Knock Down the House is 80% Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 20% Everyone Else
“Netflix: Obama’s Studio, sedition for profit and Fresh Tomatoes”- Armond White, 2019.
The 100% Rotten Tomatoes rating that Knock Down the House received proves that most critics have left-leaning political ideologies and will cherish “progressive” movies only because they are “progressive” and bash Trump. I ain’t a fan of Trump either, but still. This movie doesn’t deserve all of the “accolades” it’s getting. How biased must you be to think this movie deserves a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes? “Try making it through without getting fully fired up”. I did and I didn’t get FIRED UP once. You’ll see that I did end up enjoying the movie, even with my centrist political ideologies. I despise the far-left (and AOC lol), but I also despise the far-right. Hell, I’m more Conservative than Liberal but I voted for NEITHER in 2019. Both parties suck. We understand each other now? Cool? Cool.
Netflix’s left-leaning documentary, Knock Down the House talks about 4 women, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Cori Bush, Amy Vilela and Paula Jean Swearengin, but mostly AOC, as they try to defeat incumbent democrats while starting a grassroots revolution. Only one of the four comes out on top, and is the one in which we spend the most time with, annoyingly so.
Anyone who knows me would know that I absolutely loathe AOC’s fake-socialism in the House of Representatives, but cannot hate where she comes from and where her ideas of changing the way “everyday Americans” have a representative that is an “everyday American”, and fights for “everyday American”. Her political background and experience is NIL, as she put everything on the line to win the Primary against, I think, one of the biggest assholes to be in the Democratic Party, Joe Crowley. There are times in which you sympathize with Cortez, something that I couldn’t believe would happen in a million years. Heck, I’m impressed at how much I related and humanized to her, but I still don’t like her as a representative. Her “Green New Deal” is laughably radical and [un]feasable. But the PERSON is an inspiration that, I believe, will lead many people in 2020 to present themselves in politics and try to do politics differently. Seeing AOC come out on top against Crowley is impressive, especially when Crowley’s over-confident, egotistical attitude backfires on him brilliantly. Serves him right and the film makes you root for Cortez so much after seeing what kind of a dick Crowley is.
However, the most emotionally impactful and inspiring testimonial in doing politics differently doesn’t come from AOC — even though she may inspire so many women and/or people with ZERO political background to run in 2020, but from Amy Vilela. The most heartbreaking story is Vilela’s background on the WHY she ran made me uncontrollably weep, as we see her comforting her daughter, as she is going to die. The footage shown is raw and, when I saw Vilela near her 22-year old daughter about to die due to the Vilela’s lack of insurance for a test broke my heart completely and made me an emotional wreck. The child should NEVER die before the parent, even worse, the child’s death could’ve been prevented if they had insurance, but alas. The most alarming statistic that the film is that 30,000 americans will lose a loved one, because they don’t have insurance to pay for their healthcare. I’ll admit I still don’t understand how the U.S. healthcare system work (or primaries for that matter), it’s way too complex. To be fair, I agree with Bernie Sanders’ assessement of Healthcare being a “HUMAN RIGHT”, and Canada’s healthcare system is just miles better than the U.S. It’s not fair for a child (or anyone) to die because they don’t have insurance to pay for a certain treatment or medical aid. That is the only moment in the film that made me feel a powerful emotional reaction. You not only feel for Vilela, but you feel for everyone that has to go through this injustice of losing loved ones through a lack of health insurance. It should never happen to ANYONE.
As a an extreme-centrist, who likes part of the right and part of the left (NOT the extreme-left socialists like AOC and the far-right), I was surprised at how much I enjoyed of Knock Down the House. Even with the fact that I hate AOC with a burning passion and CANNOT stand her “socialism”, I still thought most of the movie was pretty darn watchable, so I’m impressed. The testimonials of Paula Jean Swearengin, Cori Bush and Amy Vilela are pretty powerful, more powerful than anything AOC says (or does) in her entire career as a Representative. But, my political ideologies are put aside (like eveyr movie I watch) and I still ended up thinking the movie was pretty good. Not great, not amazing, not STAND UP AND PUT YOUR FIST IN THE AIR AND YELL “¡Viva la revolución!”, just pretty entertaining, and surprisingly emotional at times. It’s nothing special, but the emotional part involving Vilela elevated the movie and more than made up for the parts involving AOC.
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