Is it right for conservative groups to try and block the showing of Moore's film?

Great Debates
41

IIRC, it was removed very, very early in the fuss.

So, in short, you were responding to a point I did not make. Own stock in a straw company perchance?

I didn’t say Allred considered Mr. Gibson anti-semetic (though I suspect she does). I said she was backing the groups who were pressuring companies not to distribute the film, and that I doubted she would do the same for opponents of F9/11.

Please do try to keep up.

Ahem. (Or do you mean total output? Understandably a little slower post-1978, but hardly “none to speak of.”)

Well, in response to my assertion that “Gloria Allred supported efforts to prevent distribution of PotC,” you said “she’s probably right that Gibson’s an anti-semite.”

As noted above, that isn’t really a reply to what I actually stated. But being the generous guy I am, I tried to meld those into a coherent point, namely that it’s OK to seek to prevent the distribution of films whose directors you find personally distasteful. I felt compelled to do so, because otherwise your point would be totally nonresponsive to what I had posted. I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt – forgive me, I won’t look for coherency from you in the future.

Thus it was relevant. I even prefaced the question about Polanski with a clarifying question: “Unless, of course, you belive it proper to try to prevent the distribution of films made by people who are distasteful for things unrelated to the content of their films.” Why you’re confused by the point is a mystery.

42

Heh, I encourage those conservative groups to “bring it on”. They don’t have a chance in hell of preventing the distribution of this movie.

You just can’t influence theater owners the same way as TV networks. They don’t have advertisers who will pull out at the first sign of controversy. They make their money from selling soda and popcorn, and they know that for every person who’s passionate enough to write a letter about Fahrenheit 9/11, there’s someone on the other side who’s passionate enough to bring his whole family and buy soda and popcorn for all of them.

43

No it isn’t his goal, or no, the goal isn’t noble?

If the former, you’re simply wrong; that is exactly Gibson’s explanation for the extreme amount of gore in the film, and his stated reason for making it. I’ve yet to hear anyone credibly suggest otherwise; yes, the film’s done well financially, but it certainly wasn’t expected to when it was made.

If the latter…well, as The Dude would say, “that’s just, like, your opinion, man.” Which is OK, because this is GD, but you do need to provide a bit of analysis to support that opinion.

44

I mean it is not a noble goal, because there is nothing noble about Christianity. As for “Christ’s sacrifice,” arguably it was an act of great moral significance – but no spiritual significance whatsover.

45

:rolleyes:

I’m amazed that reasonable critics of certain incarnations of Islam are tarred as religous bigots, but people who say this kind of thing are allowed to slide.

Well, certainly most of Christianity’s adherents – the target market for this film – would disagree, seeing how the crucifixion and subsequent resurrection sort of form the whole basis for their religion.

But even if it isn’t “spiritually significant,” that isn’t actually what I wrote. I wrote that the goal was to get audiences to “confront the enormity of Christ’s sacrifice and, in doing so, to have them rethink their spiritual lives.”

So I wonder: do you think that filmmakers who challenge the viewer to rethink their relationship to God are pursuing an ignoble goal?

46

Piffle, Dewey. Mouse cheese.

You’ve used this trick on me before. First you make a broad statement and then, when challenged, narrow your point to vanishing.

Not the least bit confused, buckaroo. I do indeed regard it as improper to seek to prevent the distribution of films, or media of any kind if the person seeking such use authority to advance thier ends. I think it is improper for anyone to seek to silence another opinion, but there are gradations in that just as there are in any other form of political behavior. I write a letter trying to prevent you from showing the film, thatsa no good. Siccing the law on you would be a whole nother level.

Related to that there is, indeed, a question of content. In the case of The Passion, the trouble centers around a concern for anti-Semitism, and the worry that something of this sort might provoke violence. (A charge I regard as probably overblown, but thats beside). I very much doubt if anyone is desperately worried that F 9/11 is likely to produce physical harrassment of Bushiviks. After all, its only politics.

So…when you make such a direct comparison, you’re about half right, it is illegitimate to seek to prevent speech. But there is a big, big difference between seeking to prevent speech because you actually fear the consequences, than because you disagree with the speech. You are comparing apples and orangutans.

If you need this broken down into smaller, more digestible bits, do not hesitate to impose further upon my patience. I am a generous man by nature, and only too happy to help you along towards the light.

47

Well…it isn’t truly grass roots…

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/moveamericaforward.html

48

I am a religious bigot, Dewey, and proud to say so. I feel exactly the same way about Judaism and Islam. There is no value to any religion that honors the evil name of the Lord God of Israel.

