Posted on 12/15/2004 7:44:29 AM PST by reagankid
Dan Carpenter Making more of Michael
December 15, 2004
Of the many raps against Michael Moore, the least supportable has to be hatred of Americans. Yet that canard surfaced again last week in a column by a prominent conservative.
How many of Moore's movies, if any, this expert had seen was not made clear. Many Moore critics proudly declare they've never seen one and never will fatten the fat man's purse by actually finding out for themselves what the talk radio fuss is about.
But they know they speak of the devil, and they crowed in the early hours and days after Nov. 2 that this bulbous Beelzebub, along with his various companion imps that had infested our fighting forces and faith-based families, had been exorcised.
Their icy realization that Moore will get only larger and louder is bringing out the rakes and pitchforks among those to whom his is the bewhiskered face of the Democratic Party.
As echoed in my own reader mail, top-tier conservatives have made a prime post-election target of Moore. Recently, Republican big shots took out a full-page ad in USA Today as a preemptive strike against an Academy Award nomination for "Fahrenheit 9/11." Though the film is the first documentary to be nominated for a People's Choice best-overall award, which is about as mainstream as it gets, a rightwing talk show star warned that an Oscar bid would trigger a "backlash" against Hollywood by middle America.
So where is this middle America, this lunch-pail land of the loyal and the left behind? I suspect Moore's syndicated and televised detractors rarely venture there. I am there by necessity and I deeply appreciate that he is there by choice.
Hate Americans? No one who has open-mindedly watched Moore's three major films would utter such a slur.
In "Fahrenheit 9/11," he took his unblinking camera down to the depths of struggling, screwed-over America, to the seedy strip malls where Marine recruiters trolled for young males without job prospects and to the living room of a family robbed of a son by elective war.
In "Bowling for Columbine," he rode the company bus with a single mom to a crummy night job at a Dick Clark restaurant, then chased down the famous namesake on her behalf.
Grandstanding? Sure. The guy is ham on wry. But who else takes so many of us to the dark places where the spirit of Jacob Riis dwells?
It wasn't even overtly polemical, the Michael Moore scene that's stuck tightest to my memory. It took place in "Roger and Me," his pranksterish take on industrial flight from his native Flint, Mich. A jobless young woman was being evicted, and she was screaming invective at the presiding sheriff as she threw her belongings into garbage bags. She and the sad lawman alike were battling on after the worst defeat a failed economy can inflict: the loss of dignity.
It could have been a Jerry Springer moment -- common people acting ignorant, which we surely can do, as Moore rightly chides us. The difference here was, I didn't want to slap the people; I wanted to slap every General Motors shareholder. That's what Michael Moore does for us, and that is what redeems all the excesses that so bother even some liberals (who actually watch).
He hates exploiters, he hates imperialists, he hates politicians and pundits who wrap their agenda in the flag. But by the evidence of his works, he does not hate Americans. Those who despise him should take a closer look, at his films or in the mirror. Meanwhile, remember: He's loving this.
Carpenter is Star op-ed columnist. Contact him at (317) 444-6172 or via e-mail at dan.carpenter@indystar.com .
Moore is a fellow Michigan native sorry to say. We find his underwear from time to time. We know they are his because the tag says "Flint Tent and Awning".
Lacks the requisite Barf Alert.
This is the type of person they give journalism degrees to?
I'm underwhelmed.
Yeah right...only a narrow-minded moron would consider Moore Pro-America!
I find it difficult to read an article that starts out with what I like to call "the opposite of fact".
Sadly, I've seen all of Moore's stuff, including "Canadian Bacon". It is my considered and informed opinion that he is surpassed in his disdain for "regular", working-class, white Americans only by gary Keillor and Tah-RAY-zuh. He portrays them as ignorant, racist, low-class, violent, xenophobic alcoholic hypocrites, and those are the ones he supposedly likes. You can learn all you need to know about his hatred for America by watching five minutes of any scene with the sherrif and deputy in "Bacon", or the scene in the jail in "Roger". He believes himself to be SOOO much smarter and more sophisticated than us. The writer of this article cannot possibly have missed this.
I believe I heard that terrorist groups were using his film as a recruitment tool. Is that true and if it is has Mr. Moore shown any regret that his film is being used to encourage people to kill Americans?
Not a beating offense. Don't sweat it. :)
After September 11, Michael Moore's first reaction was that the stupid terrorists didn't kill enough Bush voters.
You can claim that's not hatred of Americans if you like. Anyone who thinks I and my family should be randomly slaughtered because Dick Clark is underpaying a waitress isn't going to make my Christmas card list this year.
Hint for Carpenter: General Motors shareholders are Americans too.
...or the Democratic Party as well.
It was widely reported that the 2003 Academy Awards was the least-watched Oscar ceremony since Nielsen Media Research began keeping records in 1974.
Larry Hyams, ABC's chief "excuse" researcher said:
"It was such a special instance, it's hard to speculate what it was beyond the war coverage." He noted that "viewer-ship has been sharply up for cable news networks covering the war full time".
Could it be the lack of viewer-ship had everything to do with the disdain many Americans feel toward the Left Coast Hollywood Wing Nuts who called the them ignorant and uninformed in their stance on the war effort, that our President is a liar, that they would make an exodus from this country should Bush be reelected and studios have especially become inherently incapable of producing quality films worthy of any true Oscar recognition?
They just don't get it! The In Crowd has become the Out Crowd to millions of Americans.
Earlier Oscar lows came in 1987, when 37.2 million people watched "Platoon" win best picture, and 37.8 million in 1986, when "Out of Africa" won. Oscar's record was the 55.2 million viewers in 1998, when "Titanic" won.
I predict also with the snubbing of Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ", the numbers may even fall [as in fall off a cliff] to an all time low.
The irony of Michael Moore is that he is "THE UGLY AMERICAN" and doesn't even seem to know it.
I don't understand why THE PASSION getting an Academy Award is so damn important. It was a good movie. It wasn't the best movie this year. It just wasn't. I don't think Mel made this movie to get an Academy Award. And, in a way, I'd rather it not get sullied in with the rest of the stuff that night. It's like in a special class by itself. It's commercial success was unprecedented. Why isn't that enough?
The Oscars has now become an event for Hollywood's left to pat each other on the back and polarize their hate for America...I'm sure you remember the vile slob's speech last year.
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