# Michael Moore- more than just a pretty face **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 23, 2003, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-more-than-just-a-pretty-face/197228 "2003-08-23T22:21:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2003, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-more-than-just-a-pretty-face/197228/1 "2003-08-23T22:21:32Z")
I just watched the DVD of [Bowling for Columbine](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00008DDVV/qid=1061677123/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-6004273-9407913?v=glance&s=dvd) , the first time I’ve had a chance to see the movie, and I was pleasantly surprised. I was a huge fan of [Roger and Me](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00009YXAS/qid=1061677299/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-6004273-9407913?v=glance&s=dvd) but have become irritated with Moore in later years for his constant publicity stunts, increasingly evident egomania, hypocrisy, and most of all for the flat-out inaccuracies in his books that make him little more than a leftist Rush Limbaugh. I also thought his stunt at the Oscars was a high-point in classlessness, so I was expecting the movie to be a provocative leftist screed. (I’m a “moderate liberal”, btw, but I can’t stand grandstanding and faulty reasoning from either side of the spectrum.) I was wrong. I really liked this movie and would recommend it highly to almost anybody. While it definitely has pockets of “aren’t white people evil?” rhetoric and some “connections” that would even make [James Burke](http://www.palmersguide.com/jamesburke/) say “bitch, please…”, overall it’s a well done, entertaining, semi-informative plea for answers rather than just another “conservatives are evil” whinefest (with the exception of the South Park-ish history of America, which while funny was so preachy and simplistically stupid it could have been left out without affecting the film). The extras are avoidable (other than Moore’s response to his Oscar acceptance critics), but the film is a great conversation starter. What’s your opinion of the film or the DVD? (This is for people who’ve actually seen it, preferably.) ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2003, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-more-than-just-a-pretty-face/197228/2 "2003-08-24T03:46:34Z")
I just saw it the first time for myself. It was better than I thought it would be. I’m pretty anti-gun myself, but not vocal about it. I thought this film would be anti-gun too, but it surprised me that it wasn’t. It made me think that maybe getting rid of guns isn’t the answer. However, I know people have spoken out against this film saying it’s not factual, so don’t worry - I won’t change my mind and become pro-gun based on this film. But it did give me something to think about. This film raised some good issues that probably don’t have simple answers. It made it pretty clear that the NRA doesn’t have the answer, anyway. It was also pretty emotional and evocative in parts, and it had a hopeful message in spite of its difficult topics and cynicism. That’s the best part, I think. That attempted interview with Dick Clark was painful, though. Man… It was like one of those horrible Truth ads, which make me want to take up smoking. ---
**Author:** ![Caprese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9a28c/32.png) [@Caprese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caprese)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2003, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-more-than-just-a-pretty-face/197228/3 "2003-08-24T11:15:18Z")
There is a place for ambush journalism, but I thought the Dick Clark thing was a bit much. And the last I heard, K-Mart is still selling bullets. (But I have no cite for this, I really don’t go to K-Mart much, nor do I buy bullets. A friend who hunts says he’s bought bullets here in Colorado.) That said, Bowling For Columbine makes an important statement about the fear here in America. And yes, there are no easy answers. ---
**Author:** ![Skillet38](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8797f3/32.png) [@Skillet38](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skillet38)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2003, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-more-than-just-a-pretty-face/197228/4 "2003-08-24T12:52:16Z")
It’s a fiction posing as a [documentary](http://www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html) ---
**Author:** ![Eternal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecb155/32.png) [@Eternal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eternal)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2003, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-more-than-just-a-pretty-face/197228/5 "2003-08-24T13:15:45Z")
I’m a DOD supercompute posing as a confused young man, but _I’m_ still entertaining. ---
