The question of whether the students in the movie are participating in a democracy is predicated on how one defines democracy. According to Tocqueville, though democracy is a dynamic and changing process, its central tendency is to level the social order, flattening existing hierarchies of power and converging the social position and control of elites with those of the common man. This process of democratization is predicated on the existence of a political culture; the internalization of egalitarian values that serve as the basis upon which democracy is built. By these two standards, those the election depicted in the movie has the process most associated with democracy, it is at best a hollow simulacrum of true democracy.  

The students in the class exhibit very little understanding of democracy, as the film director asks one girl “What is democracy?”, he receives no answer. Even the candidates themselves exhibit little understanding for the system, coached by their parents through the whole process and apparently drawn to the power and privilege the elected position entails, rather than any democratic values or genuine desire for reform. Parental involvement entails not only moral support, but what best described as corruption as Luo Lei’s parents organize and pay for a free trip for the whole class.

The position itself is no way reflective of the democratic political culture that Tocqueville believes true democracy is predicated upon. The class monitor enjoys sweeping powers to punish and discipline other students, evidently not as a part an egalitarian power structure. The ultimate function of the monitor is to ensure and enforce conformity, a value not compatible with true democracy.

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.

Based on the film’s premise, I expected to see no similarities between the democracy of the United States and the democracy of a Chinese third-grade classroom. The U.S.’s government has theoretically had years to mature and perfect itself, and the third-graders had just learned what a democracy a few days before the election. But I was quickly surprised to find commonalities everywhere. Both had all the key foundations of what a democracy needs to prosper: available political information, multiple candidates, and the ability to vote freely. But the similarities went beyond these basic foundations.

The candidates attempted to sabotage their opponents’ campaigns and even had their own forms of campaign advisors – their parents. In the end, the parents’ availability to resources decided the election. Just like in American elections, access to funds is crucial to running a successful campaign. Xiaofei had only a single mother who even acknowledged early in the film that she could not help her daughter as much as the other candidates. So she was immediately at a disadvantage. Cheng Cheng and Luo Lei both had two parents, but Luo Lei’s parents had access to resources that allowed him beat Cheng Cheng and win the election. Just like in the U.S., elections are all about funds and popularity. So based on the premise that the United States is a democracy, yes. The film portrays a working democracy. Both had the same fundamental flaws, suggesting an innate problem with democracy itself.

In an essential sense, Evergreen’s classroom exhibits all the hallmarks of an electoral democracy. There is competition between the candidates, the candidates are responsive to the student “citizens”, and citizen’s votes directly determine the outcome of the election. However, watching the whole process play out elucidates the many ways in which a system that looks like a democracy from the outside may not be effective on the inside.

The voters seem poorly prepared in their understanding of what it means to “vote” and, although their teacher tries to explain the concept, they are still convinced by bribery to vote for Luo Lei, whose leadership style they clearly dislike. The social and economic standing of the children’s parents, their “political action committees” one might say, has a disproportionate effect on the children’s success in their tasks, and ultimately the most wealthy student prevails. Although it is unclear, Luo Lei is clearly threatening to the children, a factor that might also force them to vote in a biased manner. Finally, the reelection of a “dictator-like” leader, Luo Lei, makes us question whether the institution of democracy does indeed open society and the polity, as Karl and Schmitter propose, since we do not actually know if Luo Lei would have peacefully relinquished power. In certain ways, visible only through the close lens of the documentary, Evergreen school’s electoral democracy fits many of our positive definitions of democracy, while exhibiting significant normative issues in practice.

https://williams.kanopy.com/video/please-vote-me

The 2007 documentary Please Vote for Me presents a study of contrasts, a classroom experience unlike what many of us experienced growing up in the United States, yet also painfully familiar to anyone who’s been a kid in school (for example, the scene where all of the kids are crying like babies…ok, maybe that’s just me…).

The film offers up representations of discipline and authoritarian order, including shots of students in neat rows doing calisthenics and singing patriotic songs, scenes that conjure up remembrances of the old, Maoist China. Yet inside the classroom, the students embark on a new experiment in democracy, one that they and their parents take to unequivocally, enthusiastically.