The documentary that I have chosen to discuss is Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. In this documentary, Michael Moore explores the issue of gun violence in America, highlighting the massacre at Columbine High School at the hands of Dillon Kleibold and Eric Harris.
His central thesis is not that the high rates of gun violence in America are tied to gun ownership per say (despite the studies referenced by Wikipedia suggesting otherwise*), but rather a fear culture precipitated by the media (and his ever-critical analysis of the government). To support the idea the gun violence is not related to gun ownership, he travels to Canada where if I recall there was a higher relative percentage of gun ownership, but people feel comfortable unlocking their doors.
The intended audience of this documentary (borderline feature film - though I agree with his sentiment), is a mostly liberal minded, educated, middle-upper class.
Moore uses numerous filming techniques in Columbine (and most other of his documentaries). He makes random interview appearance with related key figures (e.g., KMart execs, Charlton Heston for the NRA), combined with video montages of shocking images, text, sounds, voice-over narration, and numbers...lots of numbers that look like data.
My primary criticism of Moore's films are that they are meant to shock, and he conveniently ignores research that disputes his theories (such as the suggestion that there is not a correlation between gun ownership and gun violence).
I think the point Moore is making in Columbine about our violent culture (e.g., mass media, Internet, entertainment), is believable because it helps shape the context, the discourses that we live in. Because critical discourse is such a difficult subject to explain to people as a rationale for school gun violence, Moore makes the mistake of his caricaturing and manipulating scenarios to try to bend to fit his need. I know it's not as entertaining, but this is where Moore loses credibility and authenticity.
I mean really, did he need to torpedo Moses (I mean Heston) to suggest the right-leaning NRA is responsible for creating this culture of fear, and according to Moore's thesis, gun violence?
I'm not sure, but it certainly was a provocative film nonetheless.
*Mentioned as a critique of Moore's documentarian bias, not necessarily as a proponent one way or another as I did not read the original source material and critique the study.
On Kevin Kelly
17 years ago
