I watched FahrenHypre, good expose of Moore with liberals and conservatives alike nailing him.
You are a better man than I. I watched most of Roger and Me when it was on PBS and I watched Bowling for Columbine when a friend lent me the DVD and that is it as far as Michael and me are concerned.
WARNING! LONG POST AHEAD!
One of the last classes I took in college was a useless liberal- arts course that I was required to take. The instructor was a flaming leftist who at one point actually asked the class how many of us have had sex (I was the only one who didn't raise my hand, I'm saving myself for marriage). Anyway, on the first day of class, upon looking over the syllabus, I noticed that for one of the days of class, we would be watching 'Roger and Me' and discussing it afterwards (Another movie we had to watch for one of the sessions was 'Supersize Me'). I asked if I could be allowed to skip that day of class, on the grounds of my opposition to Michael Moore. The teacher responded by smiling smugly and saying "Well, then, you should come to that session so you could give your own thoughts on it."
He would soon eat those words.
In preparation for that day of class, I purchased and read a copy of the book 'Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man' by David T. Hardy and Jason Clarke (The title is a parody of Moore's book 'Stupid White Men' and Al Franken's book 'Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot, and also shows kind of the book's thesis, regarding Moore's hypocrisy; He claims to be an "Everyman," but he is really an epitome of the "Stupid White Men" he portrays as evil incarnate in his works). For those who haven't read it, it's a magnificent book, the most thorough expose of Moore I've ever seen. It looks at all of Moore's books and films up to 'Fahrenheit 9/11' (It was released shortly before that film premiered, but examined several of the points that the authors knew Moore would talk about in the film), with a chapter dedicated to each of them, and spotlights all of the extremely dishonest and unethical tactics Moore used in each of them.
I particularly focused on studying the chapter dedicated to 'Roger and Me.' It revealed how that entire film was jam- packed with lies and distortions of the truth from Moore (i.e. All of the ill- fated publicity stunts that Moore claims the Chamber of Commerce did to try and revive Flint's economy after the GM layoffs such as the short- lived "Auto World" theme park and Ronald Reagan's visit to the pizza parlor actually happened at least a year BEFORE the GM layoffs). It also revealed how many good, decent people were slandered and betrayed by Moore during the film's production for the sake of his own self- promotion. For instance, in the Great Gatsby Ball scene, the seemingly callous rich guy Moore interviewed was in fact a Democrat attorney who was very well- known for his pro bono activism work on behalf of Flint's poor.In other words, he was the sort of person that the film should have portrayed in a POSITIVE light if Moore actually gave a damn about helping the people of Flint, which of course he didn't. He also happened to have been an old friend of Moore's, until he saw the finished film and realized that Moore stabbed him in the back just to get a good sound byte.
Finally, the day of that class came. I sat through the film, wincing at Moore's shrill, nasal voice and the blatant lies he pushed. When the film ended, and the time came for in- class discussion, I launched into a full rebuke of the film. I pointed out all the different ways Moore lied and twisted the facts, and all the good people Moore screwed over to boost his own already- bloated ego. When I was done, the teacher looked stunned for a bit, then changed the subject for the remaining few minutes of class time. I later asked a few of the other students in the class if any of them felt I crossed the line with what I did, and none of them said hey had any issues with what I said or how I said it.
