Even though many folks still think of him as the guy who directed films like “Step Brothers” and “Anchorman,” Adam McKay has found a second life as a filmmaker, directing features that are overtly political, such as “Vice” and “The Big Short.” He’s gone from being the guy that makes Will Ferrell comedies to the man that is clearly not afraid to share his liberal ideology and does so in a thoughtful, still humorous way. But as is pointed out in a New York Times interview, there doesn’t appear to be someone on the conservative side of things doing something similar. Well, maybe there is.
According to the interview with McKay, he does see a conservative version of himself working on major films nowadays. And that person is actually Aaron Sorkin. Yes, that Aaron Sorkin.
“For all intents and purposes the Republican Party is no longer a functioning political party with actual policies and ideas,” said McKay. “It’s motivated by pure power, reactionary beliefs. So I would say the real right-wing in our country is the moderates; the right-wing version of me — maybe this isn’t the best example — is an Aaron Sorkin.”
Obviously, talking about someone like Aaron Sorkin as someone remotely “right-wing” is enough to cause a bit of confusion. When you look at his film and TV work, particularly with “The West Wing,” many would definitely call Sorkin’s work liberal-leaning. But McKay explains why he thinks Sorkin isn’t as liberal as you might think. He even pointed to Sorkin’s Oscar-nominated work, “The Trial of the Chicago 7” as an example.
“Did you look at his interpretation of that?” said McKay. “A lot of Republicans nowadays will admit that the Vietnam War was a misadventure. So that’s hardly a liberal perspective. I’m not calling Sorkin a Republican. I’m not calling him a raging right-winger. But I would say Sorkin is slightly right of center. I think that’s fair. His interpretation of that trial was one of supporting the system. There’s a lot of dialogue in that movie about belief in our institutions.”
Ultimately, McKay isn’t saying that Sorkin is a bad person. He just thinks the idea of calling Sorkin a true liberal is a bit of a misnomer.
“I like Sorkin. I get along with him. I’ve had many conversations with him. He’s an institutionalist. That’s what I would say about him,” he explained. “It does sound on the face of it like an insane statement, but I was thinking that ideally Aaron Sorkin would be the right-wing version of me. Aaron Sorkin’s not a right-winger, but our right-wing is so crazy — it’s like if Aaron Sorkin, I and a member of the Taliban are in a room together, of course both Aaron Sorkin and I are left-wingers. But in a dream world, Sorkin and I would have constructive, interesting arguments, and he would be slightly more right and I would be slightly more left. And I’m not in any way comparing my career to Aaron Sorkin’s. He’s a brilliant, wildly accomplished writer. We’re very different animals.”
While people might not agree with McKay’s logic in painting Sorkin as a right-of-center type of guy, you definitely can’t argue that the right-wing side of the political debate has definitely become more radicalized due to Donald Trump’s presidency over the last several years. So, if political ideology is a spectrum and not binary, then perhaps McKay isn’t all that wrong to portray Sorkin in that way?
