Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Millhouse: A White Comedy


In the film "Millhouse: A White Comedy", de Antonio uses a film making technique similar to what he uses in his previous documentaries in that he stays out of his film and complies found footage together in a specific manner to make his viewers think a certain way. However, with this documentary, he puts an interesting spin on it by using comedy. The title alone shows viewers that de Antonio is going to be criticising and making fun of President Richard Milhous Nixon considering his middle name is the title. Before the film even begins, it shows young white girls singing in support of Nixon. De Antonio is trying to demonstrate how people had to be completely clueless and naive if they actually supported this man. For the first clip in the film, de Antonio decides to show people putting together a wax dummy that looks identical to Nixon. The significance of this clip is for de Antonio to show people that Nixon is like a wax dummy, cares to much about his image and being in the spotlight, and is overall a very creepy man.



By showing clips from speeches made by Nixon, de Antonio is trying to show his audience how Nixon contradicts himself and really does not know what he is talking about. At the same time, de Antonio is questioning the thoughts of American people and wondering how they could elect a man like this as their President. So many people fell for all of Nixon campaign tricks and the tactics he used in attempt to gain votes.




As a result of this film, new tactics for campaigning developed. People began taking clips of their opponents and having the content of the clip manipulated in order to make their opponent look bad.

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