To become the successful winner of a student-council election at
most high schools, all you need is a few signatures, a pile of
semi-clever posters, a relatively coherent speech and god-given
popularity. (And the promise of free pizza and more dances.) But at
NYC’s elite Stuyvesant High School, politics are serious business—and
public favour is not won by pizza-promises alone. The clever, hilarious
documentary Frontrunners follows one election-cycle at the
school, and profiles earnest, ambitious weirdo George, actor Hannah
(she name-drops Todd Solondz, and had a sizeable part in
Palindromes), cocky Mike and lackadaisical Alex—the four
candidates brave/foolhardy enough to submit themselves to the school’s
gruelling month-long presidential election process, which features both
a primary and a general election. Along the way, the candidates pick
racially strategic campaign-mates (it’s important to appeal to the
school’s significant Asian population), fight for endorsement of the
school paper (a publication that students actually read and pay
attention to), prepare for televised debates and figure out the optimal
place to hand out flyers. Stuyvesant’s election feels like a “real”
election in microcosm—a cleaned-up version, that is.
This article appears in May 21-27, 2009.
