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5/27/03:

?Despite the title, the film is not about bashing Michael Moore,? said Producer Carr Hagerman, ?but Moore is a good starting point for showing people why America is great. He has the liberty to trash his own country, and we have the liberty to show people how he is wrong. The film debunks many of Moore?s claims through interviews with people who contradict what he?s saying by their own experiences and life stories.?

This isn't unlike the group of media developers and venture capitalists trying to create a liberal alternative to Fox News (which, I'd presume started as a conservative reaction to a perceived liberal bias in the more established media). While a media source that appeals to conservative values like authority (moral and otherwise) would be naturally expressed to punditry and appeals to "common sense," it seems that using the same means for a more/ less opposed worldview would be contradictory.

Likewise, to think that Moore's work is meant to reveal some sort of obscured truth, or is mistaken for truth, or can be trumped by some sort of other more common truth found through the same means is to completely misunderstand his films. Moore's intentions are to show inner obfuscations are usually ignored when we are being transparently presented the "facts" of an issue. Moore accomplishes this by having the production of his films be the subject of his films - we become aware of the agendas that exist behind the production of meaning and develop a greater (and healthier) skepticism behind the more transparent agendas that exist within issues.

The ability to make this reflexivity work compellingly is in fact a major accomplishment in the history of documentary, making the mistaken counter-raker's proposed climax of asking Moore to return his Oscar only the beginning of Michael Moore Hates America's anticipated flaws. That and the fact that McDonald's and Wal-Mart ads, patriotic television shows, and the endless celebrations of military heroism would probably be a far more interesting way of "showing people why America is great" if one were so inclined toward that sort of thing.

posted by jeremy @ 7:59 PM