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Kimberly Cunningham

Dr. Lauren Pilcher

GC2Y 2000-13

11 April 2021

Political Reflection within Boys State and Collective

A political party gaining power at the expense its people has been a natural occurrence

throughout human history and is a process that can only be counteracted by electorates diligently

adhering to truth and honesty. In recent years, the concept of truth has been challenged by our

political leaders in the United States, as well as throughout the world. With a muddled standard

of what can be considered true to reality, there is an opening for disruption from political parties

that do not like the results of elections or legislation. Two award winning documentaries, Boys

State (2020) and Collective (2019), highlight how these loose ideals of what qualifies a real fact

verses an untruth or “alternative fact” can be used by political figures to justify dubious

interpretations or outright dismissals of legal precedent.

To counteract the inherent problem with a political party that subverts the will of the

people and places itself above the electorate, film makers and other media can play a critical role

by bringing awareness of these problems to audiences. Bill Nichols, an acclaimed American film

critic, states, “We need understanding, with its qualities of empathy and insight, to grasp the

implications and consequences of what we do. Actions rely on values, and values are subject to

question. Lives are at stake…Documentary film and video constitutes a tradition that has

addressed exactly this point,” (192) in his Introduction to Documentary. Within his book, he

outlines two distinct approaches filmmakers have towards addressing sociopolitical issues; what
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he terms a “social issue documentary” versus a “personal portrait documentary.” The former

focuses on prioritizing content to give a wide-spread view of a social issue with maximum

attention, while the latter indirectly implies a social issue while following one or few characters’

perspective of the world that they live in.

The documentary Boys State follows a diverse group of high school boys in Texas, who

are attending an annual event for aspiring political operatives. This personal portrait

documentary focuses on four attendees at the event and their development of political skills,

instincts, and behaviors. The Texas Boys State event is part of a program sponsored by the

American Legion, and it is held in various states across the country. The program is designed to

divide the attendees into two equal groups of participants, that are then assigned a political party,

being either Nationalists or Federalists. Once assigned to a political party, the boys must then

navigate a simulated two-party political system and ascertain what role that they may choose to

have in the development of the party. These roles range from support functions, policy makers,

and political operatives to party leadership roles or running for elective. Two of the featured

subjects in Boys State, René and Ben, will obtain their respective party’s highest leadership role

as party chairman, and the other two featured subjects, Robert and Steven, are competing for the

nomination of Governor for the Nationalist party.

Another documentary that addresses systemic political issues is the Romanian film

Collective. This film is a social issue documentary that uses the voices of witnesses, government

officials, and reporters to provide insight into a corrupt political system and its consequences on

the people of Romania. Collective follows the aftermath of the October 2015 fire at the Colectiv

nightclub in Bucharest, Romania, where 27 people were killed directly in the fire and another

180 were hospitalized with burns and other injuries. The public outrage that followed due to the
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lack of required fire exits at the club resulted in the Romanian government, controlled by Social

Democrats, to resign and an interim government to be appointed. This interim government will

serve until new elections are held in 2016. Despite what one may expect, rather than focusing on

the causation of the fire, the film exposes the widespread corruption within Romania’s politically

dominated hospitals that caused 37 more deaths through infection and neglect rampant within the

medical system. The film uses three individuals to present the narrative, Catalin Tolonta, the

investigating reporter, Vlad Voiculescu, a government official, and Tedy Ursuleanu, a young

woman survivor who was severely burned in the Colectiv fire.

The two documentaries offer the American viewer a unique depiction of the world of

politics, with three common themes that flow through both films. First, the tendency for some

political parties and/or politicians to become corrupt in their quest for power. Second, there is

penchant among certain political parties and politicians to disregard the truth, to outright lie,

and/or fabricate a false reality to obtain or retain power. Lastly, the only way for the common

citizen to push back against the natural propensities of dishonest political parties and politicians

is to be aware of the possibility that the information being presented may be false and seek out

the truth. Media of all forms, including documentaries, often attempts to provide a form of truth

or reality in order to be relatable to or to inform its audience, and plays a crucial part in the

information that gets spread to the general public.

