Well, my Austin activities are interesting. While I'm finally getting some gaming on after close to two weeks in town (Halo's a pretty big thing in the Honors quad), what's more interesting and time consuming is the complete liberal brainwashing I'm getting. The other day, I learned that some friends of mine are big fans of Bowling for Columbine, and I got interested since I had heard so many good things about this movie. "It's not so much a movie about gun control," answered my new friend Robin to my assumption, "as it is about fear." And on the word "fear," everyone who had already seen the movie joined in in unison. "Well, good," I thought to myself, "I'm joining a cult. The Michael Moore cult. A cult welcome in Austin and hated in every other major city in the country." I still agreed to see the movie, assuming I'd get the same sort of wake-up call as everyone else and at least meet my hippie fate with open arms.
Thankfully, it wasn't a wake-up call. It had a lot of what I expected: a very convincing case for gun control backed by some convincing statistics (while Soph finds them one-sided, I find that Moore isn't the first to use such numbers: in fact, Bill Hicks had the exact same argument ten years ago and nobody listened to him while the numbers got worse). What I hadn't expected, though, was Moore's real point (and the source of the whole fear bit): Moore squarely blames the government and mass-media for inspiring a sense of fear in the people. And with Fry's selling gas masks and Washington recommending terrorism insurance, I find it hard to argue. I wouldn't have believed it until the Bush administration myself, but even Clinton followed the same pattern. One scene in the movie points out (but doesn't directly point a finger at a cover-up) that the day of Columbine was the day of the greatest number of bombings in the Kosovo military campaign - which notoriously hit civilian structures day in and day out.
And I realize why people think Moore's such an asshole: he's the single most confrontational man alive, hands down. The film finds Moore chasing down Dick Clark in order to ask him about welfare workers at a Dick Clark's American Bandstand restaurant in Flint, Michigan (which really wasn't necessary, as Moore already made a film on the subject). Next, he's at Charlton Heston's home harassing him about taking the NRA to hold pro-gun rallies in towns fallen victim to school shootings, where Heston simply gets up at one point and leaves. Finally, in the "Hey, ain't that cool" department, he brings the local press to K-Mart headquarters, asks for the CEO two days in a row, and ultimately succeeds in getting the store to stop selling 9mm ammunition - the ammo used in the TEC-9s owned by Harris and Klebold. And yeah, he's an annoying asshole about the things he does. And maybe K-Mart still sells ammo of different casings. But it's ultimately hard to argue that the man's doing bad things for the world we're in.
Now, to respond to Soph's rant on the movie:
-Yeah, Palestinians and Israelis die every day. But the reality of terrorism doesn't force them to stifle their culture - their underground Marilyn Manson wannabes aren't arrested and movies and video games aren't banned just because the terrorists play them. Moore's point isn't that death by violence is a bad thing - that's a fucking given - it's that in this country it causes mass hysteria every single time a tragedy occurs on our soil. You want increased national security to prevent those deaths? Great, but political theorists have *always* said since before the birth of this country that true security doesn't come at the cost of individual freedom.
-I agree entirely with the point that Dick Clark (and the government-subsidized workers at his restaurants) is completely unnecessary. Again, one of his first movies was about a town near Flint (or maybe it was Flint itself), home of the biggest GM plant until GM closed the plant. The movie covers the consequences for the town and for its people, and that complete sequence would have fit there. But harassing Heston is entertaining because he's such a gun nut - and the gun nuts are the reason guns are easy to come by in this country, hence increased chances of killings. So, unless you're a gun nut, go watch the movie. Even if Moore's an asshole, it's comforting to hear Chris Rock propose that bullets should cost $5000 a piece. And if you are a gun nut, well, I'm wondering how in the hell you found this site to begin with.
-Yeah, Palestinians and Israelis die every day. But the reality of terrorism doesn't force them to stifle their culture - their underground Marilyn Manson wannabes aren't arrested and movies and video games aren't banned just because the terrorists play them. Moore's point isn't that death by violence is a bad thing - that's a fucking given - it's that in this country it causes mass hysteria every single time a tragedy occurs on our soil. You want increased national security to prevent those deaths? Great, but political theorists have *always* said since before the birth of this country that true security doesn't come at the cost of individual freedom.
-I agree entirely with the point that Dick Clark (and the government-subsidized workers at his restaurants) is completely unnecessary. Again, one of his first movies was about a town near Flint (or maybe it was Flint itself), home of the biggest GM plant until GM closed the plant. The movie covers the consequences for the town and for its people, and that complete sequence would have fit there. But harassing Heston is entertaining because he's such a gun nut - and the gun nuts are the reason guns are easy to come by in this country, hence increased chances of killings. So, unless you're a gun nut, go watch the movie. Even if Moore's an asshole, it's comforting to hear Chris Rock propose that bullets should cost $5000 a piece. And if you are a gun nut, well, I'm wondering how in the hell you found this site to begin with.