McCracken is a politician with barely two terms under his belt who’s sharing podiums with senior candidates—people who were managing cities back when he was still in middle school. Hell, they both even played baseball, if you want to get superficial about it. But the difference between Mitch and McCracken is one of a will to power: Mitch more or less goes with the flow and succeeds mostly by virtue of keeping his mouth shut—being “cool,” in other words. McCracken, on the other hand, seemingly never knows when to shut up. He’ll give a stump speech at your kid’s birthday party if you ask him to, and his favorite word is “vision” (as in “we need a”). McCracken’s also not big on Austin being “saved” by anyone else; his old saw is that we have the resources to do it ourselves—which is nothing like Mitch, who (whether he knows it or not) needs someone like big sister Jodi to stick up for him, and who ends up getting Carl and Hirschfelder to do the dirty work of getting back at O’Bannion.
In that same sense, he’s not Tony (Anthony Rapp) or Mike (Adam Goldberg) either, even though he does share some of their qualities—and with his soft, choirboy features, McCracken even sort of looks like Tony. Those two spend most of the film trying vainly to hang with the cool kids but never quite succeeding, and as much as McCracken may have been a “cool kid” in the past—and no one enjoys surfing, baseball, and playing guitar without having a little mojo—there’s nothing more desperate than politicians trying to ingratiate themselves with creative types. (Look at Will Wynn’s painfully earnest, milk-and-water introductions at any city-sponsored concert.) Unlike Tony and Mike with their deep yearning to “viscerally experience” things rather than merely being spectators, McCracken has always been about experimentation (or dilettantism, if you want to be cynical), in everything from writing newspaper columns to building solar-powered machines to working as a trial lawyer—something Mike patently says he won’t do because he’s a self-avowed misanthrope. (We’re not sure if McCracken, like Mike, also dreams of being a dancer, but we wouldn’t put it past him.)
Neither is he Wooderson (Matthew McConaughey), thank God. Although, “it would be cooler if he did,” McCracken isn’t exactly the sort of layabout townie who’s content with hanging around, playing king of the foosball table, partying with high school students, and watching the girls get younger while he stays the same age. Yes, every man secretly wants to be Wooderson, but not McCracken, apparently: He’s got too much ambition to “just keep workin’ for the city, and puttin’ a little change in my pocket.” In fact, the only thing he seems to share with the film’s most indelible character is his mantra about not letting others make our choices for us, and how we have to just keep “L-I-V-I-N.” Because it would be all too easy to just go with the flow and sell Austin off to the wealthiest developer, and dig ourselves a condo-sized hole with machines powered by fossil fuels, but no sir, that’s not good enough for McCracken. All right, all right, all right. 
To a certain breed of Texas conservative, McCracken probably sounds a lot like perpetually stoned burnout Slater (Rory Cochrane). All that talk about moving toward a “21st-century economy” powered by innovations in biotech, clean sources of fuel, light rail transportation, and becoming a creative epicenter for the Western hemisphere—well, when you put grandiose “visions of the future” together like that, it doesn’t sound too far off from “George Washington was in a cult, man, and the cult was into aliens.” We’re not saying McCracken’s plans are farfetched, or that they sound like the sort of thing somebody would come up with after a few major bong rips… We’re just saying, you know, have you ever looked at a map of Austin, man? There’s some spooky shit going on there. And McCracken’s energy plan? It’s green, too.
So that leaves us—not surprisingly—with the film’s center: Randall “Pink” Floyd (Jason London), a character driven by his need to be an individual, yet who also moves seamlessly through all sorts of social circles, whether it be hanging with the jocks, palling around with the nerds, or chilling with the stoners. Such mutability is the hallmark of the modern politician (check out a guy named Barack Obama for further reading), and it’s clear that McCracken sees a little of himself in Pink’s easygoing ability to get along with—and in the case of Mitch and Mike, occasionally save—everyone he comes into contact with. (See also: Pink’s diplomatic, “yes sir” handling of an ancient football fan—a politician’s move if ever there was one.) Although, it’s also interesting to note that Pink’s individualism manifests itself as distaste for responsibility, whether it be the coaches “riding my ass” about signing a pledge, or even just the weight of having to be a starting quarterback when he could “get just as many girls if we started a band or something.” Will McCracken’s own winning nature get him elected, only for him to discover that the city won’t always let him “play ball on my own terms”? Only time will tell, but here’s hoping that if and when he does get the job, he’ll have bigger priorities than just snagging Aerosmith tickets.
