About the Film
HEY! Do you live in a BLUE STATE? Hate Bush? Wanted to move to Canada or France? Oh, just click here and rant.
Or maybe you live in a RED STATE and wonder what all the fuss is about? Think Hollywood's a joke and chuckled at John Kerry and his Three Purple Hearts? Take a detour here and blast away.
LOVE OBAMA??? Or maybe got a crush on Obama Girl? Think McCain looks REALLY OLD?
Wonder when Obama's going to part the Red Sea? Or maybe the thought of the Clinton HillBillies back in the White House makes you cringe? (Psst, check out this Sopranos spoof.)
Are you fed up with the whole circus? Anti-political?
Yes, American politics is strange these days. Everybody's heard the stereotypes, the jokes, the self-righteous opinions. And almost everyone has their own opinions about our current political landscape. But these opinions widely differ.
Strange. Do you agree with Rush Limbaugh or Michael Moore? Jon Stewart or Bill O'Reilly? Ann Coulter or Rosie O'Donnell? There must be something weird going on here.
There is. And THAT'S where this film comes in.
RED STATE BLUE STATE: America's Bipolar Disorder explores and helps us decipher this puzzle of divided politics. It's NOT really about what we read in the news. We'll find that there are truths and fallacies to our Red-Blue political divisions and that obscuring the truths only helps fuel the fallacies. But to understand how and why America votes, we need to start a dialogue.
But before we do, let's lighten up and not take ourselves tooooo seriously (Okay, take your politics seriously, but not yourself). As Jon Stewart likes to say, “I don't believe in political jokes. I've seen too many of them get elected.”
Politics is a funny business, with a long comic tradition in our country. After all, it's just a reflection of who we are and by studying it we're trying to figure our inner selves out. Woody Allen made a fine film career out of this. For our purposes it's going to be psychoanalysis on a national scale.
The documentary employs candid on-the-street interviews to explore the political Zeitgeist. So we'll converse with ordinary citizens from different regions and subcultures of our country. We'll meet liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, rednecks, gays, rappers, evangelicals, and desperate housewives. Believe it or not, when it comes to politics a lot of people have no idea what they're talking about. On the other hand, a lot of people do.
The interesting thing we find is how some voters who live in isolated pockets of the nation have firm opinions about Americans who live in other parts, even though they've never evervisited or met someone from there. This is as true for people who live in San Francisco and Manhattan as it is for some from Arkansas or Alabama. So this is an opportunity to meet our neighbors first-hand. Most people will guess that we're all alike, but different. The question is do we really differ, and if so, how. Hint: We do, but not in the ways the popular media has led us to believe.
To put these anecdotes into the broader context of national politics we gather some insightful expert opinions by talking with those folks on the front lines of the political wars: politicians, media professionals, party hacks and academic researchers. Here we'll delve into the esoterica of electoral rules and systems, campaign strategies, and the Electoral College, trying to fathom the contradictions we discover. Is the Electoral College a good system? Yes and no.
But how can we make a good story from all this? How about finding some real people who have overcome ideological and political incompatibilities? Think of the husband and wife, or brother and sister, or best friends who vote differently down the line, but still find common ground to maintain communication within their personal relationships. Think of Arnold and Maria, or Mary Matalin and James Carville. Such paired interviews will reveal how we can reconcile political differences, with human warmth and humor. Thus, we can all learn something about those “other” folks and how compromise enables democracy to function.
But where's the entertainment here? Where are the laughs? No worries-we'll have some good cartoons. We also spice up the journey with the dubitable wisdom provided by pop culture icons on how to think about politics. TV writers, journalists, pundits, bloggers, comedians, movie directors, actors, celebrities, politicians, etc. have all weighed in to tell us how to think. Take Michael Moore and Bill O'Reilly again. What do these guys really know about us? What do they know about politics? Probably not that much. Mostly, it's all just pretty amusing.
Interspersed with all this we'll slip in some scientific data and interpretation based on polls, census profiles and voting. You can find some of this more serious thinking about our politics here: About the Politics.
So, have you seen the promo? Welcome to the real world…
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