Food

Bernie Sanders Played A Confused, Baseball-Loving Rabbi In An Obscure ’90s Comedy Movie

What is going on.

by Alex McKinnon  5 February 2016

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Even more than the camel-hair rug that came to life in a lightning storm and promptly shot to the top of Republican polls, the big surprise of the 2016 Presidential race has been Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. The 74-year-old democratic socialist who entirely eschews corporate donations started his campaign in May to put the issues that motivate his politics — economic inequality, corporate overreach, and political corruption — on the electoral map, with little expectation he would get near the presumptive nominee, Hillary Clinton.

Nine months later, and Sanders is proving to be more of a force than almost anyone anticipated. He held Clinton to a virtual tie in the crucial early caucus state of Iowa, is polling well ahead of her in New Hampshire, and holds an astonishing lead among younger Democratic voters. Sanders has become something of a walking meme among college-age Democrats, partly due to his youth-friendly policies of free college tuition and climate change action, but also because he constantly looks like he just fought his way out of a tumble dryer. When comedian Larry David started making hay by doing a bang-on impression of Sanders, the Senator responded by declaring he was secretly Larry David in disguise all along.

 

Sanders’ growing profile has fuelled interest in his past, with people digging around on the internet in search of decades-old speeches, appearances and general evidence of Bernie Sanders being extremely Bernie Sanders. Back in September, a YouTuber named Treon Lotsky turned up a little piece of gold: a grainy old clip of Sanders’ cameo appearance in the obscure ’90s comedy movie My X-Girlfriend’s Wedding Reception, starring a bunch of people you’ve never heard of. Sanders plays Rabbi Manny Shevitz, a marriage officiator who gives a rambling, enraged and needlessly detailed summary of everything that’s wrong with modern baseball during a wedding ceremony as the bride, groom and audience look on in increasing horror and dismay. He’s actually quite good.

He’s actually quite good.

I have long given up hope of understanding anything that happens on the internet, and this only makes me more sure of myself in that regard. Everything is very weird.