# What will Michael Moore's legacy be ? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 9, 2004, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-michael-moores-legacy-be/273870 "2004-11-09T18:21:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-michael-moores-legacy-be/273870/21 "2004-11-09T20:16:58Z")
> [@kingpengvin](#): > > Those who whine about how biased his films are are out to lunch as to what a documantary is. It is the film makers take on a real life topic… Not according to Merriam-Webster: \*2 entries found for documentary. To select an entry, click on it. documentary[1,adjective]documentary[2,noun] Main Entry: 1doc·u·men·ta·ry Pronunciation: "dä-ky&-'men-t&-rE, -'men-trE Function: adjective 1 : being or consisting of documents : contained or certified in writing \ 2 : of, relating to, or employing documentation in literature or art; broadly : \*_FACTUAL, OBJECTIVE \*\* \_ (Bolding theirs) Nowhere does it say anything about a documentary being the film maker’s “take” on the subject; quite the opposite, in fact. > **[Definition of DOCUMENTARY](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/documentary)** > > being or consisting of documents : contained or certified in writing; of, relating to, or employing documentation in literature or art; broadly : factual, objective… See the full definition ---
**Author:** ![Gamaliel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b487fb/32.png) [@Gamaliel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gamaliel)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-michael-moores-legacy-be/273870/22 "2004-11-09T20:20:15Z")
Merriam-Webster is of course the final world in the area of motion pictures. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-michael-moores-legacy-be/273870/23 "2004-11-09T20:23:22Z")
Well, I could be wrong here, but isn’t a _dictionary_ supposed to be the final word on the definition of a word…especially when the purported meaning is the exact opposite? :rolleyes: …your own self. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![kingpengvin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9dc877/32.png) [@kingpengvin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingpengvin)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-michael-moores-legacy-be/273870/24 "2004-11-09T20:28:08Z")
> [@Starving Artist](#): > > Not according to Merriam-Webster: > > [snip] > > Nowhere does it say anything about a documentary being the film maker’s “take” on the subject; quite the opposite, in fact. > > [http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=documentary](http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=documentary) Uh huh… point me to a unbiased documenatry that has not been influenced by the film maker’s own biases. Sorry but it don’t exist. Maybe if it is a piece of un cut footage of an area that has no camera movement or change of focus I’ll accept that, but as soon as a person cuts a film together they insert their own bias as to what stays and what goes. A Camera man selects what he focus on and what to point the camera at. If I see a documentary on the holocaust I don’t expect to see the Nazis portrayed in an unbiased light. I don’t expect to hear their side of the story in any way that is positive unless it was done by Nazis or whacko sympathizers (see there is my bias). Every documentary film is made up of moments cut together to form a story. These stories are created by those cutting the film. Those people have their own biases. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-michael-moores-legacy-be/273870/25 "2004-11-09T20:30:52Z")
> [@kingpengvin](#): > > Maybe if it is a piece of un cut footage of an area that has no camera movement or change of focus I’ll accept that, but as soon as a person cuts a film together they insert their own bias as to what stays and what goes. A Camera man selects what he focus on and what to point the camera at. Even in the case of uncut footage from a camera that has just been propped up and left running, someone had to choose where to put the camera. So there’s still some personal opinion or bias involved! ---
**Author:** ![Malodorous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47774/32.png) [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-michael-moores-legacy-be/273870/26 "2004-11-09T20:38:36Z")
> [@Starving Artist](#): > > But noooo…he’s just an average everyday schmuck who deserves no more credibility in the question of what’s wrong with the country or the course it should follow than your next door neighbor. I agree he doesn’t come across well in personal interviews and such. But then, unlike Rush, that isn’t what he’s famous for. He’s famous for his films (well, not so much _Canadian Bacon_), and in my opinion that’s what will be talked about in the future. Also, if nothing else, he will go down as the first 18 year old to hold public office, as he ran and one a local election shortly after the under 21 year old folks were enfranchised. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-michael-moores-legacy-be/273870/27 "2004-11-09T20:48:52Z")
> [@kingpengvin](#): > > Uh huh… point me to a unbiased documenatry that has not been influenced by the film maker’s own biases. Sorry but it don’t exist. The point is you claimed a documentary was supposed to be the film maker’s take on the subject and that anyone who didn’t know this was “out to lunch” about the real purpose of a documentary. This is not so. Most people have a concept of the documentary as a factual report on the subject at hand and this concept is backed up by the dictionary. That you choose to assign a different meaning to it in no way indicates that the error is on the part of those who think of documentaries as the dictionary defines them. And besides, in a documentary about Hitler and/or Nazi Germany, one could be (and usually is) factual and objective. That is all that is necessary in order to show the evil that happened. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a documentary about Nazi Germany in which facts and statistics were twisted and/or distorted in order to support the film maker’s bias. In the case of the Nazis, it wasn’t necessary; in the case of Moore’s view of America it was. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-michael-moores-legacy-be/273870/28 "2004-11-09T21:02:17Z")
