Movie Review: ‘Texas, USA’ Gives Us a Glimmer of Hope About Texas’ Future
In the recent movie Red, White, and Royal Blue, the movie about the son of the US President falling in love with the Prince of England, there’s this whole subplot where the President’s son decides that, since the President is a former Democratic governor of Texas, there’s a chance they can flip Texas and turn it blue for her re-election campaign. At the time, I thought this to be the most unrealistic part of the whole movie, as I always assumed that Texas was a firmly red state. But in the new documentary by Andrew Morgan called Texas, USA, we see that making Texas a blue state someday, while certainly a difficult goal to achieve, may not just be the stuff of fiction films.
The documentary follows several different organizers from around Texas who are working to try to make Texas a more progressive state. A lot of focus is on following Beto O’Rourke’s gubernatorial campaign in 2022. While it’s public knowledge that O’Rourke lost to the far-right Greg Abbott in that election, the film shows how much progress O’Rourke made, and how much groundwork was laid for future progress. Some of the other important figures featured in the film are Lina Hidalgo, who did win re-election for Harris County Judge in 2022; Greg Casar, who became a senator for Texas’s 35th district in 2022; and the Texas Organizing Project, which works on voter mobilization and voting rights in the state of Texas.
Considering how much Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton have done to write their hatred towards transgender people into Texas state law, another primary character that emerges in the film is Adri Pérez, a passionate transgender advocate from Austin, Texas. Pérez has worked for the ACLU of Texas and Texas Freedom Network, becoming one of the key figures at protests for trans rights. The film highlights their work and demonstrates the power of trans resilience in the face over overwhelming and coordinated attacks from the extreme right.
As someone whose political affiliation is well to the left of the Democratic Party, I don’t necessarily think that electing Democrats into office is the be-all and end-all of fixing the problems in this country. That being said, I’m not one of those radicals who fails to see any validity to electoral politics, and I understand that it’s important to lay the groundwork for change. The Republican stranglehold on the state, and, in particular, Abbott and Paxton’s discriminatory policies towards the LGBTQ+ community have literally put lives at risk, and that’s an immediate crisis that needs to be fixed. All in all, it’s a fascinating documentary for anyone who’s interested in electoral politics, as well as anyone who’s distressed over the current state of politics in Texas.
Texas, USA is available today for purchase from Apple TV.
Photo courtesy of Texas, USA.
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