Modern philosophy is dominated by Positivism, a philosophy in which claims the best

way to identity the truth is through disregarding all emotion, preconceived ideas, and biases.

Lorraine Code, a feminist philosopher, calls this the “view from nowhere” in her essay, “Taking

Subjectivity into Account;” claiming it is an impossible-to-reach viewpoint that only exists in an

abstract vacuum. This shows itself in Boys State, wherein despite the camp’s set up of made-up
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parties with no pre-established ideals, the boys still naturally ingrained modern politics – in this

case abortion and gun control – into their platforms and campaign statements. Even their own

personal identities, and the inherent social implications of such, played a role in their status at

Boys State. For example, Ben using his disability in his campaign speech, creating a narrative

based on his audience’s preconception of disability and the emotions attached to it. However,

this, in itself, is not the danger to Code. The danger falls upon the system – in this case, the

relatively harmless Boys State program – that attempts to create itself in a positivist fashion

while existing in a non-positivist world.

Collective shows us this outcome when this plays on a larger scale. Lawmakers and

politicians who appeal to the hypothetical - but forgo considering preexisting societal realities of

class, race, gender, etc. – often find themselves, intentionally or not, allowing a government that

is full of holes. And due to positivism’s appearance as a logical and applicable solution –

partially by design – often its faults are not noticed until something, or someone, falls through its

cracks. As the historian and moralist Lord Acton said, "power tends to corrupt, and absolute

power corrupts absolutely." In both films, the need to retain or obtain political power is a

noticeable underlying issue. The motivation of politicians is not always driven by a desire to

serve the people but rather can be driven by the lust to be in control, as in Collective, the

corruption of power permeates the Romanian healthcare, while in Boys State, the temptation of

obtaining that power becomes a corrupting force for some of the attendees at the event, making

them willing to compromise their moral compass.

This willingness to bend one’s own principles for political gain is captured in Boys State

when Robert admits, after making the runoff for the nomination for Governor, that, “My stance

on abortion would not line up well with the boys out there, so I picked a new stance ...
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sometimes you can’t win if you say what you believe in your heart.” Before, Robert had strongly

advocated that he was pro-life during his campaigning for Governor, and claimed that thousands

of couples are unsuccessfully able to adopt in order to defend his stance. Yet, afterwards, he

reveals in his interview that he is pro-choice, and did not actually believe what he was

advocating during his campaign. This shows how Robert, an average American teenage boy,

recognizes that the election process encourages politicians to hide what they believe and to lie to

the constituents about their true beliefs to get elected. He acknowledges the morally questionable

aspects of his situation, and his moral dilemma is shown as he considers dropping out of the

runoff and supporting Steven’s candidacy. Ultimately, Robert does lose the nomination to Steven

and accepts his loss graciously.

Another example in Boys State of the desire for power in the political process corrupting

is shown through Ben’s actions throughout the film. Ben, in many ways, is like the racoon that is

depicted in the film picking through a garbage can. While the racoon is looking for some morsel

to eat, Ben is looking through an opponent’s past to find some “morsel” to use against him. As

the head of his political party, Ben holds a decision-making role and can define how the

Federalist Party will operate. Although he does not directly instigate negative racial harassment

being directed against Steven, the Hispanic nominee for the Nationalist Party, and against René,

the Nationalist Party Chairman who is Black, Ben does still allow this to occur. Ben rationalizes

this activity by saying, “You have to use personal attacks, and you have to find divisive issues in

order to differentiate yourself at all.” Unlike Robert, who questions the morality of lying, Ben

accepts this negative behavior with little shown remorse. For Ben, “A message of unity, as good

as it sounds and as good as it ultimately is for our country, is not winning anyone any elections,”

which is another example of how political corruption is such a common sentiment that an
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average teenager not only can recognize it but has internalized it as well. As René observes about

Ben near the end of the film, “I don’t hate the man. Never will. I think he is a fantastic

politician…but I don’t think a fantastic politician is a complement, either,” which nicely

summarizes the general view Boys State seems to imply not only about Ben, but of politicians

like him, too.

