Gerrymandering (2010)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gerrymandering is a documentary film which premiered in 2010.

 

The topic of this film is an important but little-known aspect of the American electoral system.

 

Here is some basic information about this film:

 

** Written and directed by Jeff Reichert

** Produced by Chris Romano and Dan O’Meara

** Production and distribution: Green Film Company

** Run time: 77 minutes

 

THE PLOT

Gerrymandering: (1) What is the meaning of this word? Here is a definition:

 

“Arranging the lines of electoral districts in order to benefit a certain party, a certain (ethnic) group or a certain candidate.”

 

Additional explanation: if you are clever, you may win the election even before it takes place. It does not matter much how the voters are going to vote, because the result was already decided when the lines of the electoral districts were drawn.

 

Gerrymandering: (2) What is the origin of this word? It goes back to 1812 when Elbridge Gerry, governor of Massachusetts, redesigned the electoral districts of the state in order to benefit his party. 

 

Some districts ended up having a very strange shape. One of them looked like a salamander. The word is a combination of the governor’s last name and the animal which the district resembled.

 

Gerrymandering: (3) How is this word pronounced? The governor’s last name is pronounced with a hard G as in the word “go.” This is why the word should be pronounced with a hard G. But often this is not done. Most people seem to pronounce the first letter of the word as the G in the word “gentle.”

 

The term is explained in the beginning of this film, where we also learn about its origin. After this brief introduction, the film covers several cases of gerrymandering from different parts of the US.

 

One example concerns a district which includes a prison. Prisoners cannot vote, but they are part of the district, because they count as citizens. This means the number of voters in a district with a prison is much lower than in most other districts, and therefore you do not need so many votes to win.

 

Another example concerns Barack Obama. When he ran the first time, he lost. When he was able to work with some Democrats and have them redesign his district in a certain way, he won. He became a Senator. Without this political trick he might never have ended up as the president of the US.

 

A recurring theme of the film is the campaign to pass the so-called Proposition 11 in California in 2008. If passed, this proposition will take the power of redistricting away from the politicians and hand it to a commission whose members are voters. 

 

Why should the power to design electoral districts be taken away from politicians? Supporters of Proposition 11 say the politicians have a conflict of interest here.

 

Most politicians, who are in power, want to be re-elected and they will use any means at their disposal in order to achieve this end. 

 

If they can redesign electoral districts to benefit themselves and or their party, they will do it, but according to the supporters of Proposition 11, this is not fair, because it makes it difficult for new politicians to get elected.

 

When the results were in, Proposition 11 passed. The result was 51 against 49 percent; a very narrow margin, but still a victory.

 

Many persons are interviewed for the film. But the list of names is too long to be included here.

 

REVIEWS AND RATINGS

What do reviewers say about this film?

 

Here are the results of three review aggregators:

 

** 71 percent = IMDb

** 49 percent = Meta

** 40 percent = Rotten Tomatoes

 

On Amazon there are at the moment 8 ratings, 7 with reviews. The average rating is 4.2 stars, which corresponds to a rating of 84 percent.

 

As you can see, the ratings are mixed. Some are high, while others are low. I understand the mixed pattern. When I watch this film, I want to say something positive and something negative.

 

On the positive side: this film covers an important but little-known aspect of the US electoral system.

 

Many people have never heard about gerrymandering. If they have, they are not quite sure what it means and certainly not quite sure how it works. It is considered something very technical; something that is difficult to understand and therefore many people do not even try to understand what it is and how it works.

 

This film explains what it is and how it works. It also shows how gerrymandering can produce results that seem highly unfair to the general voter.

 

But the system is legal and in every state except California the power to design electoral districts is in the hands of politicians. Who can blame them for using this tool as long as it is available to them?

 

On the negative side: this film looks only at the US. There is no information about the rest of the world. This film never mentions the voting system that is used in the US. It is called “First Past the Post” or “the Winner Takes All.”

 

Problems concerning gerrymandering are mostly found in countries where this system is used; such as the US, the UK, and Canada.

