Barack and Hillary: Once Upon a Time in America

Bill Clinton once seemingly dismissed Barack Obama’s phenomenal appeal to the electorate as part of a fairy tale. As we wind down to what looks like victory for Barack Obama in obtaining the Democratic nomination for president, it seems that maybe Bill Clinton was right: it is a fairy tale.

The tale goes something like this:

Once upon a time there was a proud and haughty queen who possessed a magical mirror. Whenever she looked in and asked

“Mirror, mirror on the wall,
Who in this land is the fairest of all?"

The mirror answered,

"Thou, o queen, art the fairest of all."

Then she was satisfied, for she knew that the mirror spoke the truth.

But a child was growing up who grew more and more beautiful, and one day the child was as beautiful as the day, and more beautiful than the queen herself. And once when the queen asked her looking-glass,

“Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who in this land is the fairest of all?"

It answered,

“You, my queen, are fair; it is true.
But the child is still
A thousand times fairer than you.”

Then the queen was shocked, and turned yellow and green with envy. From that hour, whenever she looked at the child, her heart heaved in her breast, she hated the child so much. And envy and pride grew higher and higher in her heart like a weed, so that she had no peace day or night.

Sound familiar? It should—it’s the traditional rendition of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Most of us know how this tale ends. Snow While doesn’t die, despite numerous attempts on her life by the queen. She lives happily with seven little men who sustain her as she grows in strength and beauty, all while retaining her open, trusting nature. Her lack of guile almost undoes her on several occasions as she accepts toxic gifts from the disguised queen. Just when it looks as if Snow White is truly done for after the bite of a poisonous apple, she is rescued by a handsome prince. They live happily even after. The evil queen smashes her mirror in a fit of rage.

Barack Obama, having started out as a little known freshman senator quickly gained momentum as he attracted a larger and larger following with his message of change. Though first tolerated by the Democratic establishment as a youthful comer who could make little headway, toleration turned to disdain to outright enmity as the spotlight shifted from the presumptive nominee Hilary Clinton. Barack Obama deftly avoided political death after being branded an elitist and later a closet radical. Having coughed up the poisonous apple fragments from his association with the Reverend Wright, he survived and was once again victorious. The magical mirror of the media is not broken, but has lost perhaps some of its prophetic sheen.

Real life isn’t usually that easily and neatly resolved nor do real people neatly conform to the motifs and archetypes found in fairy tales. Barack Obama no doubt has many obstacles yet to overcome. He has not yet, after all, been selected as the Democratic nominee for president. This doesn’t mean, however, that fairy tales have no place in the real world of politics, law, or society. While fairy tales are often centered on magic, they address some basic concerns of their audience. Fairy tales depict normative behavior and promote adherence to norms but they do so within a framework of overcoming norms and laws—laws of nature, laws of politics, laws of society. According to Tolkien, fairy tales, while offering fantasy, do so while giving fantasy the inner consistency of reality and freeing us from the domination of observed "fact". Fairy tales suggest alternate narratives and, even once the initial euphoria is over, allow us to see things more clearly outside of the business as usual mode of our existence.

Fairy tales exist to remind us that maybe, just maybe, change can happen, even in the face of tremendous odds.

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