Making the Tea Parties G-Rated
I attended the premiere of this film hoping that it would be dismal, or at least corny enough to be entertaining. Yet despite its many faults, Tea Party: The Documentary Film managed to do well in capturing the energy behind the Tea Party protests, and skilfully presented profiles of individuals driven by frustration to rally against government overreaching.
See the trailer here.
The narrative is clear: the Tea Party Patriots are all ordinary people with ordinary lives and ordinary ambitions. Among the protagonists: Jack, a baseball coach and father of two; William, a former government employee who is now a pastor; and Jenny Beth, a former small business owner.
The movie follows the paths of Tea Party movement from the nascent irritation over TARP; from there to frustration over the stimulus; which continued to aggravation at cap and trade; then to dissatisfaction with czars; finally culminating in an paroxysm of irritation at the 9/12 tea party protests.
“Why am I going to D.C.? I’m going to get on the bullhorn. I’m going to yell, I’m going to scream,” said Nate, an African American who voted for Obama for reasons of race but was soon turned off by rampant government spending.
The message, if you haven’t gotten it yet, is that they’re pissed off. With everything. And who could blame them?
Jenny Beth tells a poignant story about the repossession of her home, located on a busy street. One can’t help but feel pity for someone who had to bear the humiliation of having their earthly possessions strewn haphazardly across their front yard for all the passing traffic to see.
Their fury is palpable – and understandable. A government which intervenes to save bankers – among the most well off in society – while allowing people like Jenny Beth to lose their homes inspires resentment easily. The old adage “socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor” rings especially true for these Tea Partiers.
However, once you get beyond the visceral emotion, a second look reveals a glaring flaw in the film: a failure to acknowledge the real problem of undesirable nuts in the movement.
William, a white pastor for a predominately black church, emphasizes that he’s not racist, and you know what? I believe him. But neither he nor the other protestors make much of an attempt to denounce the movement’s real extremists: the birthers, the truthers, the conspiracy theorists, and the real racists in their camp.
The film’s largest shortcoming is its revisionism – not a single odious slogan is chanted, not a single offensive sign is to be seen. Having reported from numerous tea partiers, I can say that this is highly unrealistic. It takes no effort to find an extremist at a Tea Party.
As such, it seems highly likely that the documentary’s producers deliberately left out footage of controversial persons and signs. After all, had you only seen the movie, you would be under the impression that this is a completely reasonable group of people, out exercising their democratic rights. The crazies may not have been in the mainstream of the movement, but they were certainly commonplace enough that it would have taken a contrived effort to leave them out of this film.
The film leaves the impression of a movement which can mobilize with amazing speed and enthusiasm, yet lacks the will to mobilize against the extremist elements within it. United only by a sense of frustration over government spending, the Tea Party movement appears to splinter over most other issues.
In fact, the movement can’t even decide if it represents a mainstream majority or a small but admirable group of principled radicals. Obviously you can’t be both, and yet this movie tries to circle that square.
A constant argument through the movie was that the Tea Partiers weren’t a fringe element in American political life, but rather a “sleeping giant” of the mainstream that had been awoken – that in reality their positions were now the new center of the political spectrum.
Yet in his introduction of the film, Congressman Tom Price proudly characterized the movement as a resilient but small band of brothers, quoting Samuel Adams: “It doesn't take a majority to prevail, but an irate and tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom."
Whether or not they’re a minority, the metaphor is apt. Tea Partiers across the country have indeed set off brushfires - but irate individuals don’t handle matches very well.
This Tea Party film misses all the instances in which extremists in their camp have set off dangerously wild fires. In a way, this documentary is a perfect reflection of the movement’s failure to denounce the evil amongst them. Even worse, this movie pretends it doesn’t exist. And isn’t that a crime of its own?