catapult magazine

http://www.fahrenheit911.com/trailer/

this is a good trailer—and i’m sure the movie will provide much fodder for debate and discussion (a certain percentage of that will be about whether moore is accurate in what he presents).

i hear there’s a petition underway to try to block theatres from releasing it—haven’t people learned from [i:6f7103c5ff]the passion[/i:6f7103c5ff] that that’s only going to make more people see it?

I agree with Kirstin’s observations about the movie. It also brings to mind my first ever introduction to the world of Michael Moore.

In 1996, I worked as an intern for the morning show on Madison’s classic rock station. What a dubious honor that turned out to be. One of my duties (in addition to being at the station every morning at 5 a.m.) was to accompany one of the two hosts around town doing stunts during the morning program. My naivete lasted only so long after I found myself handing out station prizes to loudmouthed men from the back of the WJJO van … in the parking lot of a porn store. I had no idea it was a porn store until we left. But I digress.

Another “stunt” came about and involved a documentary filmmaker named Michael Moore, who I’d either never heard of, or barely recognized from hearing “Roger and Me” bandied about somewhere. Either way, I was pretty clueless as to who this guy was. The “stunt” was to accompany Moore, along with a mob of welfare mothers, as he swarmed the offices of our then-Republican governor (who is now the nation’s Secretary of Health and Human Services). I can’t recall what point he was trying to make (other than the obvious, that our welfare system was somehow screwing these women), other than to make a scene.

My politics were only in the beginning stages back then and I had no idea the extent of Michael Moore’s agenda. But to my college sophomore thinking, his stunt appeared to be merely that … a stunt. It seemed to not actually want to do anything to help these welfare mothers, but rather use them to help Moore embarrass a man who was, at the time, considered to be heading (and having forged) one of the best welfare systems in the United States. I wasn’t even sure the women were actual welfare recipients. His tactics seemed as counterproductive to getting to the discussion table as anything I’d ever encountered.

Unsure of what I would be aligning myself with, I opted to stay home that morning and listened to the broadcast on the radio. Like I had thought, they merely made a lot of noise in the state Capitol and the radio deejays yucked it up with Moore all morning.

My point here is that this movie is more of the same – it’s a circle jerk for people who think like Moore does and offers no intelligent alternatives or solutions. It comes across as another Michael Moore, “let’s make fun of this guy” stunt.

Is Michael Moore’s task to offer alternatives and solutions? What really is the value of Michael Moore? I’d like someone to make a case for how society benefits from Michael Moore and his films.

I liken Michael Moore to the big, fat bully in gradeschool who, despite the fact no one really thought he was all that cool, was elevated by other insecure kids to be the ringleader because he had the biggest mouth and the most balls and liked to get into trouble. They’d laugh at what he did, all the while hoping that by siding with the bully they wouldn’t become his next victim.

So, how does society benefit from Michael Moore? He’s used as a human shield by his devoted followers (and I mean those who gush about him) who are inadequate thinkers and communicators on their own.

Yeah, yeah, I know someone’s going to say that alternative points of view are valuable; it’s good to question authority and the status quo, etc. But why Michael Moore has been chosen as the poster boy for “how to buck the system” … I don’t know. It’s taken him long enough to make a BIG name for himself, if you think about it … from when “Roger and Me” came out until “Bowling for Columbine.” So, do people really like him and his observations on society or do they just not like Bush and neither does Moore and it’s all culminated in Moore being the “IT” boy?

Michael Moore, the populist, humorist and satirist commentator on current events, recently released a manipulative agi-entertainment video-clip essay on the current debate about the war on Iraq. It is manipulative because Moore uses all the emotional tricks that one can use as a wink or a nod while presenting information. It is agi-entertainment because it is constructed to move the audience to laughs, agitation and many other emotional reactions. It is a video-clip essay because it uses a huge amount of actual video footage and ties it together to support some very opinionated claims of its writer. I lifted those three descriptions from various critics. This is a biased, opinionated and audacious gathering of footage and commentary. I loved it. Here?s why.

Moore is being pretty clear in his life and consistent behavior that he is biased and that he knows it. His upbringing in Flint and the story of his life has a lot to do with his biases, and as a human, the best we all can do is recognize that we are nothing if we are not biased by our limited range of experience, understanding and insight that at its most expansive, remains that of one human stumbling through the first and only draft of his life.

