Electrolicious

12 Responses to “Critique”

1. tlc
   April 3rd, 2003 at 1:25 pm

   

   You bring up a very good point, one that I’ve been thinking about myself a lot lately.

2. Ryan
   April 3rd, 2003 at 1:27 pm

   

   I saw this a few days ago, having just watched Bowling for the first time less than a week before. It was a good balance to have the two so close together. Moore makes some good points, but I have to agree with the general premise of the article. I’ve already had to pull this out a couple times to show some zealots that I know that the only information you can really trust these days is first-hand, and even then….

3. Panda
   April 3rd, 2003 at 1:39 pm

   

   Well as a Canadian I can tell you first hand that you can most certainly buy bullets in Canada without an ID (especially if you`re a celebrity). Bowling for Columbine certainly had it`s fair share of inaccuracies or manipulative scenes, and I recognized them immediately as would anyone who frequents the theater and knows that movies, especially documentaries, are entertainment, not news and are made with the intention to emotionally affect you first and foremost. When the linked page criticizes a movie for attempting to emotionally manipulate it`s audience, my BS-meter starts ringing. When said page calls the movie hypocritical for doing this because it attacks the NEWS which is supposed to be factual information (not entertainment) for doing the same thing? Well my BS-meter rings right off the charts. And none of the criticisms talked about in the linked article actually address the points brought up in the movie. Infact they go far away from addressing any of the points of the movie (so far as attacking what certain critics thought about the movie, as if that`s an issue?) and try to act as if nit-picking what scenes were shot where, debunks the entire movie`s point. It does not. That in and of itself is as much a manipulation as what they are accusing of Moore. If not more so. I think this article is being myopic at best, deliberately obfuscating the issues at worst. I didn`t really like Bowling for Columbine as a movie, it was a little heavy-handed for my tastes. And I believe Mr. Moore has rose-tinted glasses when it comes to Canada (infact in Ontario we`ve had tragedies with horribly right-wing governments cutting our environmental policies which lead to mass ecoli breaks outs and the deaths of children in a small town called Walkerton. We`re hardly the paradise on earth, Moore tries to portray in the movie). But if a microscope was turned to everything from Fox News to CNN to even government administrations with the same scrutiny that has been applied here, they all would fall apart equally. Infact they often do. The question is: Is Michael Moore wrong for trying to emotionally manipulate his audience in an medium dedicated to entertainment? And if so, how much more wrong is the News and the Government for doing the same? And perhaps more importantly why aren`t there more webpages dedicated to dissecting all of these inaccuracies? Instead of just Bowling for Columbine`s? Is it because Bowling for Columbine presented a world-view that the viewer didn`t agree with and the News and Government presents a world view that the viewer DOES agree with? I wonder.

4. Ariel
   April 3rd, 2003 at 1:43 pm

   

   Panda, I totally agree with you that the core tenet of the movie remains untouched and crucially important to me. I just wish Michael Moore wouldn’t fiddle with the truth, as he’s been known to do before.

   I agree that the article I linked only presents another side of the story. That’s why I prefaced the title with A Truth About Bowling For Columbine. It’s just one of many truths. It’s all perspective. But I think that, in our enthusiasm about Moore’s agenda, some of us liberals checked our critical thinking caps at the door.

   That said, I don’t think the author was seeking to shoot down the argument of the movie — gun control is still a complex, frightening American issue. I interpreted the author’s point as that Moore didn’t NEED to stretch it — the truth is frightening enough.

5. Ryan
   April 3rd, 2003 at 6:03 pm

   

   Excellent points, Panda. I live in the same place as you and agree, Ontario is not the paradise it is made out to be.

   I believe that Moore takes advantage of the audience with his presentation. The idea behind the movie is great. I don’t even mind him changing focus - hell, that’s how I usually write. However, he knows that his audience will either accept anything he says or reject it outright, and uses this. That’s how he gets away with changing things, like mixing clips. Taking things out of context like that isn’t fair, and though the world isn’t fair, if he wants respect for his viewpoint, he should act responsibly. Or, really, the audience should learn to think more critically no matter what they’re seeing, as Ariel pointed out.

   Either way, the movie made some good points that needed identifying, and I admit I’m kind of excited to see his next one, and its effect on the elections next year in the US, now that he’s a little more well known.

6. leblanc
   April 4th, 2003 at 9:52 am

   

   i have issues with michael moore because he’s always out there “championing the little guy”, and then afterward goes through the MacDonald’s drive through. he apparently does NOT feel the cows (or other animals) as he does about people, and being a huge cow lover, i just have a hard time looking past that.

   however, just because some of the “facts” weren’t “facts” and the historical and factual path he takes you down in his films might be a bit inaccurate, the final conclusions of his diatribes are often something i agree with - i.e. there are more people killed in the US by handguns than anywhere else in the world. this is a bad thing.

   the argument about whether it’s truly a “documentary” or not, well… i didn’t really think it was either. but it’s not his fault they gave him an award for it.

7. dori
   April 5th, 2003 at 8:59 am

   

   poor Michael - he really *is* under scrutiny these days (for reasons understood, sadly enough).

   he’s been accused of stuff like this since Roger & Me… having spent my early life growing up in the detroit region (flint included) i can back him up on some of THAT, but there are also the same sorts of discrepancies there (it’s definitely true, for instance, that people did truly ‘grow their own food’ for a time, be it rabbits or tomatoes).

   on the bright side - like most people here, i back up his basics and think he’s on point a lot of the time - the scrutiny and discrepancies are making at least SOME of us think - but that’s a small minority compared to the many who take his word as final…

8. alison
   April 5th, 2003 at 12:04 pm

   

   do you guys remember the part in the film where he talks about gun-related deaths in the united states versus those in other countries? that’s the thing that bothered me: when he showed the figures, he used sheer numbers rather than percentages. it made the thousands of gun-related deaths in the u.s. really frightening compared to germany’s less than a hundred. but germany’s population is so much smaller than that of the u.s.! if he’d used percentages like perhaps he should have, the contrast wouldn’t have appeared so high.

9. leblanc
   April 5th, 2003 at 1:06 pm

   

   as a person who grew up in both Northern michigan, i was really scared going to see Bowling that i would see someone i knew in the film. it really is like that there. that i can tell you for sure. ah, the homeland.

10. Ryan
    April 7th, 2003 at 6:00 am

    

    Hmmm. Interesting. While I should’ve been working, alison’s question intrigued me. Here’s what I came up with:

    Germany, 381
    France, 255
    Canada, l65
    England, 68
    Australia, 65
    Japan, 39
    United States 11,127

    (pop.’s taken from http://www.world-gazetteer.com to try and achieve some consistency. It’s hard to get consistent population numbers for comparison!)

    Germany 82M (2003)
    France 58.5M (1999)
    Canada 31M (2001)
    England 49M (2003)
    Australia 20M (2003)
    Japan 127M (2000)
    US 281M (2000)

    And so that you can see everything on a level playing field… (each percentage is in actuality multiplied by 10^-6, but I took them out for clarity. Just make sure you’re aware of that.)

    Germany 4.65%
    France 4.36%
    Canada 5.32%
    England 1.39%
    Australia 3.25%
    Japan 0.307%
    US 39.6%

    I think the percentages make an even bolder statement.

11. alison
    April 7th, 2003 at 5:14 pm

    

    see? that’s what i mean! though the contrast isn’t as high, the impact is still there, especially when you compare the u.s. to japan.

12. Eddie
    August 31st, 2003 at 12:43 am

    

    Soo… what exactly wasnt true? Most of these links arent working.

    I’m from LA and well, the movie seemed pretty accurate to me.