By Weiner is an appropriate film to review on Election Day, and not just because it’s one of the best political documentaries of the last 10 years. Former Congressman Anthony Weiner potentially put the 2016 election in jeopardy last week. While examining his laptop, the FBI found duplicate emails from their previous investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server. (James Comey’s two letters to Congress and the FBI’s Trump-friendly faction are topics we won’t get into here.)
The reason the FBI was investigating Weiner? He allegedly sexted a 15-year-old girl.
This third and latest public humiliation came just months after the release of Weiner, Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg’s remarkable, close-quarters, cringe-inducing documentary about the 2013 New York City mayoral race. It was supposed to be a comeback story, but the film instead showcased Weiner’s second high-profile disgrace. This is the pattern for Weiner the man: rise and fall, rise and fall, rise and fall, etc.
It’s sordid, it’s salacious, it’s absolutely tawdry. Weiner is the film through which I view the 2016 election.
[This review is part of Flixist’s coverage of DOC NYC, the largest documentary film festival in America. This year’s festival runs from November 10th to the 17th. The film is part of DOC NYC’s Short List programming, which includes some of the most celebrated and award-worthy non-fiction films of the year. For tickets and more information about DOC NYC, click here.]
Weiner
Directors: Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg
Rating: R
Release Date: May 20, 2016
Many have lamented that the 2016 election lacks big ideas. Where’s the policy debate? Where’s the climate change discussion? Where’s the substance? Given, it’s difficult to have any discussion of weight when one of the two major candidates knows less about governance than a 6th grader, but let’s just entertain the idea that our public discourse has eroded.
The public says it wants policy, but maybe it just wants a show. A reality show, no less. That’s one of the underlying suggestions of Weiner. I remember learning more about sex from the Monica Lewinsky scandal on TV than from my folks–I even recall a debate on whether or not oral sex was sex per se on the second season of MTV’s The Real World. Over the last 12 years, Donald Trump parlayed his reality TV stardom into a political run; and over the last eight years, former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin parlayed her political stardom into a reality TV gig. In my previous piece on Weiner (which should be considered part one of this review), I mentioned there were moments in the film that reminded me of the faux-doc sitcom The Office.
America’s made a mockumentary out of politics, and I don’t see that changing, or at least I don’t know what the change will be. And there I go, clutching my pearls, telling the kids to get off my lawn, implicitly pining for some sort of high-minded policy debate. And yet here I am, writing about this great political documentary which captures the zeitgeist of our political moment precisely because it’s about the spectacle of a disgraced man’s downfall rather than the strengths and weaknesses of his political platform. The spectacle is more dazzling; or, to use that wretched overused word, the optics are more captivating.
To put it another way, who wants to talk about the middle class and the working class–or, hell, Standing Rock–when we have blow jobs and cum on blue dresses and sexting and dick pics and pussy grabbing instead?
Thinking about Weiner again (what a phrase), I feel even worse for Huma Abedin. She’s suffered yet another indignity because of her husband. Regardless how you feel about their politics, Huma and Hillary Clinton have a lot in common when it comes to the men in their lives, which probably explains their close bond. Huma carries herself through the film with a semi-translucent veneer of grace that can’t mask the extreme mortification and anger at her awful fucking husband. Meanwhile, Weiner smiles and laughs and grandstands, all the while grinning. He looks like the Epic Troll Face guy. It’s armchair psychology at its worst, but he must get off on the attention. That would explain the recurring exhibitionism, and his most recent public disgrace.
In my first piece on Weiner, I mentioned a kind of admiration for the guy given his persistence. Weiner tried, he failed, he tried again, and failed again. Worstward, ho! But given these latest allegations, the admiration vanishes. Some people are Sisyphus. Abedin, for instance. I compared her to Buster Keaton in the previous piece, and on she goes, walking, running, continuing despite the chaotic world around her; the straightwoman in a slapstick, dick pic world. Other people, like Anthony Weiner, are less like Sisyphus and are really just very compelling persistent assholes. Very compelling persistent assholes make for great television, and great films, too. Apparently, they also make for nightmarish presidential elections.
