Charlton Heston dies; rifle fittingly pulled from his cold, dead hands...

Charlton Heston died today.  As someone in their 20’s and unfamiliar with most of Heston’s pre-NRA work, I have to admit I’ve always thought of him as a conservative, racist douche bag.  The Charlton Heston I know was an anti-abortion, pro-gun, anti-affirmative action, pro-white pride cheesy actor who, like Ronald Reagan, started to believe that he actually WAS as great as the characters he played in ‘the pictures’.  I’ve never seen Ben-Hur, Planet of the Apes or any of that Moses bible stuff he did, nor do I care to.  I think most liberal people from my generation will tell you that, for us, Charlton Heston sort of embodied the backwards, conservative, Christian right movement that seized our country with Reagan’s coronation.  But I have to admit that after a little bit of in-depth research (go, Wikipedia, go!), Heston is far more interesting and atypical then at first glance.

Before he was an American neo-con lunatic, Heston was, turns out, a left wing aficionado.  In the 1950’s and 60s, he was a staunch liberal and campaigned for both Adlai Stevenson and John F. Kennedy.  He marched with Martin Luther King in 1963- long before the civil rights movement was fashionable for white folk.  He opposed the Vietnam War, was in favor of President Johnson’s Gun Control Act of 1968 and starred in two movies- The Omega Man and Soylent Green- that had environmental messages. Looks like Charlie shoulda played Judas instead of Moses.

His reversal begs the question- what the eff happened to Heston?  Did his Alzheimer’s set in earlier than we all thought ala Ronnie Reagan*?  Did playing so many larger than life, gun-toting violent biblical warriors eventually go to his head?  Was he just tired of fighting Ted Kennedy for screen time?  We may never know what was at the heart of Heston’s radical transformation from a man for progress, civil rights and peace to a man for guns, repression and richwhitemen but, in my opinion, I think that Charlie was simply a man who loved a good struggle and wanted to be inspired.  He portrayed so many inspirational leaders in films, it’s no surprise he was drawn to them in real life.  And where the call for change, struggle and unity used to come from the left from Men like MLK, RFK, JFK- it now largely resounds from the right from men like Reagan, George W, and televevangelists like Jerry Fallwell.  The left wing, I think many people agree, has been broken for quite some time and as a result, we’ve been flying in circles.  2008 seems to hold some promise of reinvigorating the left and producing some modicum of change and let’s hope for the sake of the US, the world, American politics and all us average folks that the groundswell continues and inspiration, a call to action and plans for change begin to flow once again from left.

*Oh, shut up you Republican dweebs.  If you’d dislodge your head from Reagan’s ass long enough, you’d see that the man was definitely losing while in office.  It’s morning in America all right; he just wasn’t sure what day it was.