{"id":308,"date":"2018-03-20T09:24:02","date_gmt":"2018-03-20T13:24:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/?p=308"},"modified":"2018-04-05T08:16:08","modified_gmt":"2018-04-05T12:16:08","slug":"please-vote-for-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/fourth-blog-democracy\/please-vote-for-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Please Vote for Me!"},"content":{"rendered":"

https:\/\/williams.kanopy.com\/video\/please-vote-me<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u2019s been a kid in school (for example, the scene where all of the kids are crying like babies…ok, maybe that\u2019s just me…).<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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Luo Lei, class monitor with two years of experience already under his belt, represents the incumbency. His ultimate victory over his challengers\u2014the Machiavellian (and Cartman-esque) Cheng Cheng and Xiaofei\u2014presents us with a contradiction. Over and over again we see the children groaning and bellyaching about Luo Lei\u2019s strict and authoritarian behavior as class monitor, and yet, Lei nonetheless prevails over his challengers \u2014doing so in decisive fashion.<\/p>\n

Consider the film in light of our discussions and readings on democracy.\u00a0 Is this democracy in action?\"\"<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s been a kid in school … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1690,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fourth-blog-democracy"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1690"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":315,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions\/315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}