Western (and Middle Eastern) civilization has been on the wrong spiritual path ever since the day Father Abraham chose his God over his son. Yes, Isaac was spared at the end, but that’s not the point of the story. The point is that God demanded that sacrifice of Abraham, and Abraham was willing to give it, and we are supposed to believe that that sums up the proper relationship between man and God. Sometimes this story as notated as, “God tests Abraham.” Yes, and Abraham did not pass that test, he failed it. And that’s one of the nicer stories in the Old Testament.

And don’t get me started on the New Testament, with the doctrine of Hell! Lots of Christians say, “I believe in the Bible so I believe in Hell; but because I believe in God’s mercy, I am sure Hell is empty.” That’s a cheat. If Christianity means anything it means following the teachings of Jesus, and the red letters of the gospels leave no doubt that Jesus believe that there is a Hell and that damned human souls are suffering there, forever, amen. If you take Hell out of Christianity, what you’ve got left, whatever value it may have, is not Christianity.

And that way of thinking is embedded in all the Yahvist religions. They all have their good points, indeed they have – Jewish ethics, Christian lovingkindness, Islamic righteousness – but it makes no difference. In spiritual terms, all of them are fundamentally corrupt at the core and cannot be redeemed. A plague on all their houses! :mad:

I am not an absolute atheist. I do not rule out the possibility that there might be a true God in the universe. But, if there is, I cannot believe he is the Bible’s God or has anything in common with the Bible’s God. El Shaddai/Yahweh/Allah is an abomination. The sooner this world is cleansed of his name, the better off we shall be.

Now I’ve hijacked this thread to Hell and back. Sorry, but this is a hot button with me. Do I think filmmakers who challenge their viewers to rethink their relations with God are pursuing an ignoble goal? Yes, I do – nothing wrong with “rethinking” your spiritual life, we should do that as often as we can, but if it has anything to do with honoring Yahweh, then it is about as noble as trying to rehabilitate Naziism.

49

Dewey - “Acting as (an anti-defamation group) for our purposes” boils down to “your purposes”. The individuals you refer to who protested outside the Fox offices apparently did not represent an association or organized group of any kind.

Favor us with something specific to back up your recollection of these “ambitious” goals. I’d also love to know what sort of “clout” you think a New York State Assemblyman and assorted other obscure personages have against a national film distribution outfit.

Why bring up Mel Gibson’s movie in the first place? I gather that you still harbor resentments over the fact that some people found it objectionable and voiced their opinions about it* - but by doing so, it sounds like you’re invoking the “MA! He did it too!!!” argument, which comes off sounding childish.

I apparently missed the postings from anyone in this thread which backed attempts to keep POtC (love that abbreviation) from being shown, but which furiously denounce any movement to keep Moore’s movie off the screen. But you can keep right on pummeling that strawman if you like.

*You seem to have the impression that there was some vast movement to “suppress distribution” of the Gibson film, when in reality the negative reaction was largely confined to expressions of concern and appeals (or “pressure”, if you like) for its director to tone down some of its aspects that were seen as encouraging anti-Semitism.

50

Am I the only one who has serious concerns about the morality of boycotts? I think there’s real danger in the rights of minorities being trampled. If a large enough cohesive group of citizens got together and threatened, and followed up with, total boycotts of any corporation that, say, ever published gay-themed literature, they could probably decimate the entire market segment.

I realize that boycotts are legal, and I have no problem with boycotts against products or consumer items of various sorts. But boycotts against information (in the form of books, movies, or what have you) threaten the free exchange of ideas, which is the lifeblood of any open society, particularly a democracy.

I’m an agnostic liberal, but I didn’t support any boycotting of TPOTC, and I feel the same way about both F911 and the Michael Moore Hates America movie, if anyone ever gets around to making it.

51

So much for the canard that the Jews control the media!

52

The way I see it is you have a right to protest the film. I have absolutely no questions regarding the legality of protests. The problem occurs when you enter the realm of censorship and when your rights supercede mine. It would be wrong and legally impossible to force someone to see this film. So if it is shown in theatres, those who think Michael Moore is a [Insert suitable choice quote from a Pit thread] don’t have to see it. However, if those who don’t want to see it, or disagree with Moore, get it yanked from the screen then I cannot see it. So their right to protest a film begins to interfere with my right to see it.

Exactly. Instead of trying to prevent people from seeing the movie, they should voice their own opinion in whatever forms they wish.

That is, indeed, where the waters get murky, I think. MaxTheVool and rjung hit the nail right on the head. Boycotts are fine when they promote desegregation, get shoddy products off the market, etc. But when you threaten the flow of information, I believe a line has been crossed. Even if I don’t have a right to see Michael Moore’s film (which is a dubious case at best, semantics aside), Michael Moore absolutely has a right to make and distribute it.