 

There is another voting system that is used in more than fifty countries. It is called proportional representation. What does it mean? If a political party gets ca. 10 per cent of the votes, it will get ca. 10 per cent of the seats in parliament.

 

This system is used in countries such as Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland, to mention a few examples.

 

Where this system is used, problems concerning gerrymandering are small or even non-existent.

 

If the director had told us about this fact, he could also have suggested a simple and effective solution: abolish the current voting system – “First Past the Post” – and replace it with a proportional system.

 

Perhaps this was too radical for him?

 

Voting districts must be redrawn from time to time - in the US every 10 years - because people move from one place to another.

 

The lines must be redrawn to ensure that the number of votes needed to elect a candidate is approximately the same in every district. But the lines must be drawn by a commission whose members have no personal interest in the outcome.

 

Gerrymandering is different, it is not neutral, it has a negative connotation, because it means you redraw the lines of voting districts in order to benefit your own party or to make winning more difficult or impossible for your competition.

 

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Kirk Honeycutt reviewed this film for The Hollywood Reporter (14 October 2010).

 

He is not very happy with it. 

The headline is called:

“The Bottom Line” 

The headline has merely one word: 

“Empty”

 

The review opens with the following paragraph:

 

“Watching ‘Gerrymandering’ is like taking a course on a subject you keenly want to learn about only to discover the lecturer is a boring, old windbag.”

 

While Honeycutt agrees that this topic is important, he does not like the way in which it is covered in this film. 

 

He says it is a one-sided campaign against the politicians in the same way as the campaign for Proposition 11 in California.

 

Honeycutt concludes his review with the following observations:

 

“Because everyone interviewed is on the same side of the debate, you do not hear how politicians might defend the process of keeping redistricting behind closed doors and out of the hands of carefully screened citizens. 

 

“Probing the methods and motives of opponents undoubtedly would have shed much greater light on the issue. But the filmmakers, some of whom head committees pushing for reform, apparently decided to go for their own cinematic gerrymandering by excluding any naysayers.”

 

CONCLUSION

I can understand Honeycutt’s point of view, although he is much more critical than I am. He does not offer a numerical rating, but judging by his words, his rating seems to be very low: around 10 or 20 percent.

 

He is even more critical than the voters of Rotten Tomatoes, who offer a rating of only 40 per cent, which corresponds to only 2 stars on Amazon.

 

I think this is too harsh. On the other hand, the ratings on IMDb and Amazon are too high for me. 

 

I want to like this film, but as you can see, it has some flaws, which cannot be ignored. I have to remove two stars because of these flaws. This is why I think this film deserves a rating of three stars (60 percent). 

 

PS # 1. For more information, see the following books:

 

** Partisan Gerrymandering and the Construction of American Democracy 

by Erik J. Engstrom 

(2013) (2016)

 

** Gerrymandering in America: The House of Representatives, the Supreme Court, and the Future of Popular Sovereignty 

by Anthony J. McGann, Charles Anthony Smith, Michael Larner, and Alex Keena 

(2016)

 

** Critical Perspectives on Gerrymandering 

edited by Jennifer Peters 

(2019)

 

** One Person, One Vote: A Surprising History of Gerrymandering in America 

by Nick Seabrook 

(2022)

 

PS # 2. The following article is available online:

 

April Rapkin, “Gerrymandering: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count,” Mother Jones, 29 September 2006.

 

PS # 3. In his State of the Union speech held in January 2016, President Barack Obama spoke out against gerrymandering.

 

While this fact could not be mentioned in a film which premiered in 2010, it is interesting to remember that Obama owes his political career to a case of gerrymandering.

 

For details, see Christopher Ingraham’s article in The Washington Post, 13 January 2016. 

 

For background, see Ryan Liza’s article in The New Yorker, 30 January 2012 (both items are available online).

 

PS # 4. If you visit YouTube, you can find several short items about gerrymandering.

 

*****

One Person, One Vote:

A Surprising History of

Gerrymandering

in America

by Nick Seabrook

(2022)

 

*****