Four More Years

I have never had much exposure to the democratic political processes, so watching Four More Years was an eye-opening experience. I know that voter turnout in our country is relatively low nowadays; therefore, seeing such a diverse range of enthusiastic supporters for a political candidate was definitely different. The beginning scene in which people were rehearsing the “Nixon Now” song made me laugh at first, but at the same time, I also realized that these people must have really cared about getting Nixon to win if they were willing to actually write and perform such cheesy songs about it. I was also amazed at the numerous youth supporting Nixon because whenever there is an election now, candidates tend to have a hard time getting young voters to be politically active. One of the things that struck me the most was the numerous times when Nixon’s younger supporters were defending their parts in the campaign, saying that their enthusiasm was genuine.

The format of Four More Years was quite different from the other videos we have watched so far. Rather than being a recording of performance art, or a re-editing of clips in a doctored sequence, it is a simple black-and-white collection of clips and interviews taped around an event. Also, the approach that TVTV took in making this video was interesting because they managed to stay fairly objective by capturing a variety of events happening around the Republican Convention in their groundbreaking “guerrilla television”. This reminds me of the newfound popularity documentaries are having in today’s film industry. Four More Years just seems more genuine than many of the usual TV programs that have to be concerned with getting good ratings or conducting the right type of publicity. TVTV was unafraid to show both the official proceedings of the convention and the chaotic protests taking place outside, which is such a contrast to the doctored newscasts and publicity statements the general public is given now.