So I'm flipping channels and come across Bowling for Columbine on one of the many Showtime channels and decide to watch it for a while. I picked up right where Moore launches into this cute little cartoon which basically states all white people hate all black people and the KKK and the NRA are the same thing (which of course are two fallacious statements - but it's all in a cartoon, so who really cares?). But anyways, I have seen Bowling twice - once in theaters and then once on the screener disc sent to me during awards season (documentary...sure). But while watching it again, this time with extra (founded) skepticism, I'm just curious as to what exactly Moore is against. Is it guns? Is it the media bias towards outrageous stories (murder, etc.)?
I gave up watching after he had some random "expert" come on and state that in one of his studies, he found that while murders declined 20%, coverage of murders rose 600% on the local news. Now...is this over a one month period? A year? What city is this in? How many local channels did he cover? And how does this relate to the other person he had just interviewed who basically said that the African American community is always blamed for things they didn't do (case in point: drowning of two kids in Midwest, murder in New York, etc.)? In the scant 15 minutes I watched the movie, it went from equating the KKK to the NRA (the KKK was apparently declared a terrorist organization the same year the NRA was founded Moore states (though this is blatantly wrong) and though it is never directly stated, the cartoon looks to equate the NRA to being the KKK since it was outlawed), then the movie jumped to the "white man" being afraid of the "black man" and then jumps to how the media and "whitey" always blame the black man for the wrongs of society and then it tries to say that, while there are crimes committed by African Americans, it's not as bad as the media makes it out to be (interview with District Attorney of Flint, Michigan and some author who wrote a book about the media playing on the fears of the public). But the genius of this movie is how Moore can insinuate different things without expressly saying them. He doesn't flat out say that the NRA was founded by people from the KKK, but he insinuates the point. He doesn't flat out say that the media is biased against African Americans, but he digs up some author to make the point for him in a roundabout way. He doesn't expressly say a lot of stuff, and therefore, if he's challenged about anything, he is able to deny it.
Just one last parting word - I can't remember the exact article I read it in, but Moore was defending one part of his latest movie in a Chicago newspaper article and when questioned on a key point he left out, he states that it was in the movie. He shows a couple frames of the movie where the camera pans over a newspaper article, wherein the point was made, however, any person, watching the movie at regular speed would never be able to read the article. So, he claims that his facts are checked, double checked, and then triple checked and he doesn't ignore any one side of the story, but when the other side of the story only occupies a few frames of the film and is in a newspaper article that is quickly panned over, he loses all credibility (if he had any already).
I gave up watching after he had some random "expert" come on and state that in one of his studies, he found that while murders declined 20%, coverage of murders rose 600% on the local news. Now...is this over a one month period? A year? What city is this in? How many local channels did he cover? And how does this relate to the other person he had just interviewed who basically said that the African American community is always blamed for things they didn't do (case in point: drowning of two kids in Midwest, murder in New York, etc.)? In the scant 15 minutes I watched the movie, it went from equating the KKK to the NRA (the KKK was apparently declared a terrorist organization the same year the NRA was founded Moore states (though this is blatantly wrong) and though it is never directly stated, the cartoon looks to equate the NRA to being the KKK since it was outlawed), then the movie jumped to the "white man" being afraid of the "black man" and then jumps to how the media and "whitey" always blame the black man for the wrongs of society and then it tries to say that, while there are crimes committed by African Americans, it's not as bad as the media makes it out to be (interview with District Attorney of Flint, Michigan and some author who wrote a book about the media playing on the fears of the public). But the genius of this movie is how Moore can insinuate different things without expressly saying them. He doesn't flat out say that the NRA was founded by people from the KKK, but he insinuates the point. He doesn't flat out say that the media is biased against African Americans, but he digs up some author to make the point for him in a roundabout way. He doesn't expressly say a lot of stuff, and therefore, if he's challenged about anything, he is able to deny it.
Just one last parting word - I can't remember the exact article I read it in, but Moore was defending one part of his latest movie in a Chicago newspaper article and when questioned on a key point he left out, he states that it was in the movie. He shows a couple frames of the movie where the camera pans over a newspaper article, wherein the point was made, however, any person, watching the movie at regular speed would never be able to read the article. So, he claims that his facts are checked, double checked, and then triple checked and he doesn't ignore any one side of the story, but when the other side of the story only occupies a few frames of the film and is in a newspaper article that is quickly panned over, he loses all credibility (if he had any already).
posted by Blake | 21:10
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