Actor Mandy Patinkin has one of the best voices in the acting world. (Seriously, if you only know him from “Homeland” or “The Princess Bride” and haven’t heard him sing, you’re missing out.) And thanks to the delightful family videos he shares on Twitter, many of us have also gotten to know his wife Kathryn’s voice as well. The couple, who have been married for 40 years, are hilarious together.
Now they are putting their voices and humor to good use, encouraging Americans to get out the vote. And they’re doing it with a campaign video that millions of Americans will find totally relatable, as they alternate between doom and gloom, trying to remain calm and reasonable, and letting the outrage and frustration fly freely.
Even those of us who tend to remain calm and reasonable under most circumstances have been tested by the past few years, and by this election cycle in particular. While elections have always mattered, it’s never felt like our democracy was literally unraveling before our eyes at the hands of one unqualified, unhinged, unscrupulous, and untethered-from-reality person.
Mandy and Kathryn’s video nails all of those feelings. Wait for the end, when Kathryn channels the frustration of more than half the nation into one fabulously delivered line.
My glorious AF wife Kathryn helped with my latest campaign video. Whatever the polls say we have to stay calm and r… https://t.co/vENqS9N9ST— Mandy Patinkin (@Mandy Patinkin)1601983812.0
First of all, how cute is it that Patinkin calls his wife “glorious AF”? They’re seriously the sweetest. And second of all, “IT’S JUST GONNA BE MORE F***ING CHAOS!” is exactly how it feels.
Of course, fans of the president will poo poo all over it, but at this point, oh well. The rest of us need this kind of catharsis. The problem with being a reasonable, rational person who lives in objective reality and can recognize a malignant-narcissist-demagogue-wannabe-dictator with a persecution complex when we see one is that we’re not generally prone to bursts of outrage, even when circumstances call for one. It makes us feel crazy, which is exactly the kind of response constant gaslighting is designed to invoke.
So to see these two work through those feelings of “We need to show how insane everything is” and “Yes, but we’re the sane ones so we gotta keep our cool” and “Yeah, but HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO REMAIN CALM IN THE MIDDLE OF THIS FREAKING UNNATURAL DISASTER OF AN ELECTION?!?” was refreshing. We’re not alone in our mental and emotional exhaustion.
Vote vote vote.