**Author:** ![gex\_gex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/94ad74/32.png) [@gex\_gex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gex_gex)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2003, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-more-than-just-a-pretty-face/197228/6 "2003-08-24T13:23:55Z")
**Skillet38** - whether some aspects of the film were not factually correct or not, it is still a documentary. And your cite is biased and makes an awful lot of points that have nothing to do with Moore’s basic point. It’s a smear by someone with an obvious agenda. It also contains a link right across the top of the page to a site asking for Moore’s Oscar to be revoked - clearly moronic since his film fell within the Academy guidelines of a documentary. Your link doesn’t give itself any credibility in associating itself with [www.revoketheoscar.com](http://www.revoketheoscar.com) so prominently. The Heston speech at NRA has been discussed often on these boards, and I stand by what I always say: Moore didn’t change the meaning of Heston’s words. He edited a speech for brevity. That’s it. Regardless, the film was a documentary under Academy rules, and nothing at that cite debunks Moore’s basic point: America has an unusually high level of violence and perhaps fear is behind it. ---
**Author:** ![Dreaming\_of\_Maria\_Callas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f14d63/32.png) [@Dreaming\_of\_Maria\_Callas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dreaming_of_Maria_Callas)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2003, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-more-than-just-a-pretty-face/197228/7 "2003-08-24T13:50:36Z")
There’s an interesting [defense of Michael Moore and his film](http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/8/12/171427/607) at Kuro5hin. It’s the first large response I’ve seen to the right-wingers’ complaints that it somehow isn’t a “real documentary”. Worth reading. UnuMondo ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2003, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-more-than-just-a-pretty-face/197228/8 "2003-08-24T15:19:34Z")
Right after the Oscars we had some rather heated debates her and in the pit (IIRC), debateing both the merits of the movie and if it was a documentary or not. Most of those who disliked the film claimed that anyone doing a documentary can’t have an agenda and the result shouldn’t be biased. Do a search in the archives here, since I don’t have the energy to re-heat my old arguments made then. Mine were not the best, some pretty good arguments where made by a lot of other people. Basically - it’s a documentary. It doesn’t matter if Moore has an agenda or not. In fact, Moore makes it easier for us, since his agenda is so out in the open. And I agree with other posters observation in this thread - Moore asks some pretty good questions. That’s a start. ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2003, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-more-than-just-a-pretty-face/197228/9 "2003-08-24T16:10:38Z")
On the other side of the dvd is more information on him & his oscar speech, etc. I didn’t watch them as I took it back to the store. ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2003, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-more-than-just-a-pretty-face/197228/10 "2003-08-24T16:42:25Z")
**Skillet38** , it may have been posing as a documentary, but it wasn’t posing as Facts for a Compelling Argument. It was simply presented as Food for Thought. For instance, did he ever say, “A higher percentage of Canadian doors are locked than doors in the USA”, or did he just open a few doors in one town in Canada and think, “Maybe there’s something to this.” The one important fact that he used was this: the USA leads the world in deaths caused by guns. Although I do think that he should have used per capita annual figures instead of raw figures, I don’t think that this fact is in dispute. ---
**Author:** ![Doomtrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/0ea827/32.png) [@Doomtrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doomtrain)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2003, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-more-than-just-a-pretty-face/197228/11 "2003-08-24T17:10:27Z")
I thought of it more as food for thought than him making a case about anything, really. It came across as him searching for answers, not “Here’s the answer, let me give it to you.” It’s still one of the best films I’ve ever seen. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2003, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-more-than-just-a-pretty-face/197228/12 "2003-08-24T18:23:04Z")
I liked it, although many of the criticisms aimed against it are quite valid. Like you, I found the suggestion that there is a causal relationship between the United States’ “fear-based” society and its high murder rate to be amusing, but misguided if intended seriously. In a recent GQ thread about the standard of free expression in Canada, I learned that [uttering threats against ordinary citizens is not in-and-of-itself a crime in the United States](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=3771151#post3771151), like it is in Canada. So it seems that, while we can get the police on the scene when someone says “I’m going to shoot you in the face,” you’re out of luck down there until they actually _try it_. It seems to me that the differences in our homicide statistics could more reasonably be attributed to this situation rather than white America’s hysterical terror of those cullud folks. Of course, it would be more reasonable still to acknowledge that it all comes down to a multiplicity of cultural and sociological differences, rather than any one obvious thing. I _like_ Michael Moore, and I think he generally stirs up sh.t about all the right things. I think that his signal-to-noise (or truth-to-absurdity) ratio is much better than his equivalents on the right, like Mr. Limbaugh-- but of course its difficult to say how much of that comes down to having a good deal of affinity with his ideology. ---
