Obscenity from the movie "Bullworth"

If you haven't seen this film I highly recommend it. It was released in 1998. There is a scene where "Warren Beatty" performs a rap on television that is every bit as true today as it was 18 years ago.

Obscenity?

The rich is getting richer and richer and richer
while the middle class is getting more poor

Making billions and billions and billions of bucks
well my friend if you weren't already rich at the start
well that situation just sucks

cause the richest mother fucker in five of us
is getting ninety fuckin eight percent of it

and every other motherfucker in the world is left
to wonder where the fuck we went with it

Obscenity?

I'm a Senator
I gotta raise $10,000 a day every day I'm in Washington

I ain't getting it in South Central
I'm gettin it in Beverly Hills
So I'm votin' in the Senate the way they want me too
and I'm sending them my bills

But we got babies in South Central dying
as young as they do in Peru
We got public schools that are nightmares
We got a Congress that ain't got a clue

We got kids with submachine guns
We got militias throwing bombs
We got Bill [Clinton] just gettin all weepy
We got Newt [Gingrich] blaming teenage moms

We got factories closing down
Where the hell did all the good jobs go?
Well, I'll tell you where they went
My contributors make more profits Hirin' kids in Mexico

Oh a brother can work in fast food
If he can't invent computer games
But what we used to call America
That's going down the drains

How's a young man gonna meet his financial responsibilities
workin and motherfuckin Burger King? He ain't!
And please don't even start with that school shit
There ain't no education going on up in that motherfucker

Obscenity?

We got a million brothers in prison
I mean, the walls are really rockin
But you can bet your ass they'd all be out
If they could pay for Johnny Cochran

The constitution is supposed to give them an equal chance
Well, that ain't gonna happen for sure
Ain't it time to take a little from the rich motherfucker
and give a little to the poor?

I mean, those boys over there on the monitor
they want a government smaller and weak
but they be speakin for the richest 20 percent
when they pretend they're defendin the meek

Now, shit, fuck, cocksucker, that's the real obscenity
Black folks livin' with every day
Trying to believe a mothefuckin word
Democrats and Republicans say

Obscenity?

I'm Jay Billington Bulworth And I've come to say
The Democratic party's got some shit to pay
It's gonna pay it in the ghetto
It's gonna pay it in the...

You know the guy in the booth who's talking to you in that tiny little earphone?

He's afraid the guys at network are gonna tell him that he's through
If he lets a guy keep talking like I'm talking to you

Cause the corporations got the networks
and they get to say who gets to talk about the country and who's crazy today

I would cut to a commercial if you still want this job
Because you may not be back tomorrow with this cooperate mob

Cut to commercial, cut to commercial, cut to commercial. Ok ok

I got a simple question that I'd like to ask
of this network that pays you for performing this task
How come they got the airwaves? They're the peoples aren't they?
Wouldn't they be worth 70 billion to the public today?

If some money-grubbin Congress didn't give them away
for big campaign money? It's hopeless you see
If you're runnin for office with out no TV

If you don't get big money you get a defeat
Corporations and broadcasters make you dead meat
You been taught in this country there's speech that is free
But free don't get you no spots on TV

If you want to have senators not on the take
Then give them free air time
They won't have to fake

Telecommunications is the name of the beast
that's eating up the world from the west to the east

The movies, the tabloids, TV and magazines
they tell us what to think and do
And all our hopes and dreams

All this information makes America phat
But if the company's outta the country
How American is that?

But we got Americans with families that can't even buy a meal
Ask a brother who's been downsized if he's getting any deal
Or a white boy bustin ass til they put him in his grave
He ain't gotta be a black boy to be livin like a slave

Rich people have always stayed on top
by dividing white people from colored people
but white people got more in common
with colored people then they do with rich people

we just gotta eliminate them.

White people, black people, brown people, yellow people, get rid of 'em all

All we need is a voluntary, free spirited, open-ended program of procreative racial deconstruction
Everybody just gotta keep fuckin' everybody til they're all the same color.

I bolded portions that I view as being just a true today (if not more blatent) than they were when this was written 20 years ago. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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WaveyDavey's picture

It would have saved me a lot of typing.

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The people, united, will never be defeated.

shaharazade's picture

Think I'll watch it again. It's even more timely and relevant today then when it came out.

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WaveyDavey's picture

I had never seen the movie until last night. I was flabbergasted at how this 18 year old movie was so spot on with what is still going on today. I will probably watch it again before the weekend is over.

I'm thinking it would make a great GOTV for Jill Stein movie night. Invite a bunch of people over to watch the movie and then strategized how to most effectively spread the word about Dr. Stein.

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The people, united, will never be defeated.

gendjinn's picture

They both effectively cut to the heart of the problem with representative politics in the US.

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importer's picture

cuts to the heart of how the whole thing works, too.

Just as prescient today as it was 25 years ago...

https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=the+distinguished+gentleman+youtub...

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WaveyDavey's picture

The cops/ice cream/kids scene was so friggin realistic.

The last line in that scene was appropriately hilarious.

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The people, united, will never be defeated.

my sigline? It should have been a documentary, the only way it could get made was as parody/comedy. Still so true. And most don't know of it. Shame,

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Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .

Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .

If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march

WaveyDavey's picture

I would never had paid much attention to your tagline before seeing the movie. But the context in which it was placed was simultaneously haunting and inspiring. I'll never forget it now.

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The people, united, will never be defeated.