No joke: Robin Williams takes on politics in film

Cast member Robin Williams and his wife Marsha Garces Williams are seen posing at the world premiere of "Man of the Year" at Grauman's Chinese theatre in Hollywood, California, in this October 4, 2006 [Reuters]

To hear comedian Robin Williams tell it, politics as usual in the United States is no laughing matter, even if he makes a lot of jokes about it in his new movie "Man of the Year."

"This is not about one party or another. This is about how the whole system sucks," Williams told reporters.

He criticized the influence of special interest groups, the millions of dollars needed to campaign for office and the negative advertisements candidates use to hurt their rivals.

Director Barry Levinson's satirical "Man of the Year" hits theaters on Friday, aiming to tap into voter disenchantment ahead of the November U.S. election with a story of an acerbic talk show host, played by Williams, who runs for president.

Williams teamed with Levinson for 1987's anti-war film "Good Morning Vietnam," and it earned the comedian an Oscar nomination for acting. This time around the pair is tryito shed light on a political system the two believe is deeply flawed.

Levinson has been down this road before with 1997 political satire "Wag the Dog," about how a Hollywood producer and a Washington public relations expert concoct a fake war to cover up a presidential sex scandal. During the term of President Bill Clinton, that story sounded all too familiar.

"'Wag the Dog'" was made in a more innocent time and a less cynical time," Levinson said. "We are in a much darker period, a much more cynical period, therefore you have to find a movie that is going to work in another time."

CELEBRITY POLITICKING

In "Man of the Year," Williams portrays political commentator Tom Dobbs who runs for president as an independent candidate in an election that is marred by a glitch in computerized voting. Sound familiar?

Not only are marred vote counts a fact of presidential campaigns, but a celebrity running for office is nothing new. There is, after all, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and fans of Jon Stewart and Oprah Winfrey are printing T-shirts and running Web sites to draft them for president in 2008.

Williams might make a good candidate, although he says he is not interested. He is beloved by fans who remember him in movie roles such as the divorced father who dresses as a nanny to be near his kids in "Mrs. Doubtfire."

Moreover, there is a serious side to him that has shown through in recent years in dramas such as 1997's "Good Will Hunting," for which he won an Oscar.

In "Man of the Year," Williams' fans see both the old comic satirically ripping the U.S. system and the new dramatic actor who has a rather simple message for lawmakers: Tell the truth.

Yet, the star said being a real-world public servant is not on his agenda, and he wondered how his past drug and alcohol use, which as recently as August landed him in rehabilitation, would sound in those nasty campaign ads.

He considered what might have happened to Thomas Jefferson -- the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, third U.S. president and ambassador to France -- if he had been forced to publicly acknowledge an affair with black slave Sally Hemings.

"You might be extremely qualified, but if your life isn't squeaky clean, you can't be president," he said. "If you applied the same moral standards to most of the presidents we've had, they wouldn't even be nominated."

Then, the serious Williams turned funny. "Mr. Jefferson, you've got a call on line 2," he said, then changed his voice to mimick Hemings: "I told you, I wouldn't wait in Paris...You said I'd be first lady."

The reporters laughed but to Williams, it was no joke.