**Author:** ![Optihut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/edb3f5/32.png) [@Optihut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Optihut)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2003, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-more-than-just-a-pretty-face/197228/13 "2003-08-25T00:51:07Z")
Well, I liked the movie up to the point with the interview with Charlton Heston. Persisting to pester an old man with the image of a dead 6 year old girl, even after having been politely asked to leave, was just annoying and classless. ---
**Author:** ![Maci](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@Maci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maci)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2003, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-more-than-just-a-pretty-face/197228/14 "2003-08-25T04:25:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Optihut \* > \*\*Well, I liked the movie up to the point with the interview with Charlton Heston. Persisting to pester an old man with the image of a dead 6 year old girl, even after having been politely asked to leave, was just annoying and classless. \*\* If I had just seen the Charlton Heston footage alone, I would have agreed with you, but having seen the footage of Heston at the NRA meeting in Denver just after Columbine as well as the footage of him in Flint after the shooting of the six-year-old girl, I felt like the self-righteous bastard deserved it. ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2003, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-more-than-just-a-pretty-face/197228/15 "2003-08-25T06:10:39Z")
> [@](#): > > It’s a smear by someone with an obvious agenda. Yes, the movie surely is. ---
**Author:** ![musicguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ba0ec/32.png) [@musicguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/musicguy)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2003, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-more-than-just-a-pretty-face/197228/16 "2003-08-25T06:19:50Z")
I just rented the DVD and really enjoyed it. I especially found his recollection of the Oscar speech, and the aftermath of it, quite interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troy_mcclure_sf/32/4150_2.png) [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troy_McClure_SF)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2003, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-more-than-just-a-pretty-face/197228/17 "2003-08-25T06:41:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Maci \* > \*\*If I had just seen the Charlton Heston footage alone, I would have agreed with you, but having seen the footage of Heston at the NRA meeting in Denver just after Columbine as well as the footage of him in Flint after the shooting of the six-year-old girl, I felt like the self-righteous bastard deserved it. \*\* You really should read **Skillet38** ’s [link](http://www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html). > [@](#): > > Heston’s “cold dead hands” speech, which leads off Moore’s depiction of the Denver meeting, was not given at Denver after Columbine. It was given a year later in Charlotte, North Carolina… > _[cites provided on the linked page_] Even before I found out that me made up half the film, I didn’t like it. I though it was very manipulative. The sad stroll down Heston’s driveway, placing the picture of the little girl at the roadside… give me a f’ing break. Thanks for thinking for me for two hours, I love being spoken down to. ---
**Author:** ![Homer\_J.Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a698b9/32.png) [@Homer\_J.Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homer_J.Simpson)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2003, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-more-than-just-a-pretty-face/197228/18 "2003-08-25T08:26:28Z")
> [@](#): > > Heston’s “cold dead hands” speech, which leads off Moore’s depiction of the Denver meeting, was not given at Denver after Columbine. It was given a year later in Charlotte, North Carolina… When I saw the film I thought it was pretty clear this was not part of the Columbine and that it was wasn’t intended to appear to be. ---
**Author:** ![Homer\_J.Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a698b9/32.png) [@Homer\_J.Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homer_J.Simpson)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2003, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-more-than-just-a-pretty-face/197228/19 "2003-08-25T08:27:32Z")
Columbine _speech_ ---
**Author:** ![gex\_gex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/94ad74/32.png) [@gex\_gex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gex_gex)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2003, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-more-than-just-a-pretty-face/197228/20 "2003-08-25T12:54:09Z")
> [@](#): > > When I saw the film I thought it was pretty clear this was not part of the Columbine and that it was wasn’t intended to appear to be. Me too. A lot of Skillet’s link simply displays poor cognition on the part of the critic/right wing nut. > [@](#): > > _originally posted by SPOOFE_ > > > [@](#): > > > > It’s a smear by someone with an obvious agenda. > > Yes, the movie surely is. Moore’s movie was in no way a “smear,” and though he had an agenda, he made his obvious. The critique of his film purports to be the bastion of truth but is instead only interested in its own agenda. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-more-than-just-a-pretty-face/197228.md?page=2)