> [@Malodorous](#): > > I agree he doesn’t come across well in personal interviews and such. But then, unlike Rush, that isn’t what he’s famous for. He’s famous for his films (well, not so much _Canadian Bacon_), and in my opinion that’s what will be talked about in the future. > > Also, if nothing else, he will go down as the first 18 year old to hold public office, as he ran and one a local election shortly after the under 21 year old folks were enfranchised. Yes, he has alway been pretty much a trouble-maker, even in high school. 😃 But still, if it were possible to put Moore and Limbaugh into some sort of mental boxing ring, I imagine Limbaugh would run circles around him. (Can you say “mixed metaphor,” SA? Yeah, I thought that you could…) ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-michael-moores-legacy-be/273870/29 "2004-11-09T21:11:36Z")
Roger and Me: Brilliant, still among the greatest movies of the decade. Canadian Bacon: Sloppy and poorly acted, and the script reads like a first draft. Bowling for Columbine: Pretty good. Fahrenheit 9/11: Believe it or not, I still haven’t seen it. Downsize This: Very well written and hard-hitting Stupid White Men: Pretty stupid, I didn’t even finish it. More recent books: haven’t read them. TV Shows: Hilarious, and will be remembered to some extent for a long time for their influences on other political humorists. Moore will not be a household name in 2030, any more than long-vanished pundits from previous generations are right now. But he will be remembered among film historians and followers as the leader of a Renaissance is documentary filmmaking. Documentaries have been a sideshow, known to most people only for five minutes at the Oscars, precisely because filmmakers have been afraid to tackle the controversial topics in controversial ways. Moore has shown how to do it, now others are following in his footsteps. Like it or not, Moore’s material appeals to many who don’t share his views. If conservatives were smart, they would stop devoting such an astonishing amount of energy to trashing him, and would instead start looking for talented filmmakers who lean towards their side. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-michael-moores-legacy-be/273870/30 "2004-11-09T21:19:41Z")
IMHO the end of the so called ‘convential media’ as being objective, but I think Dan Rather will be the poster child for this, MM a side note. ---
**Author:** ![Gamaliel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b487fb/32.png) [@Gamaliel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gamaliel)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-michael-moores-legacy-be/273870/31 "2004-11-09T21:21:50Z")
> [@Starving Artist](#): > > Well, I could be wrong here, but isn’t a _dictionary_ supposed to be the final word on the definition of a word…especially when the purported meaning is the exact opposite? Call me crazy, but when I want to know whether or not a particular film is or isn’t a documentary, I would take the word of, say, experts on that actual subject rather than the dictionary. Any argument that relies on looking a word up in the dictionary and declaring that’s the final word (no pun intended) on the subject is a fallacious appeal to authority and frankly smacks of desperation. These definition debates are quite silly. On another message board I used to frequent, one poster (a Holocaust denier) tried to “prove” he wasn’t anti-semetic by repeating over and over again that the Jews weren’t semetic because of some dictionary definition of semetic. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-michael-moores-legacy-be/273870/32 "2004-11-09T21:35:59Z")
**Gamaliel** , I think you are misunderstanding the purpose of my post. The point isn’t whether or not when film makers or authorities in the field use the term “documentary,” they are attributing the correct definition to it. My point is that it’s fallacious to haughtily declare that anyone who thinks that documentaries should be factual and objective are “out to lunch.” Most people, like it or not, are not experts in the field of film making. Just like you and me and everyone else, they think of words in their commonly used contexts and as dictionaries define them. So in other words, what I’m saying is that **kingpengvin** should get down off his high horse. ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-michael-moores-legacy-be/273870/33 "2004-11-09T21:48:33Z")
> [@ITR champion](#): > > Moore will not be a household name in 2030, any more than long-vanished pundits from previous generations are right now. But he will be remembered among film historians and followers as the leader of a Renaissance is documentary filmmaking. Documentaries have been a sideshow, known to most people only for five minutes at the Oscars, precisely because filmmakers have been afraid to tackle the controversial topics in controversial ways. Moore has shown how to do it, now others are following in his footsteps. Like it or not, Moore’s material appeals to many who don’t share his views. If conservatives were smart, they would stop devoting such an astonishing amount of energy to trashing him, and would instead start looking for talented filmmakers who lean towards their side. That pretty much nailed it IMO. Great post. When the vitriol and hatred is in the past some of his work will be looked at and studied others parts of h is back catalogue will be just viewed by people for enjoyment. As for all the people in this thread calling him a liar you still post in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=261449&page=1&pp=50) 341 posts and still waiting for something other that BS. ---
