“I have to obey your orders?!” Witherspoon petitions this policeman and also the forces that threaten democracy. “I’m being anti-American? I’m obstructing your justice?” she asks incredulously, evoking Al Pacino in …And Justice For All. With his answer a disinterested “yes,” due to the gradual entropy of our institutions and also the fact that she’s gusting hot merlot in his face, she bravely moves on to the willful assertion of self, as championed by the Founding Fathers and guaranteed by being a famous movie star. “Do you know my name, sir?… You’re about to find out who I am!” she asks, echoing the Declaration of Independence’s taunt to the tyrant King George. Unfortunately, every American Revolution must have its Benedict Arnold, and here it’s Witherspoon’s husband James Toth, who betrays her by telling the officer, “I’m sorry, I had nothing to do with that.”
As Witherspoon later explained to Good Morning America, she believed she “panicked” and said “crazy things” during this skirmish, owing to the fog of war and the fog of wine. But one thing that is definitely not crazy is when she tells the officer she needs to use the bathroom because she’s pregnant. No, Witherspoon is not technically “pregnant,” in that she is not technically carrying a human baby. But, like the rest of this proud nation, is she not carrying inside her the dream of liberty? Like every one of us, is she not swollen with pride and lots of alcohol? We are all American citizens on American ground. Let us never forget that, or forget to tell it to the policemen who try to arrest us.