Alexandra Pelosi: Media Star and Media Critic
Lifelong Democrat Alexandra Pelosi might not vote in this presidential election.
“I lost my soul on this campaign,” Pelosi said. “And I can’t say that I’m really hot for this [Democratic] ticket.”
The documentary filmmaker spent two years filming the race for the Democratic primary. She watched the candidates tirelessly canvass Iowan neighborhoods, shake hands, hold babies, make speeches and eat massive amounts of state fair food, all in the name of democracy. And she still can’t make up her mind.
It’s no wonder there are still so many undecided voters out there. For her newest film, Diary of a Political Tourist, Pelosi watched as Democratic presidential hopefuls Dick Gephardt, Joe Lieberman, Bob Graham, Howard Dean, John Edwards and John Kerry fought for votes, to try to find out what separates the presidential nominee from the also-rans. But although Diary attempts to dig deeper in the process, it just serves to highlight Pelosi’s and the media’s inability to focus on substance without getting distracted by ratings.
On one hand, her five years as a producer for Dateline NBC taught her the “formula for how they make television.” But, as she told a recent gathering of New York University journalism students, she also believes that the media is “the biggest problem that we have in America right now.”
Specifically, Pelosi said she believes that while there are many hard-working and responsible journalists in America, media outlets like Fox News force politicians to pander to the cameras to avoid giving the journalists, or their political opponents, ammunition for their spin machines. She cited the criticism that Howard Dean received when he attempted to speak honestly to reporters, and offered as an example Dean’s punishment by the media after saying that the world was not safer with Saddam Hussein’s capture. “You can’t say something like that because you become fodder for all the Crossfires and Fox News,” she said. “You can say things that are true, but if you do, there’s a price to pay, and they’ll always distort it and take it out of context and make you look really stupid for saying it.”
It’s a bit confusing for her to disparage her own profession, and it’s hard not to notice her excitement for making something that will be popular. Her first documentary, Journeys With George, featured an enthusiastic movie star teasing and joking his way through the Republican primary of 2000. And although she admitted that she has never voted Republican and probably never will, anyone watching Journeys might get the feeling that she is somewhat charmed by then-Governor George W. Bush. He comes off as funny, albeit somewhat dim-witted, but she returns his flirts and jokes with equal gusto. In short, the television producer in her often clashes with her conscience.
Pelosi pointed to her last interview with Kerry for Diary. After he had become the Democratic presidential candidate, and was thus less available to the media, she asked him the central question of her film: What does it take to win this race? “Luck,” he answered. “I don’t know.” So after two months of chasing him and spending $10,000 a day just to sit on his plane, Kerry shrugged off Pelosi’s question, and, she said, “[he] just ruined my entire movie, thank you very much.”
But perhaps what she really meant is that she expected him to do a dog-and-pony act for her, and Kerry’s not having any of that. Instead, Kerry gave an inane and wholly redundant question an equally boring answer — one she should already know. Hadn’t she watched him do “what it takes” for the past two years?
In fact, she seemed downright disappointed that Kerry didn’t play along with her the way Bush did. “I swear to God, everybody wants to see every second of video that I had with Bush,” she said, comparing Bush’s natural ease with the camera to Kerry’s lack thereof. “You don’t really care what I have of Kerry, do you? He ran 40 years too late. He should have run before television.” Because, as she said, “[Kerry] is a man of substance, and that’s great, but men of substance don’t play well on television.”
Maybe that’s because substance is so foreign to the television media that they don’t understand how to capture it on film. Or maybe Kerry would rather address the issues than chitchat with someone making a mockery of his job. Pelosi forgot that as she watched him work for the past two years, he watched her as well – undoubtedly he discovered what seems to be her true mission of this film: to force the candidates to mug for the camera, to entertain rather than enlighten.
It should be noted that the candidates in Diary all appeared to know Pelosi. Her mother, Nancy Pelosi, has been a congresswoman since 1987, which has given daughter Pelosi access to White House shindigs, like Christmas parties and barbeques on the White House lawn. Even Karl Rove hugs her when he sees her.
Pelosi said she thinks the media is ruining democracy. But then, she tried to follow the rules of the media in order to make a film the masses will watch, the same way the candidates eat fried Twinkies at state fairs and shake hands and hold babies to get people to vote for them. The media rules are too similar to candidates doing “what it takes” — it’s kind of hypocritical for Pelosi to criticize. After all, it takes one to know one.
You can reach Elle Govea at ebg223@nyu.edu.
