Alexandra Pelosi, who became slightly famous for her 2000 Bush campaign documentary, premiered another one on HBO Monday night, Right America: Feeling Wronged. With a camera on her shoulder she interviewed people at McCain/Palin rallies through the final three months of the campaign and the people she found are about what anyone who followed the campaign would expect. They are ordinary Americans who were terrified down to their bones of Barack Obama and what (they thought) he represented. The very first person on camera, a tearful young woman at McCain HQ on election night, says it all, “I am scared to death”.
The fear that gripped these people is abundant in almost every interview to the point that several of them are reduced to tears even thinking about an Obama presidency. These aren’t all shrinking violets either, we’re talking mustachioed NASCAR dudes who look like they know how to handle themselves in a bar fight. Nevertheless, they felt their country slipping away and a future with Obama scared them enough to weep.
They’re afraid of terrorism, they’re afraid that Obama isn’t one of them, they’re even scared of socialism and nevermind that very few (if any) of them have a clue what it means. One earnest but dimwitted teen, who’d written “Say No to Socilism” on his t-shirt, actually went to look up the definition on his phone before Pelosi pressed him and he called it “like the views of Hitler”. Or there were the kids of a small business owner who were genuinely scared that if Obama wins “we’re gonna be poor”. It goes on like that for pretty much the whole 45-minute run time, from the outright racists to the people who think Obama is the anti-Christ.
Perhaps the most fascinating example is a woman named Elaine Tornero who was the Franklin County (Ohio) Captain for the Value Voter Coalition. Pelosi tagged along with her as she went door to door and to a local soup kitchen were she talked about pro-Life positions and even tried to convince a bunch of black guys in line that McCain was pro-black(!). Clearly this woman does not lack for social bravery. But right before we see her go to the soup kitchen she notices an Obama sign in front of a neighbor’s house. She nervously discloses that it’s a lesbian couple’s home before saying, “I’m too afraid to get into a fight with a neighbor”. Granting that neighbor fights are often nasty affairs worth avoiding, it’s still a telling distinction. She’s willing to go downtown and talk to actual live black people in a friendly but semi-confrontational manner, which would probably scare the bejeezus out of most suburban white ladies; but she won’t talk to her lesbian neighbors and is skittish about even saying out loud that they’re gay. Behold the myriad complexities of American politics.
Of course, people like Tornero are the minority, even within their own states. Pelosi stuck with the McCain campaign pretty tight so except for a brief detour to Mississippi (where she managed to get a truck driver to say the word “nigger”) all of the people in the movie are in states that went Blue on election night: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, North Carolina, Minnesota, Wisconsin. It’s no wonder they feel beleaguered, they’re outnumbered even in places that were comfortably Red just four years ago.
Fascinating as this movie is, there probably isn’t much to be made of it at this close vantage point. After all, Obama’s only been in office for a month and since his approval rating far outstrips his vote tally maybe even some of the people displayed here have changed their mind. He isn’t, it turns out, the anti-Christ, Hitler or even a socialist. But Right America: Feeling Wronged is going to be a great historical piece in years to come because a more succinct and open portrait of Bush the Younger’s America may never exist. It was a land of fear and that sad fact is as plain as day on the faces of these sometimes heart-breakingly terrified people.
Short End Note: Pelosi seems to favor a very informal interview style with just her, the camera, and her subject. But she might want to consider getting someone a little taller to actually hold the camera next time. Many of her interviewees come across a tad more intimidating than they might otherwise be on account of the fact that they are all clearly shot from below. It’s a small quibble, but it’s very noticeable after awhile. Just my two cents.