The question you have to ask yourself is where the will of a majority takes precedence over the rights of a minority.

spooje, I realized that Showtime did show the Reagan flick. I don’t get Showtime, I get CBS. I know I’m not the only person who doesn’t get Showtime, so they limited the release of it, which still prevented some people from seeing it.

That is one of the funniest sentences I’ve read this week!

53

Minor nitpick:

The 9-person jury had one person each from France, Hong Kong, Belgium, the UK and Finland. And four Americans.

http://suntimes.com/output/answ-man/sho-sunday-ebert13.html (Scroll down a bit to see the letter in question)

54

A google search for the terms "bowling for columbine"and inaccuracies turns up over 1600 websites. One that wasn’t by the NRA or Michael Medved was this one.

His statistics for handgun violence internationally were demonstrably false (or at least seriously out of date). A quote he attributed to Charlton Heston in Denver a few days after the Columbine massacre was actually from a speech in North Carolina over a year later. Two separate ads about Willie Horton from the '88 election were combined and altered and presented as a single ad. The incident from which the movie’s title takes its name (Klebold and Harris took in a quick bowling match before school that day) may never have happened.

55

One thing I don’t think anyone on this thread has mentioned yet: Jewish anti-defamation groups tried to block the release of The Passion of the Christ because they feared it would provoke an upsurge in antisemitism and anti-Jewish hate crimes. But that didn’t happen – did it? The film was broadly released, and I don’t recall any reports of incidents of Jew-bashing in cities where it was shown.

Maybe the message of TPOTC was not quite as antisemitic as opponents made it out to be – or maybe we’re crediting movies with more social influence than they’ve actually got.

56

Thought I said something very much like that. Must not have succeeded.

I agree that the threat of anti-Semitism in America is most likely exaggerated. Paranoid? Yes, to a certain degree, but people who have real enemies, especially enemies who despise them simply for who they are, have a bit of leeway in that regard.

It is a bad thing to seek to suppress expression. Period. But it distinctly more understandable, and forgiveable, when the motivation is fear and dread, and distinctly less understandable when the motivation is antipathy to the political views being expressed. That’s a whole nother kettle of piranha.

Indeed, I have read the opinions of men who claim great insight into Constitutional matters (“brick reductionists” or “slick deductionists”, something like that…) who claim that the First Amendment protects only political speech, hence the Gov is empowered to suppress speech that is distasteful so long as it is not directly political.

57

Again - CITE?

I challenged Dewey to back this claim up, and all he could point to was a single protest demonstration by a small group of disorganized unknowns and the announced intention by a Brooklyn Assemblyman to write letters.

Shoot, the next time I hear Rush and his dittoheads making some moronic statements on the radio, can I quote them here as “Conservative organizations/Republicans say…”?

58

And a search for “Bush+miserable failure” turned up about 50,700 sites.

That site makes an issue out of Moore’s citing statistics without citing the rates.
Hardy seems to be willing to accept Moore’s figure of 381 gun homicides in Germany for 1998. He also puts the population of Germany at 81 million. So the per capita rate for gun murders in Germany is one per 212,598. The US had a population of 271,645,214 in 1998. So we divide the population by the 9,257 gun homicides in the US in 1998 (according to his FBI cite) and we get one gun homicide per 29,344 people. A little over 7 times as many, per capita, as in Germany.

I picked Germany because I know that Germany gun control laws are very…aggressive.

This is all beside the point, as Bowling for Columbine was released quite some time ago.

59

A quick Googling is about all I’m willing to commit to this endeavor, especially since I know how this gets played out: I provide a cite for one group; you say “that’s just one group, provide more;” I provide another cite, and you repeat, and we do this over and over again, but no matter how often the circle repeats you find some basis for rejection. I suspect nothing short of the ADL will do. Forgive me if I don’t crawl up on that treadmill.

I’ve cited evidence: that news item, plus my own personal recollection of what was on the TV and radio at the time. Granted, since I’m in the protest-friendly NYC media market I probably heard more of it than other parts of the country. But I’ve provided my cites and I think they’re more than adequate. If you disagree, well, we’ll just have to disagree on that.

60

That’s the result of a “google bomb”. A bunch of anti Bush web sites manipulated the ranksings by altering their own web sites.

Cite

Back to the OP, follow the money. TPOC made a ton of money, so it’s run was long. If Moore’s film has people lining up like TPOC, it will get it’s time on the screen.