WhatFinger

Daughter of beloved president addresses unfunny comedian's very bad idea

Patti Davis to Will Ferrell: Mocking my father in the throes of Alzheimer's not too funny, bro

By Dan Calabrese ——--April 29, 2016

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You know right out of the gate that nothing coming from Will Ferrell's mind is going to be funny, so it's hardly remarkable when he confirms it. Sometimes I think Ferrell is testing the market to see just how low he can go: What other crude, empty, stupid concept can he produce and have people watch it simply because he was once on Saturday Night Live? It's stopped working after awhile for Chevy Chase, but Ferrell is still young.
Then again, you can come up with ideas so bad that otherwise easily led people will suddenly look at you and say, "This guy is a total hack." How about this? Ronald Reagan (played by Ferrell, natch), just starting his second term, is hit by Alzheimer's! Ha! Hilarious, right? And some guy on his staff is tasked with convincing him he's an actor playing the president so he can keep him functioning. As much as I loved Ronald Reagan, which was a lot, he was not my father so I am more struck by the complete lack of anything comically worthwhile in the idea. For Patti Davis, whose father he was - and who lived through the horror of the real Alzheimer's years - it's a tad more personal:
Alzheimer's doesn't care if you are President of the United States or a dockworker. It steals what is most precious to a human being -- memories, connections, the familiar landmarks of a lifetime that we all come to rely on to hold our place secure in this world and keep us linked to those we have come to know and love. I watched as fear invaded my father's eyes -- this man who was never afraid of anything. I heard his voice tremble as he stood in the living room and said, "I don't know where I am." I watched helplessly as he reached for memories, for words, that were suddenly out of reach and moving farther away. For ten long years he drifted -- past the memories that marked his life, past all that was familiar...and mercifully, finally past the fear. There was laughter in those years, but there was never humor. Alzheimer's is the ultimate pirate, pillaging a person's life and leaving an empty landscape behind. It sweeps up entire families, forcing everyone to claw their way through overwhelming grief, confusion, helplessness, and anger. Perhaps for your comedy you would like to visit some dementia facilities. I have -- I didn't find anything comedic there, and my hope would be that if you're a decent human being, you wouldn't either.
I have no idea if Will Ferrell is a decent human being. But I know he is not a funny human being, so maybe this owes to nothing more than his complete inability to distinguish between a solid comedy concept and complete, despicable garbage. Then again, if he is really prepared to mockingly portray Ronald Reagan in the throes of Alzheimer's, maybe he is a total jerk. I'd lay odds. By the way, Reagan's Alzheimer's disease was not diagnosed until 1994. Here he is in 1992 - four years after leaving office and seven years after Ferrell's idiotic timeline would have seen him afflicted - giving the keynote address at the Republican National Convention:

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I realize there will always be self-styled experts who claim they can spot signs of early Alzheimer's in a clip like this, but they have no idea, and there's no reason whatsoever to think he had it during his presidency. But if you're Will Ferrell, what do you care? A comedian who gets away with not even being funny certainly doesn't need to worry about being historically accurate, nor, apparently, with having even the slightest human decency. The one thing I would tell Patti Davis is that a man as great as Ronald Reagan will certainly not have his legacy stained in the slightest by a talentless nothing like Will Ferrell. Reagan was the kind of man who sought to do great things and succeeded. Ferrell is the kind of man who never does anything great, or even good. By the way, the Reagan speech in 1992 is both stirring and heartbreaking because you can't help but remember the wonderful opportunity he left us during that era - which we mostly squandered. Oh well. I guess that's when we started becoming the type of nation that would find humor in the offerings of a talentless hack like Will Ferrell.
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Dan Calabrese——

Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

Follow all of Dan’s work, including his series of Christian spiritual warfare novels, by liking his page on Facebook.

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