My Dinner With Michael
Ever since I first saw Roger & Me ten years ago, I’ve been a huge fan of Michael Moore. When I was in college, I remember sitting in my dorm room watching TV Nation with my stepbrother, awestruck that something this radical would ever be shown on TV. In the years since, I’ve been the first in line for any of his movies, books, and television programs (not that you actually wait in line to watch TV, but you know what I mean).
In the wake of the success of Stupid White Men and Bowling for Columbine, there has been a flurry of criticism of Moore and his methods. Whether fueled by ideological differences or personal grudges, his work has been picked apart so much that it’s hard to have a conversation about him without using the words “Yeah, but…” Because of this, even his staunchest defenders have been forced to concede that he’s an amusing blowhard who’s sloppy with the facts. In short, he’s our Rush Limbaugh.
This is what I had in mind as I ate dinner with him following the “Bush in 30 Seconds” awards ceremony. When Dan told me that he was going to introduce us to Michael, I expected a Franken-esque brushoff. Within minutes of meeting however, we were already discussing the reasons for his pending endorsement of Wesley Clark. He was not only incredibly down-to-earth, but he was a lot more pragmatic than the raving left-wing nut who the media loves to hate.
A while later, however, he said something that I was convinced was another one of those lies that conservatives love to pin on him (I’m paraphrasing here) :
“Right after I gave the award to the guy who won the contest [Charlie Fisher who created Child's Pay], he pulled me aside and said ‘When I read the letter from the soldier that you posted on your website, I cried for fifteen minutes.’”
“Bullshit”, I thought. “There’s no way somebody was crying for fifteen minutes over some letter”. (You can read the letters here.)
A while later, when we were at the after-party, Tom and I ended up hanging out with Charlie. When I mentioned that we had met Michael Moore, he gushed about how much he loves Michael Moore’s work and said “Have you read the letter on his homepage? After I read it, I cried for twenty minutes.” Wow. It turns out, Michael wasn’t lying after all.
Now if this had happened to one of Michael Moore’s frequent detractors, I’m sure they would have spun it to make him look bad. They’d probably write an article called “Stupid White Man” and make the argument that Moore can’t stop lying (Something like : “Moore said fifteen minutes when Fisher cried for twenty. Can he get anything right?”) For me, however, I feel like I’ve seen first-hand what happens when you give media spin too much credibility (conciously or subconciously).
[And speaking of Michael Moore being unfairly trashed, here's a prime example of what I'm talking about. This Salon interview is one of the most dishonest pieces of journalism I've ever read. After you've read that, check out my letter to the editor that they printed a couple weeks later.]
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I’m glad that you make a comparison to Rush Limbaugh. Moore is entertaining, but his documentaries are almost a disgrace. It’s not that they aren’t fun or interesting, it’s just that Moore’s interest in a greater good allows him to distort truth in order to prove a higher point. The guy’s a rascal, and you’ve gotta love him for that.
Comment by Earnest — January 22, 2004 @ 4:06 pm
for the most part, i was trying to not seem too drunk while at dinner with michael… the last thing i wanted to do was make an ass of myself in front of one of my heroes. but he really is a very nice, down-to-earth, humble guy. i’ve met a few celebrities, many of whom are nowhere near as big as Mr. Moore, and they don’t come close to being as cool as he was to us. anyway…
earnest- i think the idea of Michael’s “distorting the truth” is a very distorted notion.
Comment by tom — January 22, 2004 @ 5:22 pm
I wouldn’t say that Michael Moore distorts truth. All of his facts are supported by sources. The problem is that not everyone agrees on certain things so numbers from different sources come out different.
Moore does have a site set up to tell what his sources are.
