But the thing that is genuinely interesting, and I'm not being funny here, the thing is genuinely

interesting about Alexandra Pelosi's work, is that her camera sort of works as, I don't know, the cinema verite eye of the American ruling class, okay? You know, I'm not sure if you mentioned this explicitly well, but, you know, I think the first of her films we saw, right, was that one where she was following, like, she's on the campaign trail. She's trying to do a sort of fear and loathing on the campaign trail.

This was her breakout film, by the way. It's called Journeys with George. And it was her on the campaign boss with George W. Bush. And of course, the sort of novelty of it, the selling point of it is, can you believe it? It's Nancy Pelosi's daughter, and she's

following around the presumptive Republican nominee. Right. And yeah, so the foil is, look at me.

Yeah, liberal firebrand falling around the Hick president, except... Well, overwhelmingly,

I would say that documentary was in the spirit of like David Foster Wallace's John McCain essay. Yes, that's true, which is,

which is one of his worst essays. Where it's two interests are, can you believe the campaign

bus? Look at these sandwiches that we get, you know. What's it like being a reporter, you know?

But then also, George W. Bush, you know, he's a bit of a scamp. Well, right, because what that film actually does, and this is what I'm getting at,

and why it's kind of interesting and why her work is interesting, is that what it actually

is is a document of ruling class fraternity and solidarity, because, you know,

George Bush is friendly with Nancy Pelosi's daughter.

It's like, yeah, we have this

political rivalry, but, you know, we're in the same, we're in the same income bracket, you know?

I don't think I thought about this at the time, but, you know, Bush might be thinking, you know,

well, you know, my dad was president and vice president and director of the CIA. And, you know,

she also has to follow in her wealthy, successful

mom's footsteps. There's a genuine camaraderie between the two of them. And in so many of

her films, what you find is she's taking a sympathetic eye to politicians and she's taking

a jaundiced eye to the rabble, to the unwashed masses who just don't understand what these people

go through and, you know, all of the public service that they do in making sure people don't get health care and so on. Do you remember there was a scene in one of them where she's at some White House party, some White House function, and she's talking to George W. Bush, and he's obviously distracted. He's like looking over her shoulder. And then you find out it's because Nancy Pelosi is behind her and he wants to talk to her. Like I also love the subtext in a lot of these movies where in Diary of a Political Tourist, it's a Michael Moore style thing where she's trying to get an interview with John Kerry. And I mean, it doesn't work because you're- Because she just gets the interview with John Kerry. You're Nancy Pelosi's daughter. Of course you can interview John Kerry. But she tries to ham it up a bit with like, oh, I can't seem to get John Kerry on the phone. But then when she finally does get an interview with John Kerry, do you remember how like snide he is? You remember how he's like, he's like truly snarky and disrespectful towards her? There's an elevator he's trying to get into or something. I think they're on a plane together. Oh, that's right. He's like, all right, fine. I'll give you an interview. But then he starts like making fun of her with his campaign aids. He's like, I got, yeah, I got to get back to losing to George Bush. It's a side of John Kerry we don't typically see. That's true. But this movie,

American selfie, is notable, first of all, because she's less of a, at least on-screen presence.

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