Mandatory movies: Florida's newest nutty idea, If you could cash in on crazy, Florida would be the richest state in America.
In this week's make-everyone-else-laugh-at-us news, we have a state senator trying to force every public-school student in the state to watch an Obama-bashing "documentary" … twice.
Once in eighth grade. And then again in 11th to make sure it sinks in.
Lake County Republican Alan Hays filed the bill Monday. It would force districts to repeatedly screen "America: Imagine the World Without Her" — one of the worst-reviewed movies of 2014.
The only way students could avoid watching would be with signed notes from their parents.
Hays calls it "An act relating to patriotic film screening."
I call it "An act to make people flee Florida like bats out of hell."
In fact, when I first heard about the idea, I thought it was a joke. Maybe Hays was just trying to get attention.
"No," he responded. He was going to work hard to make this law pass.
But senator, I said, you often rant about the immorality of top-down government forcing local communities to follow "big government" edicts.
That's right," he said.Well, this is a top-down, big-government edict.
"But this one happens to be one I like," he responded.
It was hard to argue with that. Or with anyone who has firm principles they apply only to others.
Hays then implored me to simply watch the movie.
So I did.
And after I watched it, I was furious.
Not by the movie's content, but because I'd wasted an hour and 44 minutes of my life.
It was unmitigated claptrap. And boring claptrap at that. I actually dozed off in the middle.
The movie barely cobbled together a theme about how some people supposedly hate America and how you should hate those people ... and Obama.
It started with an interesting premise about what the world would be like without America, but never followed through.
Instead, it tried to convince viewers that this country's most sordid chapters, like slavery and The Trail of Tears, weren't really as bad as biased history books made them sound.
Most important, it tried to convince viewers that, if they love America, they are under attack.
My wife loves America. I turned to ask her if she felt attacked, but she had dozed off, too.
Truly, this movie was as dull as it was divisive.
I'm not alone in thinking that. This film got worse reviews than "Howard the Duck."
It's one of this year's most panned movies, according to the review-roundup site Rotten Tomatoes. A whopping 8 percent of reviewers said it was worth seeing.
Another site, Metacritic, summarized the critical reception as "overwhelming dislike."
There are good conservative-themed movies out there. This one — from author Dinesh D'Souza, who's currently serving an eight-month sentence on a campaign-finance felony — is not one of them.
Really, though, it doesn't matter what I or anyone else thinks about this film. It could be the best movie in the history of filmmaking. It's still a nutty idea to force every school in the state to show it.
Hays said he thought the movie would open minds and prompt discussion. "As a history teacher, I would welcome the movie to stimulate conversation in my class," he said.
And if you were a history teacher, I responded, I would respect your right to show it — but not your right to force every history teacher in the state of Florida to show it.
Hays had no answer to that.
I was tempted to ignore this silly bill at first. Except, too often in this state, silly becomes statute. (Remember last session's Pop Tart bill, protecting children's right to chew their breakfast pastries into the shape of guns?)
Also because Hays is one of only 40 senators — one who chaired a budget subcommittee earlier this year.
I'd like to think that Hays' peers would call him out on this top-down attempt at indoctrination; that someone like Senate President Andy Gardiner would have the guts to say: "Alan, if you want people to stop viewing us like jokes, quit acting like one."
But fringe bills rarely get reprimands in Tallahassee these days.
