In The U.S. vs. John Lennon, the Beatle and his fellow radical, anti-war activists such as Abbie Hoffman and Bobby Seale represent life. Richard Nixon and conservative, pro-war politicians such as G. Gordon Liddy and J. Edgar Hoover represent death. The idea is paraphrased from a statement made in the film by historian Gore Vidal. The statement initially seems indicative of just another juicy opportunity for baby boomer ex-activists to rant against The Man and idealize the days when they fought the good fight against the law. Fortunately, The U.S. vs. John Lennon avoids these indulgences and moves beyond overly stark historical assessments. The film succeeds in revealing the Nixon administration’s efforts to deport Lennon and Yoko Ono as pointless and cruel dealings of a government at once power-hungry and deeply paranoid.
By glossing over important factors that led to Lennon’s success as an activist, though, the film never develops a balanced assessment of Nixon. Popular opinion, stacked overwhelmingly in favor of Lennon, allows directors David Leaf and John Sheinfeld to capitalize on the reality that the majority of their audience approaches the film eager to strengthen their hatred of the ex-president. By seizing this opportunity, the film depends too often on the clichéd, worn-out tale of the enlightened peace activists versus the narrow-minded politicians.
Nevertheless, The U.S. vs. John Lennon offers an assessment of Lennon refreshing in its willingness to diverge from deification and admit that Lennon was, whether he liked it or not, one of the most manipulated celebrities of all time. As much as Lennon remained aware of the absurdities of his fame and indeed capitalized on them in his fight for peace, others had no reservations about using his fame to further their own causes. The film’s willingness to present Lennon as a tool rather than a demigod is admirable, and actually serves both as a balance against the clichéd images of the peace movement in general and a counterargument to claims that Lennon’s story is itself a cliché.
It’s easy to call the charitably-inclined celebrity a cliché, but doing so means forfeiting historical perspective. The 21st century has seen the advent of charity events galore in the entertainment industry, from annual extravaganzas like LiveAid to phonathons by celebrities after tragedies such as the September 11th attacks or the tsunami in Southeast Asia. However, none of these phenomena existed in the 1960s; in this light, Lennon’s story becomes a phenomenon of social psychology. Why should a musician’s ability to entertain an audience have any bearing on the value of his opinion on political matters? The reality is, of course, that one has always had a perceived bearing on the other; John Lennon was just the first person to really capitalize on this perception.
In presenting Lennon as a tool of full-time radical activists, The U.S. vs. John Lennon sets itself up to explore the phenomenon of the charitably-inclined celebrity. If the film had sufficiently developed this exploration before presenting Nixon’s deportation efforts, its scope would have been much more coherent because the extremity of Nixon’s reaction to Lennon’s efforts, while not justified, would have at least been understandable. Indeed, such an exploration would reveal that Lennon really did pose a threat to the Nixon administration.
In essence, the film argues successfully for Lennon’s being a tool of the radical activists and then proves that Nixon did indeed try desperately to deport Lennon, but does not adequately explain the extremity of Nixon’s reaction to this alliance. In short, Lennon’s alliance with Hoffman, Seale and other activists was a potential threat to Nixon because the Beatles, more than any other band, owed their overwhelming success to their willingness to be used as a tool by everyone, from their manager to their fans. The primary reason the band stopped touring after 1966 was that the world so desired to use them for its own purposes that it had the Beatles in a death-grip. Regardless, their influence never waned, and Nixon certainly recognized the threat of the Beatle influence being channelled into the peace movement.
The U.S. vs. John Lennon escapes banality by presenting a critical view of John Lennon but ultimately falls back on clichés by refusing to explore the underpinnings of Lennon’s appeal to the activists that might have made Nixon’s reaction a bit more understandable. It’s all too easy to defend the guy who sings “Give Peace a Chance” and berate men like G. Gordon Liddy, who said, “I went up to one of those peace activists, lit my cigar with his candle and said, ‘Well, at least you’re good for something.’”
