Preaching to the converted, but...
Dec. 9th, 2002 12:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davywavyOff to see ‘Bowling for Columbine’ this evening. Now you’d expect that I would be the perfect audience for this film; it’s all about how bloody stupid & awful American cultureis, and how they own far too many damn guns.
Now, bearing in mind that I often personify knee-jerk anti-Americanisn and I firmly believe that firearm ownership in the general population is liable to be a bad idea, why is it then that this film, which mirrors my own views, pissed me off quite so much?
The fact is that I don’t like propaganda of any stripe, and nor do I like Michaels Moores documentary style of holding up to ridicule people who are being generous and friendly towards him.
There’s a scene, early on in the film, where he’s out with the Michigan militia. Now, the Michigan Militia pretty much exemplify all that I think is wrong with the idea of giving the general public guns. However, the people who he was with were friendly, helpful, and gave freely of their time and for no reward. In return, Mike mugged to the camera when they weren’t looking, and generally ridiculed them whilst giving them no opportunity to respond to that ridicule. Is this something I respect? Nope, it isn’t.
Despite his basic premise that perhaps gun ownership is a bad idea, did Mike at any point try to engage these people with his ideas? Did any debate occur?
Of course not. In the same way that he’s happy to be an advocate of equality and then release a book called ‘Stupid White men’ (will we see a book called Stupid Black Women, perhaps? Or how about ‘Those dumb yellow folks’? What do you think? You think that he’ll only go after targets that won’t hit back?), Michael Moore takes easy shots at targets who are so afraid of poor media publicity they won’t hit back. At no point was there anything resembling a two-sided debate on the rights and wrongs of gun ownership (something I have every time I go to the States), and so by the end of it I felt like I’d been force fed a diet of my own opinions as if they were the only ones that mattered…and that left a nasty taste in my mouth. Instead, the only meaningful interview we had with an advocate of firearm ownership was with a clearly elderly and addled Charlton Heston, who, whilst being a gun-loving fuckwit, obviously no longer has the mental acuity to argue a point. Michael took great pains not to challenge anyone who might be capable of presenting a coherent argument, and so the impression is left that there isn’t a coherent argument to be made.
This is propaganda; well made, but propaganda nevertheless.
All arguments have two sides, and all arguments have intelligent people to present them, like it or not. To have my own beliefs presented in such a one-sided way, blatantly playing to the prejudices of a mainly East-Coast and European audience, actually managed to make me mildly ashamed of my own political viewpoint on the matter – something of an achievement, as those who know me will agree.
Now, bearing in mind that I often personify knee-jerk anti-Americanisn and I firmly believe that firearm ownership in the general population is liable to be a bad idea, why is it then that this film, which mirrors my own views, pissed me off quite so much?
The fact is that I don’t like propaganda of any stripe, and nor do I like Michaels Moores documentary style of holding up to ridicule people who are being generous and friendly towards him.
There’s a scene, early on in the film, where he’s out with the Michigan militia. Now, the Michigan Militia pretty much exemplify all that I think is wrong with the idea of giving the general public guns. However, the people who he was with were friendly, helpful, and gave freely of their time and for no reward. In return, Mike mugged to the camera when they weren’t looking, and generally ridiculed them whilst giving them no opportunity to respond to that ridicule. Is this something I respect? Nope, it isn’t.
Despite his basic premise that perhaps gun ownership is a bad idea, did Mike at any point try to engage these people with his ideas? Did any debate occur?
Of course not. In the same way that he’s happy to be an advocate of equality and then release a book called ‘Stupid White men’ (will we see a book called Stupid Black Women, perhaps? Or how about ‘Those dumb yellow folks’? What do you think? You think that he’ll only go after targets that won’t hit back?), Michael Moore takes easy shots at targets who are so afraid of poor media publicity they won’t hit back. At no point was there anything resembling a two-sided debate on the rights and wrongs of gun ownership (something I have every time I go to the States), and so by the end of it I felt like I’d been force fed a diet of my own opinions as if they were the only ones that mattered…and that left a nasty taste in my mouth. Instead, the only meaningful interview we had with an advocate of firearm ownership was with a clearly elderly and addled Charlton Heston, who, whilst being a gun-loving fuckwit, obviously no longer has the mental acuity to argue a point. Michael took great pains not to challenge anyone who might be capable of presenting a coherent argument, and so the impression is left that there isn’t a coherent argument to be made.
This is propaganda; well made, but propaganda nevertheless.
All arguments have two sides, and all arguments have intelligent people to present them, like it or not. To have my own beliefs presented in such a one-sided way, blatantly playing to the prejudices of a mainly East-Coast and European audience, actually managed to make me mildly ashamed of my own political viewpoint on the matter – something of an achievement, as those who know me will agree.
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BTW
Date: 2002-12-08 04:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-12-09 12:29 am (UTC)*watches the spasm of horror in daves journal as he realises he holds a similar belief to an american liberal*
Egad! ;)