January 6th

Today’s Genre-ary documentary I found on Netflix and it was a short doc about the time Johnny Cash was asked by President Richard Nixon to come and play at the White House.

The doc gave us some basic background on both Johnny Cash and on Richard Nixon. The Nixon section was specifically focused in on the Vietnam controversies among his presidency.

The doc talked about Nixon using the “Southern Strategy” that has been well documented in Presidential politics since the sixties when the south became more of a Republican stronghold instead of a consistent Democratic voters. It brought up how Nixon used some dog whistles to bring out the “Silent majority” to support the Republican party and create a nation of divisiveness. It was very connected to the present day politics and how it has its roots in this time frame.

The doc never went into too much detail about any of the sections, as it was just under an hour long.

It was interesting seeing how Johnny Cash was affected by his own trip to Vietnam and how he made some changes to the songs Nixon had requested Cash play at the White House. Both of the songs he asked for were songs that took shots at some of the marginalized people of the time, including hippies and those on Welfare.

I liked this doc, but I really believe it could have gone into much more details about the performance and about the two figures of American culture. It touched on a lot of the issues, but it did not go into enough depth.