Moore knows his audience. The mom and son behind us spent some time trying to get a handle on all the names as their images appeared in the opening of the movie: Who?s that? Ashcroft. How bout him? Oh that?s Dick Cheney. I don?t know who that is. Paul Wolf? We are an audience that does not read, does not watch C-Span and gets most of our understanding of current events from Fox News. We have no clue about the games played by television networks to limit our exposure to certain images and ideas, and to play to our fear and vulnerabilities about the sneaky, shadowy killers who could be anywhere. So Moore says, this is what the networks do to you. And he plays their game to show how easily all this footage can be spun another way, using the sound-bytes, sawing violins or supposedly balanced commentator voice over. Moore proves to us all that the power and manipulation that goes along with presenting information in such a way means: we all need to pay attention and get our butts involved in this democracy! Wendell Berry pointed out in his opening essay of Citizenship Papers that Thomas Jefferson?s main reason for pushing universal education was this very democratic idea: citizens need to be educated so that they can have a healthy mistrust of the powerful ones in their government. Where there is no mistrust or education, the democracy is probably very much a hollow term for what?s going really going on. I am glad that Moore does what it takes to get the average American thinking a bit more critically about some questions we all should be asking anyway: Why are we going to war? What really makes our homeland more secure? Why do they play us with the color-alert system?
No regular full-time working citizen has the time or the universal access to keep abreast of the events that happen daily or throughout a presidency. I could get scared thinking about this, knowing there?s no way I can see what?s really going on. What comforts me is to know that news organizations, scholars, private citizens, all admittedly driven by motives more complex than ?just getting the truth out there,? are sifting through the files, memos, sound-bytes and taking the time to tie it together to make a point. When the opinions clash, I don?t fret, because I know all about selective interpretation. Instead I breathe a sigh of relief knowing that both biases are coming through loud and clear. As long as that happens, I tell myself that the citizens in this democracy can put their views on the table and open up the discussion. My hope is that every citizen has access to this discussion, even if it?s the manipulative tactics of Fox News or Michael Moore that helps them get a foot in the door. My hope is that they will think twice about how easily they can be swayed, then respond by reading more history, finding out the names of their legislative reps, paying more attention to Condy Rice than Courtney Love, and maybe even seeking some understanding of logic to recognize the fallacies (used by any source) that may currently be manipulating them.

grant, this article offers an interesting answer to your question:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/11/movies/11SCOT.html?8hpib[/quote]

I enjoyed Cornelia’s post. A very interesting take on the whole thing.

But I knew it! I knew I was too dumb to recognize Michael Moore for the genius he is!!

I think Moore does a good job of entertaining people who already agree with him and provoking people who disagree with him.

One thing that bothers me (among others) is that he’s nihilistic. He does a good job of making people laugh while tearing his opposition down. He’s actually quite vicious, a wolf in self-proclaimed sheep’s clothing. He’s a good character assassin. He claims to believe in the basic goodness of all people, but isn’t afraid to speculate and imply things in complete isolation from “the facts.” Many of the things he says might be true, albeit not in the sense he implies, but the end picture, as he mixes the so-called facts with his opinions, is distorted beyond all usefulness. People who are already skeptical about our government and its authority go away confirmed in their skepticism, and others simply go away, having laughed or grinded their teeth the whole time.

Some may say that Moore has value as an “outside” thinker. Yet, there’s a way of telling the truth that amounts to lying. Moore, in my opinion, is a liar. Not because he never tells the truth, but because of the way he tells it. There’s no sense of proportion (which facts are important and which are all but irrelevant), no consideration of another’s dignity (except those who support his ideas), and no respect other’s views. Moore’s movie is driven by his ideology, and he makes no attempt to represent his opposition in any fair way.

When I took a historiography class, we were encouraged to represent the views of others so well that they would read your representation and agree. “Yeah, that’s basically what I think.” Once you’ve established the other view in this way, you can argue agaisnt it. Moore fails miserably on this basic point.

I say Moore is nihilistic because his main goal (at least for now) is to tear down his opposition. Only in tearing down the present, he thinks, can he build for the future (ala Nietzsche). Because Moore is so radically nihilistic, I don’t think he has much value to contribute to our society.

i agree that moore isn’t fair and his movie is driven by his ideology, but there’s no such thing as a completely objective movie, and if one has a bias, i’d rather they admitted it up front. i think he’s also been pretty candid about his “goal” for the movie—stated in various forms: 1) that people would get out and vote, and 2) that bush would be removed from office. as far as tearing down his opponents, he would probably view it as exposing them for what they really are, or tearing down their fa?ade, so that people can make more informed decisions. whether you agree with his assessment of bush & co is a different story.

the thing that sometimes scares me about things like this (and fox news, and media in general) is that by its nature it seeks to control the viewer—music, visuals, voices, all woven together to direct how you think and feel. maybe what bothers me is that it seems to muddy up what the “facts” are since both sides are swaying unsuspecting people with these tools of the trade, or suspecting people can just choose whichever one they already agree with.

what’s that line? the medium is the message? or, the medium is the massage?

Cornelia, great post! An excellent review of the movie. I just saw Moore’s film this weekend and I also absolutely loved it! As good, if not better than “Bowling for Columbine”. After hearing people’s analysis, I often think I’m going to hate his movies. They sound one-sided, manipulative and biased. But when I go to see Moore’s films, I sort of look past that and see all kinds of good things going on. Yes, I think Moore realizes just how much potential images have for persuasion and argument (I feel bad for the philosophers who don’t know how to make movies, because they have some stiff competition). There’s much I’d like to say about this film, but for starters, I feel like Moore has shown the power of art over politics.