"Please Vote for Me" - Feature Documentary

“Please Vote for Me” is a great representation about competition among peers starting at an early age. Not all cultures are like this, yet, the audience can see how it can be in China where this film takes place. The three key players in the movie the two boys and one girl wanting to get votes from their classmates will do anything to get them. Whether that means relying on their talents or on exposing other people’s weaknesses. Sometimes they come up with strategies on their own and other times they come from their parents. It really did not surprise me that the parents were even telling their kids to somehow sabotage the whole process. It’s awful but I think that the parents thought that they did not want to see their child get hurt from disappointment. Any parent wants their kid to succeed. I think the methods they used are not to my agreement, yet, I can appreciate what is being presented to not do that when a similar situation happens with one of my own. I thought about this concept of competition in the film and I was trying to compare it to society here. I think that even here there is some kind of competition that starts young since there is this idea that people have to do better or know better than someone else to be marketable in the job field. It’s a sad reality that people have to face, but that seems to be the way things function here. This film made me make that connection. If kids were instructed to do otherwise, to not compete with each other and try to treat each other like equals and work to cooperate in helping each other succeed there would be an avoidance of most problems happening in our world today. This, however, does not change that I enjoyed the film. There were a variety of moments. There was comedy, realism, and moments where I got in touch with my inner child. “Oh I remember how that was like.” Kids will be kids? I think that this movie shows that innocence that is unseen by them but seen by the adults. They have the power to mold these children for better or for worse. Even though something like a class election is not the most serious of life-changing events it can be a little piece that shapes their personalities. The experience can help them or break them. I realize with this how I have been shaped because of many experiences I have dealt with especially those lived as a kid. Who knows how this experience in particular has shaped those kids, but it certainly helps others see the bigger picture of things.