**Author:** ![Malodorous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47774/32.png) [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-michael-moores-legacy-be/273870/34 "2004-11-09T21:50:40Z")
Also, there are currently at least three threads involving MM on the front pages of the various forums, fairly impressive considering that F. 9/11 came out some time ago and he really didn’t have that much disernable effect on the elections. I didn’t see any threads involving Limbaugh or O’Reilly (despite the recent awful falafel scandal) and only one thread about Ann Coulter. So perhaps MM is more relavant, at least to Dopers, then one would think. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-michael-moores-legacy-be/273870/35 "2004-11-09T22:04:28Z")
> [@Malodorous](#): > > Also, there are currently at least three threads involving MM on the front pages of the various forums, fairly impressive considering that F. 9/11 came out some time ago and he really didn’t have that much disernable effect on the elections. I didn’t see any threads involving Limbaugh or O’Reilly (despite the recent awful falafel scandal) and only one thread about Ann Coulter. So perhaps MM is more relavant, **at least to Dopers** , then one would think. Key words bolded and underlined. 😃 To briefly expand, these are the same dopers who overwhelmingly voted for Kerry in the informal polls…and who had my guy, Badnarik, running neck and neck with GW for the second spot. Telling, ehe? -XT ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-michael-moores-legacy-be/273870/36 "2004-11-10T00:56:29Z")
Vindicated. (And I’m interested to see any of the usual Moore-bashers take on his newest book, _Will They Ever Trust Us Again?_) ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-michael-moores-legacy-be/273870/37 "2004-11-10T01:10:58Z")
Ahhh… **rjung**! Already compiling your list of people to bash for criticizing the book without having read it, aren’t you? How very clever and devious of you. 😉 :: whispers :: Oops. Sorry. I hope I haven’t blown your nefarious little plan…I better not say anything else. :: tiptoes quietly out of room :: ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-michael-moores-legacy-be/273870/38 "2004-11-10T02:14:27Z")
I also thoroughly enjoyed his movie **The Big One** , which never seems to get mentioned at all. Honestly, I don’t understand how people can put Moore in even the same category of hate of people like Ann Coulter and Michael Savage. I’ve seen most of Moore’s movies and read at least one of his books. I think he’s a bit pompous, and not the most intellectually rigorous of people, but if there’s one thing that overwhelmingly shines through all of his work it’s a genuine love of the US. And many people see precisely the opposite. It just baffles me. ---
**Author:** ![buns3000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c89c15/32.png) [@buns3000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buns3000)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-michael-moores-legacy-be/273870/39 "2004-11-10T02:28:23Z")
> [@Starving Artist](#): > > The point is you claimed a documentary was supposed to be the film maker’s take on the subject and that anyone who didn’t know this was “out to lunch” about the real purpose of a documentary. > > This is not so. > > Most people have a concept of the documentary as a factual report on the subject at hand and this concept is backed up by the dictionary. That you choose to assign a different meaning to it in no way indicates that the error is on the part of those who think of documentaries as the dictionary defines them. > > And besides, in a documentary about Hitler and/or Nazi Germany, one could be (and usually is) factual and objective. That is all that is necessary in order to show the evil that happened. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a documentary about Nazi Germany in which facts and statistics were twisted and/or distorted in order to support the film maker’s bias. In the case of the Nazis, it wasn’t necessary; in the case of Moore’s view of America it was. Your last sentence makes a lot more sense if it finishes with the words “to me” or “IMHO” or something like that. I think its all relative. Your impression of Bush might be very different if you weren’t American - say, if you were an Iraqi. As an American, your perspective is that the Iraq war was overall a good thing. The average Iraqi making a “documentary” about the war is likely not to come to the same conclusion. You cannot document facts in film without a perspective of some kind, even if you consider yourself unbiased (and I’m certainly not saying Moore is) - what to include or leave out, what is relevant or not relevant. Those have to be subjective calls to some extent. There’s what you might say is open bias in the case of Moore and then there’s more surreptitious bias in the case of, say, Fox or CNN or whatever. The latter would no doubt claim to be both factual and objective, but I daresay not resemble reporting of the Iraq war that some of our friends in the ME might be receiving… IMHO, of course. There’s always the spin, dude. Nobody has a monopoly on objectivity. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-michael-moores-legacy-be/273870/40 "2004-11-10T02:36:36Z")
> [@Starving Artist](#): > > Yes, he has alway been pretty much a trouble-maker, even in high school. 😃 > > But still, if it were possible to put Moore and Limbaugh into some sort of mental boxing ring, I imagine Limbaugh would run circles around him. > > (Can you say “mixed metaphor,” SA? Yeah, I thought that you could…) I personally think that if you put them together, they’d annilate each other, like matter and anti-matter colliding. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-michael-moores-legacy-be/273870.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-michael-moores-legacy-be/273870.md?page=3)