In my opinion, the most disturbing part of the entire documentary is the involvement of the candidates’ parents. More specifically, it was Cheng Cheng’s mother and Luo Lei’s father who shocked me. Both of these parents instructed their children to fight dirty by using insults and negative campaign strategies. I particularly found it interesting that the parents were so blatant and open about the questionable methods they were instructing their sons to use. As disturbing as this was, it does not seem all that different from smear campaigns that are run in the US prior to elections. Many of the TV and internet ads for candidates recently seem to harp on the flaws of the opponent rather than highlight assets or positive changes the candidate who is running the ad wants to make. As far as this classroom election being democratic, I’m torn. I think it is important to note that the documentary does not explain how these 3 children were originally chosen to be candidates. In Luo Lei’s case, he can be seen as the incumbent, as he has previously been the class monitor, but there is no mention of how the other two were selected. If it was the case that the rest of the class had no say in who these candidates would be and it was just arbitrarily chosen by the teacher, then that seems undemocratic to me. On the other hand, there was no coercion as the children actually cast their ballots, so they were free to pick their top choice in that sense. It seems apparent, though, that the children did not fully understand “democracy” or the free voting process, and I wonder if the mob mentality played a role, as Luo Lei captured a landslide victory. The minds of the children seemed to be easily changed and their loyalty jumped from candidate to candidate, so it could be the case that they voted for the popular or familiar choice rather than the candidate they actually most strongly agreed with due to their young age and impressionable nature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In my opinion, the most disturbing part of the entire documentary is the involvement of the candidates’ parents. More specifically, it was Cheng Cheng’s mother and Luo Lei’s father who shocked me. Both of these parents instructed their children to … Continue reading