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Post by Ellielator on Mar 24, 2007 10:43:33 GMT -5
Admin: Let's exercise a little good taste here, thanks! I don't get it. What did I do? Well... I was at the time. Do you know something I don't? |
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Post by DocD83 on Mar 24, 2007 14:23:14 GMT -5
It's been a while since I've seen it and I'm too lazy to look up the viewing I wrote at the time, but the lasting impression I have of it is a lot of shaky arguments from a guy who couldn't stay on topic, filled with meaningless (or, at least, less than complete) statistics, disingenuous editing, insults, and an incredibly racist animated segment.
Let me put it this way--unless I'm rewatching it for research, I'd sooner rewatch the Doom Generation.
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Post by Head Mutant on Mar 24, 2007 18:45:02 GMT -5
I was talking to/modifying Darth's post, not yours Ellie.
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drew
Boomstick Coordinator
Killing is my business, and business is good...
Posts: 150
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Post by drew on Mar 24, 2007 20:25:05 GMT -5
I keep reading the subject of this thread as "I Watch Movies", which feels rather vague.
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Post by DarthShady on Mar 25, 2007 20:22:33 GMT -5
Heh. Sorry about that, someitimes my mind wanders to places it shouldn't be....
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Post by Ellielator on Mar 29, 2007 3:45:03 GMT -5
It's been a while since I've seen it and I'm too lazy to look up the viewing I wrote at the time, but the lasting impression I have of it is a lot of shaky arguments from a guy who couldn't stay on topic, filled with meaningless (or, at least, less than complete) statistics, disingenuous editing, insults, and an incredibly racist animated segment. Really? Because I would have felt that's the reaction most people would have had to Fahrenheit 9/11. Not Bowling for Columbine. "Shaky arguments" - I don't think so. The film was very powerful, so 'shaky' is the last word I'd use to describe the way the film dealt with it's arguments. "couldn't stay on topic" - He did. The film was about a lot of different things. What did you think it was about? It's not just about gun control. It's about our culture of violence, the media, moral outrage groups, teenagers being misunderstood, and gun control all at the same time. And everything tied in to the theme of the movie. Actually, the theme of the movie was "America is screwed up." I think maybe you might have misinterpreted that. The statistics didn't have to be complete, really. The movie isn't trying to solve problems. It's about 1- raising awareness, or at least interest in what it feels is a serious problem, since most people's natural reaction is apathy, and 2- to appeal to the misunderstood teen in the viewer. I'm serious. As a teenager, let's use for example- me, I was very against herd-like behavior in the people around me. You know, that's a very teen thing. To be against conformity. So when for instance, it's trying to paint a portrait of the average gun owner / user, which at one point we see quite a few of, we see that they act without thinking their logic through. The film portrays their behavior as conformity. Now, I don't necessarily think that all gun owners / users are mindless sheep. But the film sure makes them look that way. And some might think it's wrong, but it's still effective. As far as the editing... I don't remember paying too close attention to that. I remember the film showing a lot of sequences of topics. Canada, cops, work programs, the Columbine footage, the media's reaction, Charleton Heston, Marilyn Manson / Matt Stone, etc. As chunks. In fact, I feel as though perhaps all editing of all programs in entertainment is disingenuous. And 'the incredibly racist segment' ... You know why it's in the film. I would assume you remember the point of it being there. And the point it was trying to make. It's kind of obvious that... that was the point. Unless... you're trying to say it is racist against White People. But, I don't know too many people who aren't racist against white people. I mean... we did kind of largely consider ourselves a Master Race at one point in time. To go further, some have wisely said that "Everyone is Racist." I believe that. |
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Post by DocD83 on Mar 31, 2007 11:14:01 GMT -5
Several of the problems I have with the film stem from the fact that it was made as, and marketed as, a dispassionate, investigative documentary. If you're just filming your opinions, then you can have some leeway--here you don't.
