WASHINGTON — S pectacular car crashes, blasts, bursts, flames, kabooms and epic explosions. By the White House.
That’s all they’re asking.
The producers of “Transformers 3” want to take over parts of the nation’s capital for two weeks this fall to stage an unprecedented display of action-film kablooey on our hallowed Mall.
The National Park Service, steward of this constantly abused green space, is putting up a gigantic shield to block the plans.
“We keep having to ask them, ‘What part of “no” don’t you understand? The N? Or the O?’ ” said Bill Line, the National Park Service spokesman, who protects his territory with Autobot ferocity.
Our Mall, the nation’s front yard, is not the place to stage an intergalactic battle between alien robots, its defenders contend.
So let’s take a look at what we do have on the Mall.
There are monuments to four great presidents. And war memorials.
And then we have a long, somewhat tattered stretch of green that is the platform for our human expression. This is where we come to protest, celebrate and learn.
There are book festivals; runs and walks for various cancers, viruses and other maladies; concerts; political rallies and demonstrations.
Millions of feet have trampled that grass. Each year, an entire neighborhood of solar-powered homes is constructed and torn down in the solar decathalon.
In the name of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival alone — the most ambitious of the warm-and-fuzzy events — the Mall has been home to a horse racetrack stretching from the Washington Monument to the U.S. Capitol, “an Indian village with 40-foot-high bamboo and paper statues, a Japanese rice paddy, and a New Mexican adobe plaza,” according to the folklife festival’s website.
The Park Service has to look at each request for use and decide whether the permit applications that groups submit “allow for the use and enjoyment of these sites in the manner in which they were intended,” Line said.
And that means they have to allow some odious stuff.
Last year, the Ku Klux Klan submitted an application to have a rally on the Mall, Line said. The agency acknowledged the group’s right to gather, although the Klan ultimately didn’t go through with it, he said.
Even Michaele and Tareq Salahi, under investigation for crashing a White House state dinner last year, got to claim a precious piece of Mall for their annual polo match.
So if faux celebrities and the country’s most notorious hate group get a place next to Mekong river crafts and ritual monastic dance, what’s wrong with the Transformers getting their time?
The story line is, after all, a solid one, with its saga of the good Autobots vs. the evil Decepticons. The animated and film versions deal with teamwork, morality, underdogs and the corruptive pull of power. Sounds like Washington material to me.
But just because Bumblebee is the cute robot, Prowl is the one who likes nature and their good leader is a solid-hearted war veteran, that’s not enough to get the go-ahead.
“We have to remain content neutral,” Line told me. Whatever is on the permit for an event is what they have to look at.
Polo, even if it involves heinous celebrities, is a sport. Cool. Autobots, even if they are crushing evil, are going to be blowing stuff up. Not cool.
“And you think we wouldn’t be questioned if we had allowed these pyrotechnic scenes?” Line asked.
Plus there’s that pesky thing about commercializing the Mall. Remember 2003, when Pepsi, the National Football League and Britney Spears’ bellybutton staged a giant, 11-day commercial on our sacred land?
The powers that be thought it would be a nice way to honor veterans by letting them stand in the mud hundreds of yards away from Britney’s onstage gyrations. It was supposed to be the kickoff for the NFL season and Pepsi Vanilla (which was about as successful as Crystal Pepsi), but it turned out to be a debacle that made headlines after the Senate passed legislation forbidding this kind of marketing of the Mall.
I’m sorry. This is different.
The Trust for the National Mall has to go around Washington hat in hand, constantly asking folks for money to repair the crumbling concrete, replace the ravaged turf, fix the scary bathrooms and refurbish a national park that disappoints visitors every year with its up-close shabbiness.
The federal budget for park maintenance keeps getting cut. Yet more than 25 million people descend on this important space every year.
If Hollywood wants to spend a gazillion dollars to let the good guys and bad guys crash it out, why not take producer Steven Spielberg’s money and use it to fix the park service’s longstanding wish list?
“It’s not that easy,” Line explained to me.
I know. But what could be more American?
Mike Littwin’s column will return soon.
