Journalist and Documentarian Alexandra Pelosi may have a harder time than many of us breaking out of her designated political corner. As the daughter of Nancy Pelosi, the long running and influential Democratic Minority leader of the House of Representatives, people may have preconceptions about her in our intensely divided political climate. But as a journalist, Pelosi has tried to navigate how the media coverage of politics has divided us into political tribes. Her 2004 HBO documentary Diary of a Political Tourist and her accompanying book Sneaking into the Flying Circus: How the Media Turn Our Presidential Campaigns into Freak Shows, both aimed to cut through the pageantry and team sport mentality that modern American politics has turned into.
Alexandra Pelosi takes us into Trump country for her new documentary
Alexandra Pelosi filming on location in Houston, Texas. Photo: HBO
With her new documentary Outside The Bubble: On The Road with Alexandra Pelosi premiering on HBO tonight, Pelosi takes the viewer, as well as her two young sons, on a road trip into the red states outside of the metropolitan coasts to get a better understanding of who Trump’s America really is. Pelosi believes that it is extremely important to break the cycle of demonizing people who affiliate themselves with opposing political ideologies as “others”, and found that it was extremely important to expose her children to people living outside of their perfectly maintained liberal bubbles.
“I have two middle school kids. They come home from school reciting ‘liberal propaganda’ and I wanted to show them the real America,” explains Pelosi. “So, I packed my bags and put them in the car and drove them to see some of the hot spots in America where the divide is profound to try to expose them to a different reality. Because, I don’t buy the tribal narrative of ‘us vs. them’… Cable news feeds us ‘Red Vs. Blue’ and I believe America is much more Purple than that. So, I wanted to expose my kids to the other side of every issue so that they can think in a more nuanced way.”
In the documentary, Pelosi and her children travel to hot button places such as the hurricane ravaged Houston, Texas, Charlottesville, Virginia, and meets with security officials to discuss the need for Trump’s wall along the U.S. and Mexican border. Through their journeys, Pelosi and her children are exposed to different perspectives on some of today’s most dividing issues by focusing on the people of these areas rather than just the hashtag.
While she still does not agree with the politics of many of the different people she met along the way, Pelosi believes that the best way to break free from the bubble is to turn off your television and actually talk to your fellow Americans. You may find out that you have more in common with them than you realize.
“My biggest complaint about cable news today is that it feeds us what we want to hear and it doesn’t respect our intelligence enough to say ‘You know, there could also be another side?’,” says Pelosi. “I don’t think it’s healthy that such educated people live on such a steady diet of everything that they want to hear.”
Alexandra Pelosi’s new documentary, Outside The Bubble: On The Road with Alexandra Pelosi premieres on HBO tonight at 8pm ET.
