Dysfunction Junction

by Brian Howard

"I like to talk about politics" is the short answer I got from Mary Patel, author of our Political Notebook column, when I asked her why she embarked on her directorial debut. The long answer was a bit more complicated.

Electile Dysfunction, a 90-minute documentary Patel produced and co-directed with Joe Barber (see Shaun Brady's review) — using the bellwether 2006 U.S. Senatorial race between Rick Santorum and Bob Casey to frame everything that's right and (in most cases) wrong with the U.S. electoral system — makes its world premiere April 9 at the Prince Music Theater as part of this year's Philadelphia Film Festival.

"It's another way of getting across a point of view," says Patel. "I do strive for balance, but it was tough because Santorum was not very popular here."

The point-of-view aspect was interesting, since her column has always been a non-partisan scene report for local pols. Unlike a Michael Moore, and more like, say, an Errol Morris, Patel never appears or even speaks in her film. Instead, she gives a procession of operatives, actors and media types — local and national — a platform (and, on occasion, plenty of rope) to justify their existence.

"Documentarians sometimes get a bad rap because people are afraid they'll be portrayed in a way they don't like," says Patel. "I had the paper to show people my work: 'This is what I've been doing since December 1994. You can look up my work.'"

The star power in the film is impressive. There's Elliott Gould and Ed Asner and Dan Savage and (a-dor-a-ble) Dennis Kucinich. But in a lot of ways, Electile Dysfunction is a love letter to Philly politics. There's Elliott Curson, Mark Nevins, Roger La May and Neil Oxman. Larrys Kane and Mendte. There's a Terry Madonna sighting. And a freaking Schoolly D interview.

Patel peels the layers of the onion of sound-bite politics that thrive on scandal, focus-grouped talking points and easy characterization.

"When I was in Miami visiting my mother," recalls Patel, "I was amazed at how [everyone down there] watches these nightly shows on Fox, CNN, MSNBC. [They] just sit there and eat this up. It's robotic, it's a cult, it's mesmerizing."

"They're still talking about Obama's preacher," she says of pundits. "They're still talking about Hillary and sniper fire in Bosnia."

What the film eventually reveals isn't necessarily stuff you haven't heard before: News organizations have to worry more and more about bottom lines. This lets smart strategists play them for coverage, which they call "earned media." What's fun is to watch the people responsible not fess up so much as brag about it. The result is a populace making decisions not on truth, but truthiness.

"People say, 'I don't like Hillary Clinton' but if you ask them why, they'll say, 'I don't know, I just don't,'" bemoans Patel. "Or they'll say, 'Barack Obama has a fresh view.' Well, what particularly is fresh about it? 'I don't know.'"

Patel admits that most people just don't have the time to spend thinking about issues. If they did, they'd find out they're not really getting what those sound bites promised.

"In 2006, the Democrats said, 'If you vote us back in we'll pull the soldiers out of Iraq,'" says Patel. "That didn't happen and they don't even have the power to do that. ... And none of them have stopped funding the war. Who's lying? And the Republicans said, 'If you don't vote us back in you're going to perish by terrorists.' Did that happen?"

No. It did not. What's next for Patel (aside from filing next week's column)?

She calls her next venture, a feature film Gould is already signed on for, "a combination of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and On the Waterfront: A young, idealist lobbyist leaves Washington where he worked for the Clinton campaign, but finds out politics in Hollywood are more vicious than politics in [D.C.]."

I can't even imagine.

(bhoward@citypaper.net)

Clips from Electile Dysfunction are streaming exclusively on citypaper.net.