"Powerful" is not the same as "not shaky." It's that distinction propagandists exploit, and make no mistake, Moore is a propagandist, not a documentarian. In my notes I noticed the phrase "conspiracy theorist" appear several times with regards to Moore, along with a couple references to such flimsy connections such as that kids become killers if their parents work for a rocket factory, that Harris and Klebold were influenced in their decisions by specific incidents in international politics, and that the NRA is a branch of the KKK by the simple reasoning that both the KKK and the NRA use guns.
The premise of the film is stated early on, when it asks if we're a country of gun nuts, or just nuts--not to mention the film title, which references one of the most infamous gun crimes in (then) recent history. The premise is gun control. These tangents he goes off on are therefore off topic.
They do have to be complete if you're making a documentary, whether you're trying to solve anything or not. If you're making a propaganda film, then they don't.
And I don't think Moore wasn't trying to solve things with this film. The suggestion to ban guns (and the military, you could argue) is a quite clear undertone through the whole movie.
There's a difference betwen raising awareness of a serious issue and raising awareness of an invented issue. If you're using statistics to drive your arguments, manipulating or editing those statistics creates a falsehood. The solutions derived for it would probably be wrong as well, at best wasting everyone's time.
Oh that is eminently clear. But it is not a topic one can stay on or go off.
Aha! Got you. That, right there, is my principle gripe about Moore. Just because you see one nut job, or two, or ten, or a thousand, out of a pool of the millions of gun owners Moore COULD HAVE interviewed, doesn't prove anything. When trying to describe trends only aggregate data can stand on its own two feet to any extent, and even then there's often plenty to bicker over. Would you trust me if I said I took Al Gore's global temperature data, picked out 20 points from the (at least 20,000 point) data set, and proved incontrovertibly an alarming global cooling trend?
This is why I bother to type this out. If Moore was just another crackpot (and I came across many in my former hobby of reading conspiracy theories) I could simply ignore him. But he has such a wide audience caught hook line and sinker with dubious claims that purport to be well reasoned that it endagers the quality of intellectual discourse throughout the country. Whether Moore is right or wrong is immaterial compared to that threat.
Here's some statistics I would have liked to have seen Moore include to make his case complete (just off the top of my head):
- Gun deaths per 100,000 population (as crime rates are normally reported) for each country he flashes raw numbers for.
- The US statistics pared down to the crime rates for specific groups (e.g., what is the Japanese-American gun crime rate compared to the Japanese crime rate? Teens worldwide vs American teens? etc.)
- Correlations between changes in violent crime rates and robberies to changes in private registered gun ownership.
- Gun crime rates in cities/regions organized by how restrictive their gun procurement laws are (Washington DC is very restrictive, Virginia is not--how do their crime rates compare?)
- Total numbers of violent injuries and deaths in all the countries Moore listed (per 100,000 population, of course).
Not to sound condescending or anything, but....duh. It is not racist AT ALL towards anyone else (as far as I can see--I'm sure you could find someone to argue it's racist how the black characters were drawn with only four fingers or something).
You could go back 100 years and say the same thing about blacks, Asians, Latinos, etc. Hell, you could go back 50 or 25 in some areas, and even today if you looked hard enough or loosened the definition of "racist" enough, but does that make it right? Should Martin Luther King have simply not bothered because so many people were racist against him?
Should that matter? Did you ever consider yourself part of a master race? Why should you be punished for your forebear's ignorance? Why do you so willingly accept it, and even invite it? I have several rants in my notes pondering whether Americans are just plain masochistic...it seems at least you are.
Incidentally, I noted at least 9 historical inaacuracies in the animated segment.
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sirgallahad2
Boomstick Coordinator
RUN!! Get to de CHOPPA!!!!!
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Post by sirgallahad2 on Apr 19, 2007 10:33:38 GMT -5
I always wanted to watch the "blooper reel" from "The Passion of the Christ. maybe even the alternate ending where jesus doesn't actually die.
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Post by mrhat2nd on Apr 28, 2007 22:23:36 GMT -5
My one watch is Boys From Brazil. It was worth the watch but I'll just end up putting it right next to the Third Man.
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