In 1941, Preston Sturges—one of the greatest of Hollywood directors from the days when Hollywood made entertaining movies—debuted a picture called “Sullivan’s Travels” that has become something of a classic.
If you haven’t seen it (you should), it’s a satire of the film industry in which John L. Sullivan, a highly successful, replete with butler and valet, director of shallow comedies, sets out to prove he can make a serious film—“Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou?”—by joining the downtrodden to see how they really live.
Much levity and some eventual insight about himself for the director ensues.
Eighty years later, another Sullivan, not John L., has popped up in the news. This one is not fictional—Jake Sullivan, currently United States National Security Advisor to President Joe Biden—and it is unclear whether he has gained any insight from his “travels.” It may have been the other way around.
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