{"id":9395,"date":"2012-07-03T11:12:07","date_gmt":"2012-07-03T18:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bradblog.com\/?p=9395"},"modified":"2012-07-03T11:17:19","modified_gmt":"2012-07-03T18:17:19","slug":"in-memoriam-andy-griffith-1926-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=9395","title":{"rendered":"In Memoriam: Andy Griffith, 1926 &#8211; 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/8301-31749_162-57465667-10391698\/andy-griffith-dead-at-86\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/AndyGriffith_Mayberry.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><b>Andy Griffith, 1926 &#8211; 2012<\/b><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<p>But beyond the beloved Sheriff Andy Taylor of Mayberry and, later, Matlock, there is another reason to remember the importance of Griffith to American culture today: Elia Kazan&#8217;s under-appreciated and hauntingly prescient 1957 classic <i>A Face in the Crowd<\/i>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><center><iframe width=\"400\" height=\"225\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mJGUm9e_BLU\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p>In it, Griffith portrays small-time Memphis singer and former jailbird Larry Rhodes who ends up, through a lucky turn of events, becoming a national sensation as &#8220;Lonesome Rhodes&#8221; before turning his newly-found celebrity power towards political influence.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What follows suggests the influence of Mary Shelley&#8217;s <i>Frankenstein<\/i>,&#8221; writes <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/blogs\/browbeat\/2012\/07\/03\/andy_griffith_dead_at_86_before_andy_taylor_and_matlock_there_was_a_face_in_the_crowd_.html\">Aisha Harris at Slate today<\/a>, &#8220;and foreshadows the enormous role celebrity has played in American culture in the half-century since the movie&#8217;s release. Rhodes becomes an overnight star so powerful that he can no longer be contained by small-town television. His influence carries over to a national audience and, more dangerously, into politics, as a media coach to an aspiring presidential candidate&#8221;&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><center><iframe width=\"400\" height=\"225\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XaLQMs_VDLw\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Rhodes&#8217; &#8220;descent into monstrosity,&#8221; as described by Harris and captured on film decades ahead of it&#8217;s time, captures the essence of the con by far too many political-celebrity demagogues a full 50 years later. Suffice to say, Glenn Beck will probably not be mentioning this film today.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ll also echo Harris&#8217; recommendation: &#8220;If you&#8217;ve never watched A Face in the Crowd before, do yourself a favor this July 4, and spend a couple hours with some Independence Day counter-programming: a dark vision of the country brought gloriously to the screen by one of America&#8217;s favorite sons.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Andy Griffith, 1926 &#8211; 2012 But beyond the beloved Sheriff Andy Taylor of Mayberry and, later, Matlock, there is another reason to remember the importance of Griffith to American culture today: Elia Kazan&#8217;s under-appreciated and hauntingly prescient 1957 classic A Face in the Crowd&#8230; In it, Griffith portrays small-time Memphis singer and former jailbird Larry [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[197],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-9395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-memoriam"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9395\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9395"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=9395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}