The Fog of Moore
With this week's UK release of The Yes Men, the current platoon of political documentaries marches proudly on. Funny and occasionally insightful, The Yes Men is also endearingly daft, filled with pranks and visual gags. It's as much Trigger Happy TV as it is Naomi Klein. Indeed, watching two full-grown men in a toilet cubicle struggle into a gold lame bodysuit with an inflatable phallus attachment hardly feels as if we are the forefront of a growing activist movement.
Political documentary making has been one of the left-field film industry success stories of the last couple of years. Taking over $11m at the US Box Office ($6m more than Affleck/J-lo stinker Gigli) Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me was an unexpected commercial hit, while films such as Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, The Corporation, The Control Room and Uncovered: The War in Iraq have all managed to draw respectable audience numbers or strong DVD cult followings.
All of these films share a similarly liberal political outlook that often targets globalisation and George Bush for the brunt of sometimes satirical, occasionally penetrating and frequently manipulative rhetoric. Of course, leading the charge of the activist documentary filmmakers is the irrepressible Michael Moore and his $120m grossing behemoth Fahrenheit 9/11. In a week when the Carlyle Group (one of the key players in Moore's anti-Bush attack) announced record profits, and a few months after Dubya took up his second term in office, we are entitled to ask - "did this film change anything?"
Fahrenheit 9/11 was hailed as the first documentary that might actually influence the outcome of a US election. Critics fell over themselves to heap praise on Moore's rabble-rousing tactics. John Berger stated in the Guardian that we were witnessing something astounding ".not so much as a film - although it is cunning and moving - but as an event." Berger also echoed what Moore himself unashamedly declared, saying that "The film is trying to make a small contribution towards the changing of world history".
At last year's Republican Convention in New York, Michael Moore made an appearance as "Exhibit A" in the "Hall Of Bogeymen". Clearly, Moore had become something more than just a blip on the political radar. That Moore has established himself so high on the Republican's list of irksome meddlers is both a testament to his canny self promotion and to his title as king buffoon and hate figure for the Right.
There are now more websites created to denounce Michael Moore than there are specifically in support of him. Moorewatch.com, Bowlingfortruth.com, Mooreexposed.com and Moorelies.com all seek to debunk what they perceive as the lies and manipulation of the Right's favourite Bogeyman. And the venom doesn't stop there. A slew of anti-Moore documentary filmmakers have decided that the best way to get back at Moore is to use his own medium against him. Farenhype 9/11, Celsius 41.11, Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Murderous Regime of Saddam Hussein, Confronting Iraq, Michael and Me and the cult film Michael Moore Hates America are all direct responses to Moore's work.
This can't just be because they don't happen to share his views. Dr Kelton Rhodes from WorkingPsychology.com - a site dedicated to the scientific study and application of psychological influence and persuasion - thinks that, like a pushy salesman, Moore may turn more people off rather than on to his ideas. "Backlash is a risk when the persuader is too vociferous, overtly manipulative, excessively negative or just too extreme" says Rhodes. This leads to the question of whether Moore's technique is at fault as a method of persuasion. It's certainly very emotive at times, and occasionally very funny. However, even the staunchest pro-Moore supporters tend to concede that he is, at the very least, flagrantly biased.
The famous scene where Bush sits stunned at the news of the 9/11 attacks for several minutes while a class of children sit around him reading "My Pet Goat" is Moore as his most devious. Moore puts words into Bush's mouth, yet the moment is one that should be open to wide variety of interpretations. To Republicans, Bush's behaviour might have been seen as calm and statesmanlike, not panicking the kids, and thinking through his options. To Moore however, Bush was worried about the link between his family and the Saudis. This type of manipulation can easily produce negative results. As Rhodes suggests: "One sided arguments in a two-sided environment call on people to investigate the arguments, to manufacture their own objections to them, and to save public face by letting others know that they themselves were not duped, manipulated or persuaded against their will." In an election where CBS News was exposed as having forged documents about Bush's military record, and the mainstream media was increasingly accused of having a liberal bias and anti-Bush agenda, the chances of a manipulative and slightly condescending film affecting swing voters, let alone Republicans, was slim to none.
Indeed, part of the problem with Fahrenheit 9/11, and political documentaries in general, is that they may only be preaching to the converted. A poll in the LA Times found that 92% of the film's audience favoured Kerry anyway - yet 9% found the film mostly or completely inaccurate. Combine this with an incensed middle-American population who, without even seeing the film, had found a figure that embodied everything they hate about the elitist Left, and it could be argued that Michael Moore actually did more damage to the Kerry campaign than to Bush's.
In an interview with the Contra Costa Times Moore states that: "I always assume that only 10 to 20 percent of people who read my books or see my films will take the facts and hard-core analysis and do something with it. If I can bring the other 80 percent to it through entertainment and comedy, then some of it will trickle through." What it is people are supposed to "do" with the facts is left open, but it does suggest that Moore 's priority is to entertain. Moore also famously issued a warning to anyone slandering his film that he would have the lawyers straight on to them, because every fact in the film is accurate. However, Moore manages to spin a series of half-truths and insinuations with what he omits as much as what he shows. So sly is this technique that Christopher Hitchens calls the film a "sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness."
Ultimately, a nation of 300 million people will not vote in a president based on the success of a movie, no matter now provocative. The religious "moral majority" were mobilised by the Republicans and the terror threat proved too potent a deterrent for voting on an anti-war candidate. Celebrities and Hollywood appeal primarily to the youth vote, but that demographic has never swung an election. The older vote was far more important. So Kerry, with Michael Moore, REM and Bruce Springsteen as his champions, appeared to be disconnected to the "real lives" of "real people" in the Red States and more in tune with the "plastic people" in NY, LA and DC. Of course, there are also as many Red State youth voters too. In the end the percentage of youth voters was the same as in 2000 - 17%. In keeping with the general vote increase, but still not enough to swing an election. Michael Moore's "Slacker Uprising Tour" where he visited universities across the US to stimulate pro-Kerry support, and the toe-curling "Rock The Vote" tour may have had very little effect on the overall results.
However, despite any possible negative impact that Fahrenheit 9/11 may have had on the election, the success of Moore 's film only helps to clear the path for more political documentaries. Philippe Diaz is from the production company Cinema Libre that specialises in political films. "Political documentaries are becoming very, very important," he says "people are .so disenfranchised by what they see on TV in terms of news, they go to theatres to see a movie." The question remains whether in such a competitive and sensationalist market as the movie industry filmmakers will resort to inflammatory methods to make their film stand out above the crowd, rather than offer a balanced and informative approach.
What affect political documentaries have directly on their audience is hard to measure, and even tougher to define. What seems certain though is that any discourse opened up by these films can only help to raise awareness of some of the issues. If at times films such as Fahrenheit 9/11 provoke arguments more about the filmmaker than their topics it's perhaps an unfortunate side effect of being too belligerent and sneaky with an argument. One of the most inspiring scenes in The Yes Men is when the intrepid pranksters try to fool a lecture theatre full of young and switched on students into believing the World Trade Organisation is planning to sell pre-digested burgers to developing countries. The uproar from the humane and intelligent students restores some faith in the future and shows that, no matter what you are presented with, intelligent questioning and engagement is usually the way to see through the lies and get to the truth. Perhaps Michael Moore should take note.
Paul Mallaghan
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