Moore: Smarmy Champion of the Feeble-Minded
With all the scattering of ashes at sea and weddings to perform, my husband's weekends have been harried. So my weekends have been exactly like my weekdays--that is to say, daily laundry, the routine of caring for a two year old and fixing food for people to eat.
Last night, then, I went to a movie. Just me. I love to go to movies alone. And not just because I hate sharing my popcorn. No. I like the solitude in the midst of a crowd, the vast stretches of time in which to think. If you are with someone, small talk intrudes and your thoughts are disrupted. I like to sit, to eavesdrop, to daydream, to ponder.
I hated to do it, but I saw "Fahrenheit 9/11", the Michael Moore satire-disguised-as-documentary. I arrived early at the theater and sat smack in the middle, screen at perfect eye-level. For a long time, there were only a few of us in the theater--a couple behind me and over a bit and some others behind my back.
I thought, "Wow, well, I guess the theater will be empty," and then it gradually filled until I became a Republican island in the middle of a fiercely Democratic ocean. The seats on either side of me were empty. Other than that, I was surrounded and hoped that I wouldn't accidentally get Tourette's Syndrome and shout out "That's a load of crap!" at one of Michael Moore's ludicrous, yet solemnly-intoned statements (like the one about how Iraq had never killed any American prior to the most recent war). More than once, I wanted to protest, "But that's just not true!" but I preferred not to be lynched on a rare Saturday night out, so I kept quiet.
The crowd around me, however, laughed uproariously at things that were not funny. They thought facial expressions of people who were waiting off-camera for the cameras to begin rolling were hilarious. Ha ha ha. Boy, it's so funny to see someone waiting to go "on-air." Let's make fun of how people look. How mature and fun-loving we are!
What I did not find the least bit funny was the fact that Michael Moore showed no footage from the 9/11 terrorist attack--no mangled bodies, no people burned to a crisp, no bloodied faces--yet he lingered over gruesome footage of dead Iraqi babies and severely injured Iraqi children. Uh, hello? The terrorists purposely attacked and killed Americans. These poor dead and injured children were not purposely attacked. Our soldiers did not intentionally main or kill any innocent civilians. Furthermore, how about showing a little footage of Saddam Hussein's cronies hacking off the hands of people who dared disagree with him or his dictates? Oh, no, wait, that would actually be full disclosure of truth. Can't have that!
I found Michael Moore to be a smarmy man with an agenda and I wondered if those in the movie theater around me were so feeble-minded that they would swallow whole whatever irrational story he fed them. And please, would someone explain to him that parents do not enlist their children in the army as if they are signing up their children for summer-camp? Furthermore, those who enlist in the army are not children. They are men and women, capable, rational, thinking people who join of their own free will.
Just saying something does not make it true. Michael Moore surely must realize that, but I don't think the giggling, critical crowd in the movie theater last night understands that fact.
So, here's what I thought when I sat in the theater last night:
1) I am outnumbered.
2) These people obviously have not read what Christopher Hitchens has to say on the matter.
3) Our country is in serious trouble if people think this is funny.
4) I am smarter than everyone here.
5) Is this movie almost over? This is so boring. I probably should have seen Spiderman, even though I hate action films.
6) Michael Moore is an idiot and perhaps he'd like to spend a little time living under a despot like Saddam Hussein and get back to us. Now, that's a documentary I'd like to see.
Last night, then, I went to a movie. Just me. I love to go to movies alone. And not just because I hate sharing my popcorn. No. I like the solitude in the midst of a crowd, the vast stretches of time in which to think. If you are with someone, small talk intrudes and your thoughts are disrupted. I like to sit, to eavesdrop, to daydream, to ponder.
I hated to do it, but I saw "Fahrenheit 9/11", the Michael Moore satire-disguised-as-documentary. I arrived early at the theater and sat smack in the middle, screen at perfect eye-level. For a long time, there were only a few of us in the theater--a couple behind me and over a bit and some others behind my back.
I thought, "Wow, well, I guess the theater will be empty," and then it gradually filled until I became a Republican island in the middle of a fiercely Democratic ocean. The seats on either side of me were empty. Other than that, I was surrounded and hoped that I wouldn't accidentally get Tourette's Syndrome and shout out "That's a load of crap!" at one of Michael Moore's ludicrous, yet solemnly-intoned statements (like the one about how Iraq had never killed any American prior to the most recent war). More than once, I wanted to protest, "But that's just not true!" but I preferred not to be lynched on a rare Saturday night out, so I kept quiet.
