Previewing last Monday’s episode of FX’s Fargo, set in 1979, I highlighted a promotional clip in which a man declared “I’m not shaking” Ronald Reagan’s hand because Reagan “made a movie with a monkey. It wouldn’t be dignified.”
In fact, the November 9 episode presented Reagan as a charismatic figure whose “shining city on a hill” speech, at a campaign stop in Minnesota, moved the man to tears. And, when Reagan later approached the man, local car repair shop owner “Karl Weathers,” played by actor Nick Offerman, “Weathers” eagerly shook Reagan’s hand while enthusing: “I loved you in Cattle Queen of Montana.”
The episode allowed viewers of the FX drama, many of whom are likely too young to have experienced the Reagan years, to hear some of Reagan’s finest and most-inspiring words – though accompanied by violent and graphic video of a shoot-out in a forest between two rival criminal families. [Though most edited out, video includes graphic violence of people being shot in the head.]
Fargo, a second TV season derivative of the original 1996 movie from Ethan and Joel Coen, is set in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and Luverne, Minnesota and, like the movie and first TV season a year ago, is centered around solving a series of murders in which otherwise innocent people have become entangled. A new episode runs tonight at 10 PM EST/PST, with a second airing airing following the first.
Actor Bruce Campbell (IMDb page) plays Reagan and, as shown in the accompaning video, the November 9 episode opened with him delivering a campaign speech, much of which matched his November 13, 1979 announcement address. The FX drama interspersed scenes of the shootout with “Weathers” listening to Reagan and coming to tears. Viewers heard from Reagan:
My friends, we have in my lifetime fought harder, paid a higher price for freedom and done more to advance the dignity of man than any people who ever lived on this Earth. But if you look around, you may not see many signs of that dignity. Crime is up. Jobs are scarce. You have to stand in a line just to fill up your car.
A leader who will unleash their great strength and remove the roadblocks government has put in their way.
That we, all of us, hunger to, once again, see honor placed above political expediency, to see government once again the protector of liberties, not the distributor of gifts and privilege. Government should uphold and not undermine those institutions which are custodians of the very values upon which civilization is founded: Religion, education, and above all, family.
We, who are privileged to be Americans, have had a rendezvous with destiny since the moment in 1630 when John Winthrop, standing on the deck of the tiny Arbella off the coast of Massachusetts, told that little band of pilgrims, “We shall be as a city upon a hill.” A troubled and afflicted mankind looks to us, pleading for us to keep our rendezvous with destiny, that we will uphold the principles of self-reliance, self-discipline, morality, and above all, responsible liberty for every individual. That we will become that shining city on a hill. My friends, I believe that you and I together can keep this rendezvous with destiny.
