Mark Reviews Movies: SLAY THE DRAGON

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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 2, 2020

Directors Chris Durrance and Barak Goodman' could have been a dry and straightforward analysis of the motives and consequences of gerrymandering—drawing boundaries for voting districts to favor one political party. Slay the Dragon is actually a pretty agile analysis, though, evading linear chronology and rote definitions.

The film is very much about how we got here, why it's hurting the political system and discourse in the United States, and what people are doing to put a stop to it. All of those ideas are presented with tangible, impactful examples.

It begins, not with a dictionary definition or a history lesson, but with the case of Flint, Michigan, which went through a disastrous health crisis after switching to a new water source. It was too salty, causing pipes to corrode and contaminate the city's water supply with lead. The blame can be placed on a variety of sources—from the Republican governor at the time (a businessman with no prior political experience), to the emergency manager he appointed, to the Republican-led state legislature that drew up the bill for such authoritarian measures.

Going further back, though, it's all about gerrymandering, argue Durrance and Goodman, which ensured that Republican-leaning voters were grouped together in state Congressional districts and that Democratic-leaning voters were overwhelmed within those districts or isolated within others. It happens throughout the country and through a good chunk of its history. The Republican Party, though, has mastered it, finding a way to make sure that they'll keep power for some time to come.

From one point of view, the film seems as if it has a partisan slant, but from a rational perspective, maybe that's because of reality. The filmmakers are against gerrymandering, because it diminishes the ideals of a democratic republic, and if the members of only one party is implementing those tactics with the explicit goal of eroding the idea that every individual's vote should count as much as every other individual's, shouldn't they be called out for that?

The film uses experts and specific anecdotes, ranging from Flint to voter ID laws, to explain the problem and its ramifications with clarity and righteous outrage. Slay the Dragon isn't just about gloom and doom, though. In following a group of political novices trying to do away with this system, the film reminds us that the only cure to democracy's ailments is democracy itself.

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