Where's Waldo? In the White House

As we discussed in class on Friday, there were obvious similarities between Waldo the bear, from "The Waldo Moment", and Donald Trump, America's new President-Elect. Waldo and Donald Trump could both be seen as the opposites of how government is usually viewed by the public. Both Trump and Waldo were widely mentioned in the media -often because of scandal- and because of this, voters were more likely to hear their names and their campaign platforms. Much of what these platforms stood on was the fact that Waldo and Trump were outsiders in politics. Neither of them were politicians, but both of them were television personalities known for being crude and brutally honest, often going a bit too far. In the beginning of Donald Trump's campaign, he was heard saying a lot of horrible things about both groups and individuals; in the film, when Waldo first agreed to run for MP- as a joke- he made many vulgar comments at the expense of other candidates. Throughout Trump's campaign, he used nicknames to identify other candidates and political figures. Similarly, Waldo uses a certain way of speaking to mock both Liam Monroe and Gwendolyn Harris on television as well as on the bus he uses to campaign around town. Some could even argue that both let a lot of emotion take over when doing debates, or in Trump's case, simply when using social media to discuss the election.
In "The Waldo Moment", Liam Monroe is what a lot of citizens viewed as a stereotypical politician. This is evident in one of the opening scenes, when Monroe is featured on the "Tonight for One Week Only" show. Waldo and Conor Simpson ask Monroe questions about politics and then mock him for his answers. In class, we talked about how Hillary Clinton was "the poster-child for government and politics", much like Monroe was in the show. Both Clinton and Monroe were surrounded by controversy- Clinton for her emails, and Monroe for being friends with the former MP who turned out to be a pervert.
Overall, there were many similarities between "The Waldo Moment" and the 2016 United States Presidential Election. In the closing scene of "The Waldo Moment", we see that, despite Waldo losing the election, he still made a huge impact on the state of not only the United Kingdom, but the world itself. In this scene, Jamie is seen trying to destroy a screen that depicts Waldo, in other countries, speaking out against the government. I think it's safe to say that if Donald Trump had lost the election, he still would have had a huge impact on our country, simply because of how unprecedented his campaign was. In fact, Clinton losing made a huge impact on our country as well. Her supporters have joined together to stand up for what they believe in, many of them for the first time. The main difference between the film and the U.S. Election, however, is that in the end of "The Waldo Moment", Monroe won the election and became MP. In the end of our election, we elected the equivalent of a blue cartoon bear.