Six-time Emmy nominee Alexandra Pelosi recently saw her latest film premiere on HBO. The documentary debuted on HBO on February 16th, and immediately drew criticism and acclaim from predictable ends of the political spectrum. It's no easy task following up films like "The Trials of Ted Haggard" and "Journeys with Bush", but this interesting, sometimes terrifying insight, does a pretty remarkable job of pointing out what's right, wrong and downright kooky in middle America without taking any cheap shots.
This movie conspicuously lacks the nasty "gotcha documentary" feel of a Michael Moore or Bill Maher film, regardless of what you might hear from conservative commentators. Bill Maher isn't on the hook to be fair and Michael Moore honestly has to pander a bit to his base. Pelosi doesn't have it so easy.
In this film, Alexandra Pelosi (of the well known Pelosi's… yes, those Pelosi's) has to bend over backwards to just to paint a fair picture, if only because she shares the last name with her mother, the first female Democratic Speaker of the House. From the Republican standpoint, you could argue that the Pelosi surname is a double handicap, since it's also synonymous with Democrat impotence in the house, on top of the hurdles it surely caused in the course of shooting the piece.
More on the attempts at balance in the film, it even opens with a notice stating that the people featured are not representative of the Republican Party, even though one could easily argue that that many, if not all of them, are exactly that.
With the months of footage in the can, it would have been effortlesss to portray the Republican right as crazy, extremist, dangerous and questionable of mental capacity. Remember, many of the people attending McCain rallies weren't just Christians, they were Kirrstians. Pelosi chose substance over shock, and while it may hurt her in the ratings, she's able to come out with her professional reputation intact.
What's most shocking about the film is the way in which it does bring to light the nastiness, bigoted ignorance, hypocrisy and capacity for self deception exhibited by people featured in the film are in line with what I heard in cross-party debates.
Nastiness – Forget civility, the right wingers in this film, as well as those personally known to me (strangers, friends, and even dear family) are all too eager to show their darkest sides when it comes to politics. There's a hatred for the liberal media, even though at this point it's essentially all media, and also rampant fear and hatred of Obama. This is a man that none claim to know much about, though he's published books and spent as much time in the public light as any.
Bigoted Ignorance – It's easy to demonize a candidate by color. That requires little explanation on our part, though an amount so great on behalf of those using it as a reason that there's no way they could justify it. When it comes to color, essentially, there is still a swath of America that will vote for the worst candidate in American history before they'll vote for the best candidate ever, just because one happens to be whiter than the other.
And that's just the beginning.
From there we get in to the willy-nilly throwing about of epithets like socialist, fascist, and even Nazi. As Pelosi poignantly points out in the film, some of the people most passionate in these claims don't even know what they mean. Fascism is bad, and almost everyone can agree with that, but if you don't even know what it means, you're starting the debate in a pretty peculiar place… it's called ignorance.
Many people denied Obama was even a considerable candidate because they didn't know what he wanted to do. "What's his plan?" I was asked, as if rhetorically, before the answer followed, "No one knows!" The truth is that his plans were made known. Journalists were told, it was published in plain text on his campaign site, and unlike the majority of primary candidates from all parties, he actually spelled it out. Those who still refused to know he had a very specific plan were nothing more than ignorant.
The film spends about a hundred seconds talking with resolute racists eager to admit they just aren't ready for a black man to lead the nation. It's sad these monochromatic biases still exist, but they do, and the fact deserves a couple minutes of screen time.
There's more bigotry and ignorance, but I'm trying to keep this review of the movie shorter than the film itself.
Hypocrisy – There are tomes written on the hypocrisy of the far right, but things pointed out in the film include the stalwart anti-choice voters, who are also the pro-war and pro-death penalty people.
Self Deception – The whole matter of the small business taxation misunderstanding is really striking, and no amount of factual reporting seemed sufficient to educate the voting masses. Does this mean they really didn't know better, because those interviewed weren't passive observers, but rather the voting activists of the Republican right. It's unlikely that none of them knew better, but so the willingness to use cognitive dissonance to self-deceive, however remarkable, is really alarming.
Then you've got the whole "McCain is Christian, Obama's a Muslim" thing. Plainly Obama isn't a Muslim, otherwise we couldn't mock him for attending Reverend Wright's super-kooky church. McCain hasn't voted along religious lines before, and in 1999 spoke out vocally against the leaders of those churches. McCain is closer to atheism than Obama, though both are Christians in declaration and practice, but this means nothing for the self-deceiving Republican base.
Next comes the ways in which poorer voters think Obama will destroy the nation financially, specifically as it pertains to them. They love to conveniently forget the fiscal policies of the Bush administration, to which McCain willingly attached himself. If they can forget the broken religious promises made by these politicians, it shouldn't be too surprising they can think that the party of the super-rich could also somehow give two-shits about the working poor.
The last bit of self-deception goes back to the war on terror. You should know that, thanks to Republicans, there have been ZERO attacks on American soil since the attacks of 9/11. Sure, there have been attacks in England, Spain and many, many other parts of the world, with untold civilian casualties caused. More Americans have died in the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan than did in the attacks of 9/11, and all for the low, low cost of a trillion dollars. Never mind the hundreds of thousands of civilians (not soldiers) who died at American hands in the same war… does this really pencil out?
Why You Should Watch It, Left, Right or In Between
Right wingers should watch it because these are your people, and whether or not you consider yourself akin to those featured in the film, you need to know what face is being put out there about your party. If you're a left-leaning voter, you may need to see what's going on over on the other side of the fence. As for people in the middle, you've got some decisions to consider.
The basic facts in support of this article are so many we can't possibly list them all in a single article, try as we might. This is really just a review of the film "Right America Feeling Wrong". If you don't know any staunch Republicans, you should see this, even if just to understand the strength, ideals and misunderstandings of the people you're voting against.
