Seven Oaks Magazine.

In an interview last year with Matthew Rothschild of The Progressive, popular left-leaning film critic Roger Ebert explained that, though he agreed with the essence of Michael Moore’s acceptance speech at the Academy Awards, he thought that its delivery was ineffective. As did many at the time, Ebert voiced the opinion that “Best Actor” Adrien Brody “found the right note for that moment. I think you can say almost anything if you find the right way to say it.” The classy, elegant Brody -- who prefaced his gossamer-thin “statement” with a deep and unsolicited kiss for presenter Halle Berry -- was compared favourably by many after the awards show to the hulking and abrasive Moore. Similarly, when the adorable Morgan Spurlock emerged with his blockbuster documentary Super Size Me, many critics felt that they had found a pleasant alternative to Moore, the iconoclastic and popular documentarian whose work had paved the way for directors like Spurlock in the first place. The website efilmCritic.com put it thus: “Morgan Spurlock has Michael Moore’s provocateur mentality, sharp sense of humor and mischievous good nature, without Moore’s obnoxiousness or unsightly slovenliness.”

The warmth with which the vast majority of commentators have embraced the “statements” of the likes of Brody and Spurlock -- while retaining a hostility for Moore hidden behind vague appeals to decorum and ad hominem attacks -- is testament to their total lack of substance. Brody’s tearful plea for a “peaceful and swift resolution” could be read a number of ways, and likely found its wide appeal in this underlying ambiguity. Spurlock’s film – which purportedly deals with the fast food industry and obesity, a plague that follows the gradient of America’s social and racial hierarchies with alarming consistency -- neglected race absolutely and class almost entirely. The picture’s thesis boiled down, in the end, to a suggestion that one not eat so much fast food, and get out and exercise more often. While Moore has been attacked for making himself the star of his own egomaniacal documentaries, Spurlock filmed his every meal, close-ups of his vomit, and interviews with his vegan girlfriend about his slowing libido. In the end, the film mirrored the insubstantial nutritional value of its subject matter; no real food for thought, just radical packaging.

The positive reception for the obviously Moore-inspired Spurlock stands in sharp contrast to the vitriol heaped on Moore himself, which has only sharpened in response to his very excellent Fahrenheit 9/11, more on which later. On the first page of a Google image search of “Michael Moore,” one will see three doctored images of the author and filmmaker: in one he is covered in condiment stains as he two-fists a couple of hot dogs; in another he is posing with his “good friend Saddam”; in another, the cover of his best-selling book Stupid White Men is set up to read “Stupid Fat Cunt.” Sites like MooreWatch.com claim to be “watching Michael Moore’s every move,” while conveniently providing links to sites in support of a commemorative golden dollar for Ronald Reagan, as well as to online stores where one can purchase t-shirts reading “Tolerance is the virtue of a man without convictions” and “ACLU: Enemy of the State,” with a hammer and sickle cleverly substituting for the “C.” Blowing the others out of the water, though, is MichaeMooreHatesAmerica.com, the official site of a documentary by the same name. MMHA is a documentary by Michael Wilson, a young man billing himself as “a rebel who took on Mike,” and who promises to “tell the truth about a great nation.”

All this points to the fact that to try, in Brody or in Spurlock, to find an inoffensive substitute for Michael Moore is to miss the point entirely. Moore is offensive in precisely the ways in which he sets out to be, through a thoroughgoing knowledge of his natural constituency and his natural antagonists. Moore sets off all those whose worldview he rejects -- businessmen, corporate and political leaders, as well as programmatic and puritanical leftists – while simultaneously reaching, in sometimes profound ways, the vast audience of decent (if misled) working class Americans to whose ability to create change his work is testament. In a column I wrote after seeing the inchoate, scattered and confused Bowling for Columbine, I made the case that our excitement, on the Left, at having Moore on the scene was ultimately manifest of our low expectations. After seeing the powerful Fahrenheit 9/11, however -- in whose audience I met old acquaintances from high school whom I had never known to be political; which drew applause from the suburban shopping mall audience; which brought me to tears with its footage from Iraq and America -- I’m willing to take it back.

