Superfans of former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton still can hardly bring themselves to believe she lost the 2016 Election. Now, they wonât even be able to watch an alternate-universe streaming series in which she won the race and became president.
According to Variety, Hulu has passed on an adaptation of âRodham,â a 2020 novel by Curtis Sittenfeld in which Hillary never married Bill Clinton and became president anyway.
The streaming service had previously aired a hagiographical documentary series about the former first lady, secretary of state and two-time presidential loser titled âHillary.â
The adaptation had been in development for the streaming platform for two years, just months after the book was published. Itâs the latest example of the media fawning over Clinton despite the fact most of the rest of America doesnât like her. (And rightly so, for reasons we continue to document here at The Western Journal. If you support our truth-telling about Hillaryâs flaws, please consider subscribing.)
According to Varietyâs report Friday, â20th Television is still is shopping the project to other streamers, now that Claire Danes and Dakota Fanning are attached to play Clinton at different stages of her life.â
The project is being adapted by writer-executive producer Sarah Treem, with James Ponsoldt scheduled to direct, should it find a new home.
ââRodhamâ â published in May 2020, and a New York Times bestseller â imagined an alternative universe in which Hillary Rodham Clinton met and dated Bill Clinton at Yale Law School, but never married him,â Variety noted.
âInstead of the life Clinton has actually led, in âRodham,â she goes on to thrive as a Northwestern University professor, and launches an eventual presidential run in 2016. Real-world events â such as rape accusations against Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump as a significant figure in Politics â also play out in Sittenfeldâs novel, but in vastly altered ways.â
âRodhamâ was the second novel Sittenfeld has written about a former first lady, although the first was a bit more stealthy about its subject: 2008âs âAmerican Wifeâ revolved around a character named Alice Blackwell whose life bore a remarkable resemblance to that of Laura Bush.
I read that predictably condescending tome at the time, which was enough to dissuade me from pursuing any more of Sittenfeldâs oeuvre. According to a 2011 Deadline piece, that novel was also slated to undergo a film adaptation, although it never made it to the screen.
If youâre wondering why, perhaps you should consider the title of a 2016 New York Times interview from when the author was promoting âEligible,â a modern update of âPride and Prejudiceâ: âCurtis Sittenfeld Is No Jane Austen, but Sheâs O.K. With That.â
If one is to judge from âAmerican Wife,â which was little more than lazy liberal-baiting, I can confirm both parts of that headline are aggressively true.
And yet, a fictional universe in which Hillary won the 2016 Election led to more predictable media fawning over âRodham.â
Sittenfeld isnât exactly a fount of originality, something the author and the Times tacitly acknowledged during that 2016 interview. Sittenfeldâs four best-known works are âAmerican Wife,â based on Laura Bushâs life; âPrep,â based on the authorâs time studying and teaching at prestigious prep schools; âEligible,â which aped Austen; and âRodham,â which, as NPR noted, âapproaches a close read or shadow text of Clintonâs memoir âLiving History.'â
But despite noting the close similarities and the trite feminism of rewriting Hillaryâs backstory to let her walk away from Bill Clinton and still win the 2016 presidential election, NPRâs Annalisa Quinn called it âa nauseating, moving, morally suggestive, technically brilliant book that made me think more than any other in recent memory about the aims and limits of fiction.â
The emphasis ought to have been on âlimits,â namely its sell-by date.
When âRodhamâ was published two years ago this month, it was the kind of alternate-reality tale many liberals were willing to wallow in: one in which President Rodham was sailing to a second term in office, presumably without the pandemic or one of Hillaryâs ever-present scandals to worry about.
Instead, they were left with the Hobsonâs choice of forgetful Uncle Joe Biden or a second Trump term.
Hillary worship, like so many secular religions, can be outgrown, however.
After all, the real-life subject of âRodhamâ did marry Bill Clinton â and stuck by him through a presidency that saw allegations of rape and sexual misconduct lobbed at him. This became somewhat less fashionable during the #MeToo moment, when even liberal commentators began suddenly noting that, yes, those allegations were credible.
And then thereâs the unavoidable fact that Hillary Clinton was a horrible, no good, terrible, unlikable, scandal-prone, very bad candidate whoâd lost two races for the presidency in which she started off with far more resources and media support than anyone else on the ballot.
In 2016, this involved Clintonâs campaign spending $768 million against Trumpâs $398 million, according to Washington Post numbers, and that gap rises when you consider what the parties and outside groups spent; the media treated her as a transcendent feminist while Trump was painted as a pro-wrestling villain.
While the fundraising numbers in the 2008 race eventually turned against Clinton and toward Barack Obama, Federal Election Commission filings showed her well ahead of Obama in cash on hand and fundraising at the end of 2007, when she was viewed as the more electable choice.
Perhaps an adaptation of Sittenfieldâs novel eventually finds a home and viewers can watch an alternate reality where this infamous October 2016 tweet actually came to pass:
To all of those Hillaristas still living in their alternate reality, however, count this as perhaps the biggest gut-punch yet: Even Hulu, the streaming service that aired the unctuous âHillaryâ documentary series, isnât interested in âRodham.â
When Hollywood starts taking a pass on Hillary-flattering properties, itâs time to give up the ghost.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