Comment by andrew — January 23, 2004 @ 7:25 am
You do have to resist the urge to become starstruck when meeting these people, and continue to be critical when called for. Moore’s work is sloppy at times, and we need to point that out to him. The fact that Liberal points of view are excruciatingly examined far beyond anything the Right says is unfair, but it’s the current state of affairs. We have to live with it. Franken did a much better job with his latest book (fact checking wise) than Moore does, so it IS possible to be funny, factual and progressive at the same time. Moore needs to improve his schtick, because the right will point out his mistakes to the nth degree, but also because we on the left shouldn’t want mistakes in our work anyway. The conservatives love living with their errors, because lies and mistakes usually are the only way to prove their points. We have facts. We need to keep it that way, and not succumb to the urge to lower ourselves to the Right wing’s methods.
Comment by Darth Even-Handed — January 23, 2004 @ 8:03 am
Read “Spike, Mike, Slackers and Dykes,” a great memoir that tracks the rise of the independent scene from the eighties through the nineties. You’ll see that Moore has been controversial since Roger and Me when it was discovered that he altered the actual timeline of events in his movie to imply a cause and effect relationship between GM and some of the Flint residents that didn’t exist. His position is that the larger point is that GM’s closing its Flint plant had a destructive impact on the town, and that was true. Moore engages in similar tactics in Bowling for Columbine.
Moore makes agit-prop, and there’s nothing wrong with that except that attempting to impose a non-existent narrative is unfair for the audience when the audience has an expectation of a relatively factual presentation of facts. In that regard, an awful documentary that Amy likes, “Unprecedented 2000″ about the 2000 election is more fair because though it completely disregards half the facts in the event (even more infuriating since they interviewed Jake Tapper who has a great book on that election), at least they don’t distort the facts that they do present.
Comment by Earnest — January 23, 2004 @ 8:31 am
You simply just have to be intelligent enough to know that no one can be impartial. We’re human, it’s just not possible. Everyone has an agenda of some sort, even if they’re trying not to. If there are people out there that can’t realize the fact that everything is twisted to a certain extent to fit someones point of view, there’s nothing we can do about it. Rush, O’Reily, Coulter, Franken, Moore, etc all will twist the facts to make sure their agenda gets across. The way I look at it is if their fact twisting works to help the situation then I’m ok with it. If it doesn’t then I’m not. I believe Moore’s work had a postive effect by creating dialog about GM layoffs and the cultural effects of gun violence.
Comment by andrew — January 23, 2004 @ 8:49 am
It’s not clear to me how Jeff Stark still has a job at Salon. A few years ago, he wrote an ill-informed slash piece on Bill Bryson; specifically on his latest book (A Walk in the Woods) but passing all sorts of judgements on Bryson’s sense of humor, etc… they published my letter to the editor, and Stark wrote me back a fawning, “your letter sounds so intelligent, I can’t believe you like Bryson.” I’ve since learned to read most of his pieces as set in the middle of the Great Salt Lake…
Comment by jwer — January 23, 2004 @ 9:54 am
certainly an excellent example of the same hatcher job moore bashing was petter jennings last night calling moores accusation of bush’s national guard duties erroneous (“the facts do not support this” blah blah blah).
the facts do not support him remaining at his post. at all. and anything printed about this in a major publication says the same. mabey jennings doesnt read. stew from the negro problem tells this great story about jennings slumming it in silverlake washing the aquanet out of his hair and running around macarthur park on acid shouting “i am the anchorman of love!!!”
anyway, i heard moore on democracy now today, and amy goodman once again used the kid gloves on him. disappointing.
but he did admit to being crass and mabey hurtful in his comments about mumia in dude, where’s my country, which reminded me that he can sometimes admit when he is wrong. so, if wes does get the nomination and does slay the dragon i’m sure when the general proves to everyone hes more of the same and goes back on all his progressive positions at least mike will say, “sorry, i was wrong.”
Comment by josh — January 23, 2004 @ 10:32 am
Thanks, Andrew, for the link to that great Michael Moore rebuttal. It helped me come a long way closer to trusting Michael Moore.
Comment by dAnimal — January 23, 2004 @ 1:12 pm