The crowd around me, however, laughed uproariously at things that were not funny. They thought facial expressions of people who were waiting off-camera for the cameras to begin rolling were hilarious. Ha ha ha. Boy, it's so funny to see someone waiting to go "on-air." Let's make fun of how people look. How mature and fun-loving we are!
What I did not find the least bit funny was the fact that Michael Moore showed no footage from the 9/11 terrorist attack--no mangled bodies, no people burned to a crisp, no bloodied faces--yet he lingered over gruesome footage of dead Iraqi babies and severely injured Iraqi children. Uh, hello? The terrorists purposely attacked and killed Americans. These poor dead and injured children were not purposely attacked. Our soldiers did not intentionally main or kill any innocent civilians. Furthermore, how about showing a little footage of Saddam Hussein's cronies hacking off the hands of people who dared disagree with him or his dictates? Oh, no, wait, that would actually be full disclosure of truth. Can't have that!
I found Michael Moore to be a smarmy man with an agenda and I wondered if those in the movie theater around me were so feeble-minded that they would swallow whole whatever irrational story he fed them. And please, would someone explain to him that parents do not enlist their children in the army as if they are signing up their children for summer-camp? Furthermore, those who enlist in the army are not children. They are men and women, capable, rational, thinking people who join of their own free will.
Just saying something does not make it true. Michael Moore surely must realize that, but I don't think the giggling, critical crowd in the movie theater last night understands that fact.
So, here's what I thought when I sat in the theater last night:
1) I am outnumbered.
2) These people obviously have not read what Christopher Hitchens has to say on the matter.
3) Our country is in serious trouble if people think this is funny.
4) I am smarter than everyone here.
5) Is this movie almost over? This is so boring. I probably should have seen Spiderman, even though I hate action films.
6) Michael Moore is an idiot and perhaps he'd like to spend a little time living under a despot like Saddam Hussein and get back to us. Now, that's a documentary I'd like to see.
posted by Melodee at Sunday, July 04, 2004
3 Comments:
I'm so glad that someone else who feels as I do broke down and went to see this movie. I also saw "Bowling for Columbine" as I am an educator and felt I should see what he had to say about kids and guns in schools; and accordingly feel that parents need to take more responsibility as to what their kids have access to and not rely solely on the government. What I thought would be truly ironic, Melodee, is at the end when he posted how many people had been killed in the terrorists attacks would be to also show how many babies were killed last year due to abortion. Wouldn't that be an interesting comparison? How can the same people who say they are anti-war, because it kills innocent individuals, support prochoice, as is often the case? Anyway, I appreciate your post and now don't feel so bad that I paid money to see it. This is Aimee at commtcher@aol.com. I didn't mean for it to be anonymous.
I probably would have been SCREAMING at the screen! I have wanted to see that movie, too but my husband is like "don't give him any money by buying a ticket!!!" So maybe I can wait until someone I know buys it and I can borrow it. But, I know it'll just make me mad! :)
Cindy
Thankfully there are very few responses to your narrow-minded and bigoted perspective to Michael Moore's documentary Fahrenheit 9/11. It gives me hope that I am not alone and you represent the minority. It is outrageous that people can actually be this ignorant after all that has been revealed to support the so-called "satire" exposed by Michael Moore.
Shame on you for condemning him for having the respect to not show the charred and mangled remains of the victims of 9/11 for the millionth time. Shame on you for not having the common sense to be disgusted by your own government who inflicted that gruesome death on children in Iraq for their own financial gain. Shame on you for not being able to recognize when you have been duped by a greedy presidency. And shame on you for being so intolerant and insulting to those of us who can only laugh in the face of a president who does not even posses a basic grasp of the English language. Did it ever occur to you that the giggles and laughter you heard where based in sheer humiliation because "that" is our president with the vacant gaze???
The reason the theater was not empty and you were a "Republican Island" is because the rest of us seek the truth that our government seems unable to provide. And from the sounds of your post, you are clearly not smarter than everyone you shared that theater with...just more myopic!!!!!
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