2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Kinda Straw Man, February 7, 2009
This review is from: Electile Dysfunction (DVD)
When a title of a political documentary can piggyback off of the failure of man meat, you know the makers want to sound jaded. This work wants to draw in people who don't vote or don't consider voting a priority. Actually, you can tell the makers of the work really want everyday people to be politicized, the more you dive into the work.
This work is great for political science lovers. Further, I think journalism or communications majors would find it beneficial too. You could show it in a high school government class, but probably only at the Advance Placement level.
So the work says politicians are pre-packaged: they are not just great men or women, they have countless consultants, numbers-crunchers, and donators behind them. Okay, but what isn't pre-packaged? Companies use advertising and market research. Movies have advanced screenings so they can tinker with things. Books and articles get heavily edited before they are published. When did shining one's shoes become a facade?
Further, the work introduces a topic in a negative tone and then it justifies it. For example, the work first says, "Everyone hates spin!" Then they show several interviewees speaking about the importance of spin and why it's here to stay. The work bemoans political ads, but then admits that it's the best way to reach the masses, especially for busy people who don't prioritize elections. The work pretends to give the impression that everything in elections is crazy and then a second later it shows why several phenomena are justified.
The work has a diverse array of interviewees. I liked how it gave the interviewee's name and title each time they spoke. This is so unlike documentaries where the interviewee is named once and the documentary makers expect the viewer to remember it for the rest of the work. I thought the work had far more Democrats or progressives in it. However, many of those left-wing interviewees would freely admit the ways the Republicans succeed in certain areas and their camp does not. The work can be read as even-handed.
The documentary's primary example campaign is the 2006 race between Santorum and Casey. This was not a race in a swing state where the outcome was not foreseen. Many said Santorum was too conservative to represent an East Coast state and his downfall was predicted. I think the documentary makers may have been based in Pennsylvania and thus it was less costly to focus on a local race. Still, it didn't seem truly purple and the work will make Democrats like myself feel good because our side won. (That is not giving away a plot because that's a historical fact. You know what was going to happen in DiCaprio's "Titanic" too.)
When you travel deeper into this documentary, it really shows how it wants everyday Americans to be more politically engaged. It bemoans that television stations don't pay more attention to campaigns. It laments how voters only depend on ads and don't do their own extensive research. Luckily, it does show one interviewee saying, "Ratings for the news go down when you discuss politics and it goes up when you cover the weather." So in a capitalist-loving country, should one be surprised that shows focus more on the bottom line economically than they do civics? Part clever, part deceitful, this work really wants to have it both ways.
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