Never has an actor shown how dependent he is on good writing than Viggo Mortensen. Without J.R.R. Tolkien putting words in his mouth, the erstwhile Aragorn of Lord of the Rings sounds confused at best, and often downright idiotic. Never more so than in a recent interview wherein he meditated on the semantics of The Star-Spangled Banner.
Mortensen was a standout in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Unfortunately, he’s also a standout in ultra-liberal political posturing. In an interview on HuffPost Live, Mortensen unsurprisingly praised Bernie Sanders and affirmed Quentin Tarantino’s disgusting anti-cop statements, before proffering his take on the national anthem. His thoughts on the song were so deep, he only cared about the first five words and disposed of the rest.
Asked about what inspires him outside of film, Mortensen responded “people,” and stated that people either want to know and be informed or they don’t. He then launched into a story of hearing the national anthem playing in a deli at 7:00 or 8:00 that morning. “Why is that playing?” he asked out loud as he described Asians in the deli as the song was playing.
“Are they [the Asians] trying to learn the national anthem, why are they listening to it, or is it just actually playing on the radio, why would it be playing at that time of day?” Mortensen asked. It all got his gears turning, leading him to think that morning what the national anthem is all about.
“‘O! Say can you see,’ the first line, that’s a good line. It’s a good question.” He said, “because to me it’s, I would answers yes, I can, but you have to make an effort to see and I think that’s more important than the whole rest of the words to the national anthem.”
To paraphrase Freud, sometimes an anthem is just an anthem. Poor Viggo clearly doesn’t understand that the Star Spangled Banner was originally a poem recounting at first hand a remarkable historical moment – Fort McHenry enduring an all-night British bombardment during the War of 1812. “O! Say can you see” means, “Hey look there’s our nation’s flag still waving!” To the extent that the Star-Spangled Banner is metaphorical, it stands for American pluck, defiance and bravery, not whether you can see the meaning of life.
Mortensen should have stopped while he wasn’t ahead. But what would any wooly-headed liberal disquisition be without moral relativism. “The last two lines are great, they’re rousing … home of the brave, land of the free, whatever … [To say] this country is where the brave are, where the free are well, that’s relative…not everyone is free here and there’s brave people everywhere. But ‘can you see’ – that’s a question for every individual.”
Umm, no. Unless every individual happens to be taking a 4th grade history quiz. It’s pretty obvious Viggo “can’t see” the most basic tenets of American patriotism. Especially since he thinks being free in America is only relative. Thank God the veterans who put their lives on the line for the Land of the Free have 20/20 vision.
