Richard Rodriguez Political Mimesis

Political mimesis is a term that in this case, describes the film’s appeal based off of how the viewer is swept up in its effectiveness, or how the viewer is emotionally engaged in the film. For me, the most powerful portion of the film took place when members of the Venezuelan military demanded Chavez’s resignation while surrounding the palace with a barrage of tanks and military figures. When Chavez refused to resign, the military threatened to bomb the palace.
Members of the government were sat on the floor of the palace, awaiting some kind of resolution to the ongoing conflict. This portion of the film put me in the position of watching an intense government situation unfold as government affiliates panicked. It’s not a common occurrence
to be able to see inside these types of situations, but in the case of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, the documentarians were able to record most of the ongoing situation. However, they weren’t allowed to enter the room where the negotiations were taking place. This almost increased my emotional engagement with the film because, like the officials sitting on the palace floor, I had no real idea what was going on behind those doors, or what the outcome would be. In the end, Chavez refused to resign. He did however, agree to be taken prisoner by the military officials. As he left the palace, the people within the palace chanted “Hugo” and assured him that this wasn’t over. I strongly connected with this moment, as it truly depicted a moment of both fear for what was yet to come, and hope that everything would end up working out for the best. It was in this moment that I connected with the individuals on the screen and felt fear and hope along with them.

2.
Chavez was a president for the people. He was widely respected by the poorer Venezuelan citizens, who, despite Venezuela’s massive oil wealth, made up 80% of the 26-million-person population. Like many presidential candidates before him, Chavez promised to take care of the poor majority, increase overall quality of life, and re-distribute the wealth. He was all for education, and encouraged citizens to learn the constitution and know their rights as citizens. He was so loved by these communities that he received an average of two hundred letters a day, some of which he would reply to on the only non-private channel (channel 8) that aired in Venezuela. However, like Naomi Schiller mentions in her article “Framing the Revolution: Circulation and Meaning of The Revolution Will Not be Televised,” Chavez had a growing opposition. She mentions that this opposition “accused Chavez of concentrating power and being hostile to the business community, the media, the United States, and the Catholic Church.” Because of this apparent hostility, and the lack of balance between the public and private television channels, the media became a deadly weapon that would diminish Chavez’s reputation and become the underlying cause of Chavez’s removal from office. This small, but significant number of media outlets had low journalistic standards, and weren’t interested in reporting the truth. Instead, they took their biases towards Chavez to a new level by decontextualizing footage, and even released
fake, doctored footage in order to shape citizen biases. The pivotal scene in this documentary, the oppositions march, was a key player for the privately-owned media. During the oppositions march, shots were fired from a sniper into the crowd of Chavez supporters. With one quarter of the population carrying handguns, the Chavez supporters began shooting back into the direction of the sniper shots. A lot of this footage was caught on camera. However, only one position was reported on by private media, and that was the position that made Chavez supporters look like the instigators, and turned the opposition into victims. After this misrepresentation of footage, channel 8, the only public channel, was corrupted and cut off. This left all the media power in the hands of privately owned television stations that aggressively opposed Chavez, and started the coup. Because of this media misrepresentation, Chavez was forcibly removed from the Venezuelan palace and was replaced.
This removal was against the constitution, which stated that in order for a president to be removed, there would need to be a democratic referendum. This was not upheld by the military. It’s interesting to think about how this constitution bound law was disregarded all thanks to the way that the media represented a particular situation. This factor really brings to light the overall power that the media held. No matter the situation, the media made attempts to guide the citizens into thinking what they wanted them to believe. For example, when the citizens marched on the palace after Chavez’s removal, and even after the guards plotted against military rule and planned for the original ministers, legislators, and judicial officials to take back power, the private media outlets refused to report the news. Instead, they portrayed the whole situation as controlled in an effort to mask the truth and give the citizens a sense of normality under the new
government.
3. During the film, we are no more than an observer, watching as political conflict and media take over Venezuela. We see guns in the streets, oppositional marches, marches on the palace, a broken constitution, and a president taken prisoner. This intimate view on the inner workings of the coup puts the viewer in the position of an observer. However, unlike the citizens of Venezuela at the time, along with those immediate observations, we get to see the news footage, watch interviews, and hear voice overs that supposedly show all sides of the conversation. The use of news footage, both public and private, dramatically influences the viewer by showing the media’s dramatic lack of objectivity, as well as the pressure from the United states to challenge the Chavez government. This news footage is very important to the overall history of the coup, and having it inserted throughout the documentary helps us, the viewer, understand what the Venezuelan citizens were watching at the time. With the only publicly owned channel gone, private media was in charge of everything that would be communicated to everyone in the country. Having that footage in the documentary is vital in framing the documentary in a way that shows the viewer everything they need to know about the coup at the time. Voice over narration is also very important. There were some things that couldn’t be captured or collected by the documentarians. Things like what went on behind those doors at the palace, or the soldiers plan to take prisoners and reinstate the old government. These voiceovers help the viewer fill in the blanks in order for them to get the full history of everything that was going on in the government at the time.