While I don’t believe Please Vote for Me is a completely accurate representation of democracy, it does manage to capture many of the darker aspects present in modern democracy. One example is the role parents play in the election. Throughout the documentary, the three candidates’ parents are shown to essentially run each of the campaigns. Not only do they tell the kids what to say or how to act, Cheng Cheng’s father even uses his position as police chief to arrange a field trip for the class. Through the parents, Please Vote for Me seems to indirectly ask: who do you really vote for in an election? While the viewer is able to see the influence of the parents on the individual campaigns, the children in the classroom cannot. Therefore, they have no idea how much the candidates depended on their parents. Obviously it is an elementary school election but it does draw a parallel to interest groups in mature democracies. It is incredibly difficult for a voter in a modern democracy to decipher how much of an impact interest groups had on a given candidates platform.
As I mentioned, I do not believe Please Vote for Me represents how a healthy democracy works all of the time. But whether its through the parents’ role in the campaigns, or the seemingly natural authoritarian rhetoric deployed by the two male candidates, the documentary certainly presents the less-than-savory elements of democracy.
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I agree completely with Grace’s comment above. To me, the parents seemed like Koch Brothers-esque type figures. Yes, they did not throw money in to the pool, but by taking kids on that field trip, are they not accomplishing a strikingly similar thing – gaining favor for their kid? I do, however, agree with your original point, TJ, that these influences played a big part in the election and certainly diminished the democratic process overall.
I like your parallel between parents and interest groups, particularly as it pertains to the citizenry not seeing the true influence of these outside forces on their democracy. This plays to the idea of “dark money” that is contributed to super-PACs as well as the idea that interest groups, with their ability to mobilize voters and raise funds for candidates, can have a significant influence on the outcome of elections. I will say that one thing to note might be that when it came to Luo Lei’s bribery of his classmates with train rides and other prizes, this was a fairly obvious attempt to use his money to win over his constituents, with the money clearly coming from his parents–and it still worked. So, we might even draw the conclusion that sometimes the masses can be fully aware of the fact that money is being used to influence their decisions, and they can still be won over (though I do realize that it’s different because these are just kids).
I completely agree that the influence of parents in the elementary school elections was a key element that undermined the implementation of democracy. However, I might liken the influence of parents more to something like money in politics, rather than to interest groups. I feel like the parents’ actions were influential in the overall process and outcome of the election (including the information the candidates had access to, the methods of bribery or propaganda they used) and were less so on the “policy choices” or platform that those candidates were running on.