In Collective, corruption of the truth for political purpose is seen throughout the events

following the Colectiv fire. After the Social Democrats were replaced with an interim

government, a man who was part of the existing health care system is placed in charge of the

Ministry of Health. This bureaucrat publicly reports that the care being given to the hospitalized

victims of Colectiv fire is the “best possible care,” and that it is being delivered to the “highest of

European standards,” and would not be better if was being given in Germany. This is shown to

be a clearly false narrative, unraveled when Catalin Tolonta, a reporter for a sport’s journal,

becomes aware through both medical personal and family members of the victims that the

conditions at the hospitals are septic, and that the medical staff is overwhelmed with trying to

care for the burn patients. The reporters’ team finds that the disinfectant massively used by the

hospitals is ineffective, and has been intentionally diluted by the manufacturer. The products are

tested by an independent lab and the results show that the active ingredients in the disinfectant

have been diluted to approximate 10% of the stated amount. This is well below European

standards.

The sports journal publishes these results, and other news organizations start following

the story. In response, the Minister of Health assures the public that the patients are currently in

no danger and the facilities are safe. Under questioning, he states that safety tests have been

conducted in the hospitals which show “no widespread problems.” After the press conference,
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the Minister of Health goes on television calling it a “fake crisis,” a crisis made up by the

reporters, and, specifically, by Catalin Tolonta. This is perpetuating a false narrative of the

Romanian health care system that its political supporters are trying to maintain. As more sources

come forward, it is uncovered that for eight years government inspectors were aware that there

was a problem with the disinfectant, but their reports were buried by the government. After these

reports are published, the Minister of Health resigns, and criminal investigations commence

against the manufacturer of the disinfectants. Tolonta states in a televised interview, “Clearly it

was an institutional lie at the state level propagated through all communication channels that

everything was done perfectly. That hospital conditions were ideal, like Germany.”

As the untruths being promulgated by the Romanian healthcare and political system are

being exposed, the government appoints Vlad Voiculescu, a health care professional with prior

experience as a patient advocate as the new Minister of Health. Voiculescu promises to stop the

lying to the press and to give them straight answers. He tells the press that there are legal issues

that must be resolved before the sanitation testing can be straightened out, but Voiculescu and

other health officials indicate that Romanian hospital sanitation is the worst in Europe. The

public’s seeking of the truth and listening to honest opposing viewpoints is the best

counterbalance to any unsavory political tendency or system. Political parties and politicians can

lie, and they can be corrupt, but it is not inevitable that all politicians or parties are inherently so.

Politicians and political parties can only get away with deceitful actions when the public and

their representatives in the press choose to ignore the truth and allow the falsehoods to go

unchallenged. By blindly accepting clear falsehoods as a condition of loyalty to a politician or

political party, it is an invitation to the immoral to abuse the system and its people that it is

supposed to protect.
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In both documentaries, there are hopeful aspects of individuals within the political system

that counterbalance of corrupting tendencies of political systems and politicians. In Boys State,

Steven is running for Governor of the Nationalist Party, and he is shown right from the

beginning as wanting to methodically reach out to the other attendees and listen to their concerns

and positions. Steven has political views that he knows will be less popular, such as on guns,

than most of his fellow participants at the Texas Boys State but wants to stay true to how he

honestly feels. When Steven agrees with someone, he tells them, and when he disagrees with

someone, he tells them. He is not faced with the moral dilemma that others may have had, such

as Robert, because he has not put himself in that position. Although Steven does not ultimately

win the election for Governor, he is depicted as the clear winner in the film, since Steven has

demonstrated principles that hopefully he will carry with him throughout his life.

In Collective, the ability to bring truth to the public is best demonstrated in the scene

involving the reporters obtaining the video of the burn patient in Romania’s primary burn

hospital that has live maggots in his wounds. The reason the maggots are found in the patient’s

wound is due to the unsanitary conditions of the hospital, and that the patient is not being bathed

daily. A doctor from that hospital is interviewed, and she outlines the issues with the hospital.

