Ethical Issues In The Distinguished Gentlemen

This 1992 movie directed by Jonathan Lynn tells the story of how a con-man from Florida used his name, that just happened to be the same name as the previous congressman, to influence the state to vote him into the US Congress as a freshman congressman. Then off he goes to the “street [that] are lined with gold”, in Washington D.C. Thomas Jefferson Johnson, who is played by Eddie Murphy, believes that he has hit the jackpot being apart of the political arena, but soon learns that every other congressman is a scheming con artist like himself.
At the beginning of his term, Thomas knows that he must convince Dick Dodge, the chairman of the Power and Industry Committee, to allow him into the committee. They usually only allow senior congressmen

This is seen several times throughout the movie such as the very beginning scenes where Zeke Bridges, the CEO of Pyramid Insurance, is confronted for calling Thomas’s Girls of Many Nations hotline, a hotline for prostitutes, in which he gives Thomas $11,000 to not publically tell the media about his affairs with the hotline. This is one of many examples in The Distinguished Gentlemen, where a highly regarded political man is seen using his influences or money in order to gain control. Another corruption that we are shown is in the movie is greed, such as when Thomas overhears Jeff Johnson talking to another congressman about the “grandfather loophole”. A loophole that “ if [he were to] retire this year, [he would] get to keep all the money left over in [his] campaign treasury.”, which ends up being over One-point-three million dollars, which could be used for other important government duties, such as helping support a good cause. This quote, I believe is also a direct jab at how real American politics are seen today, as just money hungry

Even for a movie that was lowly rated, and came out during 1992, before President Clinton’s affairs, or over 20 years before the 2017 rise of women massively calling out sexual abusers, it is impressive that it could show how corrupt the political world can be. It’s serious matter that the American public should no longer tolerate from their congressmen or even their president, yet we blatantly ignore the obvious, trying to force the next generation to fix our problems. In the film, the points that Jonathan Lynn was trying to suggest that voters are responsible for the outcome of the government's demoralization. This can also show that just simply voting for a candidate that represents a certain party and not looking into the background of what they stand for, is another cause of the