None of which to say that there are not problems with Moore’s new film. His fast and loose use of the term “Saudi” rides an uncomfortable ambiguity between national and familial designate; sometimes “Saudis” are members of the Saud family, other times they are nationals of the country which bears the family name. As a result, complaints about “Saudi” influence in America is left cloudy and open to chauvinist interpretation. In his fixation on the chilling (and simian) George W. Bush, Moore basically lets important players like Tony Blair totally off the hook. Off-screen, Moore’s decision to withhold footage of prisoner abuse which he had access to before the breaking of the Abu Ghraib story was an indefensible choice which left a sour taste in the mouths of many.

Nevertheless, the basic premises of the film are sound, and delivered with remarkable focus and style: First, the Bush family stole the election. Then, Bush slept at the wheel for his first months in office, wowing at armadillos on the family ranch rather than dealing with important security memos dealing with the threats posed by former allies al-Qaeda, funded by the Saud and bin Laden families, with whom the Bushes have a long-standing and mutually profitable business relationship. Bush then began the “War on Terror,” which did nothing to make Americans more secure but was rather about building a pipeline in Central Asia and cracking down on civil liberties at home. Now, Americans are in Iraq, and working class people from both countries are dying for the profits of the shareholders. Critics, like Vanity Fair’s resident apostate Christopher Hitchens, have unfairly suggested that in his criticism of the War on Terror, More is calling for increased police crackdowns and, retroactively (and in contradiction of the stance he took at the time), for more military might to be brought down on Afghanistan. Moore does nothing of the kind. What he highlights in his examination of the War on Terror is quite simply that it did nothing to make Americans safer, but rather set the pretext for draconian legislation, military maneuvering, and, ultimately, the illegal and devastating invasion of Iraq.

The film is well-made, and at turns laced with Moore’s signature humour, although these segments are short, and sidelined. As Moore gears up for zany gimmicks -- reading the Patriot Act through an ice cream truck speaker, trying to get Congressmen to sign their kids up for the army -- one gets the feeling that his heart isn’t in it. It’s as though the situation is so bad, now, that it’s too hard to laugh -- even at the gallows humour that, in the past, brought Moore into the lobbies of sundry corporate headquarters with novelty cheques commemorating the lay-offs of thousands. Moore reads his audience skilfully; at first, Bush’s callousness and stupidity are played for laughs. By the end of the film, however, the grin seems more cruel plutocrat than hapless hayseed.

That connection to his audience is ultimately the danger that Michael Moore poses -- and why he draws such toxic ad hominem attacks from those on the Right now calling for his film to be banned. Unlike much of the work being done on the Left, Moore’s is presented from within a working class vernacular and moral framework that is instantly recognizable and relatable. Moore doesn’t haughtily condescend to blue collar patriots from depressed communities who urge their sons and daughters into the military; instead, he is patient and understanding -- an understanding carried over into his documentation of their sorrow and crises of conscience after losing a son. Moreover, Moore is respectful of the fact that Americans have a right to demand real protection from the dangers posed by terrorism, rather than coolly and patronizingly dismissing their grief as rudimentary jingoism.

In all, Fahrenheit 9/11 is a remarkable piece of work. It will hit an enormous audience worldwide with its class-based opposition to a bloody and politically costly imperial quagmire, and I have no doubt that it has the potential to play a role in shaping some of the debates surrounding the presidential elections this November. But that won’t likely happen. The Democratic party, striving -- like Brody’s toothless Oscar acceptance -- to be as vague and inoffensive as possible, will in all likelihood forfeit the chance to go after Bush on foreign policy initiatives that they will, as likely, continue to carry through in the event of Kerry‘s election. And all that makes the case, again, that there is no substitute for the indignant obnoxiousness of an angry (if slovenly) American.