She explains that any complaints made to the hospital administration over the unsanitary and

over-crowded conditions are ignored, and that the hospital functions on a system of bribes and

cover-ups. After seeing the horrible images of the patient with maggots in his wound, Voiculescu

focuses his investigation on this hospital and learns that this patient has died, even though his

burns should not have been life threatening. When Voiculescu faces the press, he states that the

situation is unacceptable, and that burn patients will have to be treated in other European
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countries. Voiculescu acknowledges the truth which allows the public to be informed of the

reality of hospital conditions.

In both documentaries, the filmmakers use imagery and transitions between the dialogue

scenes to support the underlying themes and messages contained in the documentaries. In Boys

State, the transitions focus on the pomp and spectacle associated with political parties and

political campaigns. This pageantry typically focuses on patriotic symbols, songs, and activities.

The film has the singing of anthems, waving flags, drum lines. Each of these activities are

intended to entertain and invoke a sense of nationalism and duty in the audience at the event.

However, these patriotic symbols can also be used to entertain and distract the public from some

the facts and real issues.

In Collective, a constant transition figure throughout the film is Tedy Ursuleanu, a young

woman that was badly burned in the Colectiv nightclub. This woman is a reminder to the

audience of the real ramification of government and political corruption. She is a real person and

a real face of the tragedy. In a poetic display, Tedy is shown posing for a photographer. Her

missing hand and the scaring all over her body is displayed in detail. Next, we see her getting a

robotic hand in a rehabilitation facility that allows her pick up things, causing her mother to cry

as she watches her daughter be able to perform the simple task of picking up a plastic glass. Near

the end of the documentary, the photos of the woman are exhibited at a gallery. Many of the

family members of the other burn victims that died at the Colectiv nightclub or at the burn

hospital are in attendance. In addition, Vlad Voiculescu is at the showing and he hugs Tedy.

Finally, one of the photos of her photoshoot is now displayed on Vlad Voiculescu’s office wall,

the face of this tragedy and a constant reminder of the human effects of political corruption.
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At the beginning of Boys State, the viewer is given this warning from George

Washington – “Political parties are likely to become potential engines by which cunning

ambitious and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp

for themselves the reins of government.” A similar warning is echoed by Vlad Voiculescu, when

discussing the pending election with Colectiv survivors, on how the political system “can crush

people.” He says, “if people don’t go and vote, the social democrats will win a majority and

together, with other retrograde parties, they will try to turn things around to how it was before,

because that’s the world they can own.” Voiculescu recognizes that the system is corrupt and

maintains it does not care about people. He states that the elections matter and that if the Social

Democrats win, they will most likely reverse any reforms that were made for their own benefit.

Thereafter, the election is held, and the Social Democrats have a large victory. Turnout is

very low for young voters, and it is stated that it their largest victory in history. In Boys State the

results of the election are that Steven is defeated in his race for Governor. At the end of both

films, the “good guy” loses, and the party that was corrupt or engaged in wedge type issues

prevails. In conclusion, the fact that the “good guy” loses the elections in both films does not

mean that all governments or political parties are corrupt. In a conversation with his father,

Voiculescu states that it is like we are living in separate worlds. Voiculescu’s father tells him that

it will take 30 years for Romanian to wake up, not 5 or 10. He tells Vlad to go back to Vienna,

where he can make a difference, and by the end of the phone call, Vlad wonders if any of the

changes he made will remain. However, the world does change. By raising issues of truth and

exposing corruption in the health care system in a COVID-19 world, the Romanian elections in

2020 returned Vlad Voiculescu to the position of Minister of Health. And for the boys in Boys
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State, they are all continuing their education and involvement in some form of service to the

country.
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Works Cited

Code, Lorraine. “Taking Subjectivity into Account.” Education, Culture and Epistemological

Diversity, 2011, pp. 85–100., doi:10.1007/978-94-007-2066-4_5.

Mosse, Jesse and Amanda McBaine, directors. Boys State. A24, 2020, boysstate.movie/.

Nanau, Alexander, director. Collective. Voodoo Films, 2019, www.collectivemovie.com/.

Nichols, Bill. Introduction to Documentary. Third ed., Indiana University Press, 2017.