Feed

The 2020 American Election might be a circus, but then again, they all are; like childbirth, your mind simply forgets all the horrible parts the minute one is over. Feed doesn’t let you forget; a documentary of the 1992 presidential election composed purely of the newsfeeds that are captured but never aired, Feed shows you what the candidates are really like during the moments before and after they think the cameras aren’t rolling.

1992 is also the last time a third party candidate actually had a chance at winning this thing, with Ross Perot appearing out of the blue to challenge the two-party duocracy. You can see him here, cracking jokes about his hot wife. Filmmaker Kevin Rafferty, who brought his ironic wit to the documentary genre with his brilliantly edited The Atomic Cafe, has a singular agenda in mind here: to prove how ridiculous, shallow, and full of shit every single politician is, regardless of their political affiliation. As a legitimate cousin of George W. Bush, Rafferty should know.

Everyone is here: George Bush and Bill Clinton, of course, but also Pat Buchanan, Paul Tsongas, Jerry Brown, and a host of other presidential wannabes that never made it to the final round. But there are also media pundits: Sam Donaldson cracking jokes, Mac Neil and Lehrer looking burnt out. You’ve got governor-at-the-time Arnold Schwarzenegger calling the Democrats “a bunch of sissy-men” and Jennifer Flowers, whom Bill Clinton had an extra-marital affair with, being asked if he had worn a condom. A class act, American Media.

Speaking of the Clintons, Feed is where I first discovered Bill n’ Hillary’s true nature, as a pair of fast-talking and slick politicians who had already mastered the art of bullshit long before Hillary entered her own presidential race… though it was obvious even back then what prize her eyes were set on. She delivers the funniest- and saddest- scene in the whole film, blowing off a homeless person as she drives off in a limo, leaving one of her aides behind to pander to a guy who, quite literally, lives out of a shopping cart.

In my fantasy world, Feed was a mid-90’s hit that exposed the political world for the sham that it is, leaving Americans so disgusted with the process that they abandoned the two major parties in droves and broke free from the corporate-controlled two-party system before it was too late. In real life, of course, it was quite the opposite. As America wrestles with the destruction its reality-show-Real-Estate-Frankenstein monster has left behind, Feed is both an essential piece of history and a timeless warning to humanity: watching movies and laughing in agreement isn’t enough. Do something about it, or suffer the consequences.