IT’S COME TO THIS: Joe Biden Signs With CAA Talent Agency For Representation.
Donald Trump might be absorbing all the political oxygen right now, but his successor and predecessor isn’t ready to totally exit the stage.
Joe Biden has signed with Creative Artists Agency in all areas, the agency said Monday.
“President Biden is one of America’s most respected and influential voices in national and global affairs,” Richard Lovett, co-chairman of CAA, said today of the agency’s former and now present client. “His lifelong commitment to public service is one of unity, optimism, dignity, and possibility. We are profoundly honored to partner with him again.”
In July, after Biden had been yanked off the stage, Sonny Bunch expl0red: Why Hollywood Turned on Biden First.
Even in an age of aging heroes—one in which the biggest box office draws are Tom Cruise (62) and Denzel Washington (69) and Will Smith (55) and Keanu Reeves (59)—what’s being sold is not that they’re old but that they’re effective, that they’ve got verve, that they can outperform men and women half their age. It’s why Biden embraced the Onion’s vision of him as the aging bro washing his Trans Am, it’s why he goes everywhere he can in Top Gun-style aviators. It’s why the Dark Brandon meme took off in certain quarters of the Democratic party: He’s not nearing death, he’s old and wily and still vibrant enough to crush his enemies.
Call it shallow, call it whatever you want: politics is the art of persuasion and perception, and people are less likely to be persuaded by someone they perceive to be incapable of doing the job. People are also less likely to be persuaded by folks who lie to their face and tell them everything is just fine with Biden, that he’s clearly together enough to get the job done. For what it’s worth, I am incredibly ambivalent about the effort to replace Biden: the unknown unknowns that come with either a mini-primary at the convention or simply replacing Biden with Harris atop the ticket are vast and, potentially, destabilizing. And maybe Biden rights the ship with a series of command performances in front of the press and population alike. Maybe it was a one-off thing and his standing will improve in the polls.
But pretending there isn’t a conversation to be had at all is foolish and self-defeating. The voters have seen what they have seen. Again: politics is perception. And right now, the perception is bad.
Perhaps Biden has merely sold the rights to image and voice, and Industrial Light and Magic can de-age his image like Michael Douglas in Ant Man and Respeecher can de-age his voice, as the Star Wars spinoffs did for the voice of James Earl Jones, shortly before he passed away last year. But even with all of that digital firepower now at Hollywood’s disposal, unlike Obama, it’s tough to picture Biden having much of a future in Tinseltown.