Moore's film is raw propaganda, not documentary

Moore's film is raw propaganda, not documentary

By Gil Troy
The Montreal Gazette
June 30, 2004

Mr. Troy's latest book, MORNING IN AMERICA: HOW RONALD REAGAN INVENTED THE 1980S, will be published early next year by Princeton University Press. He is Professor of History at McGill University and a member of HNN's advisory board.

Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 is sharp, biting, often funny and consistently clever. Fahrenheit 9/11 is also relentless, vicious, usually manipulative and consistently misleading. Produced by a first-rate propagandist, this cinematic polemic is to a standard documentary what Cheese Whiz is to Camembert; the ingredients are similar – the footage is real -- but the processing yields an artificial product.

The uncritical gushing Moore’s screed triggered is more disturbing than the movie itself. Calling this work “excellent,” “elegant,” “convincing,” “brilliant” and “rigorous,” claiming that Moore is “no demagogue” – all in one edition of the Montreal Gazette – suggests that politics is clouding too many judgments. You need not be pro-Bush nor pro-War to be anti-Moore, or at least acknowledge the film’s one-sidedness. If this hatchet-job is what passes for intelligent commentary today, if no one who agrees with Moore can admit – or see -- that this Emperor has No Clothes – the art of intelligent, honest political discourse has truly degenerated. Michael Mooreism is Rush Limbaughism. Left or right, it stinks.

In my youth Superman comics described parallel earths, including a Bizarro world where familiar phenomena were distorted just enough to reverse things. In Michael Moore’s Bizarro universe, everything is a political punchline, lacking context or balance. Nothing happens due to sloppiness, evil lurks everywhere. Thus, the Florida Election 2000 debacle becomes a carefully-orchestrated Republican coup to disenfranchise African-Americans, rather than a comedy of errors starring nearsighted Democratic voters, incompetent Democratic designers of the infamous butterfly ballots, and ruthless politicos from both sides. Similarly, 9/11 becomes a carefully-orchestrated Republican coup to terrify Americans and fight the lovely people of Iraq, rather than a story of Islamicist terrorist evil exploiting American – and Western – complacency On a minor note, it also seems that only Republican politicians, especially bellicose, avaricious Bush Administration liars, primp and fuss before going on air; one wonders how Bill Clinton’s hair always appears perfectly in place, or whether Moore has ever used makeup – or done a second take.

While blasting Bush for creating a simplistic world of good guys and bad guys, Moore does the same thing; he just redistributes the black-and-white hats. In a shrewd act of political jujitsu, and forgetting his previous rationalizing softpedaling terrorism, Moore pushes viewers’ hatred for Osama bin Laden onto the Bushies via the Saudis. Two-thirds of the first half of the movie could be lifted from the Neocon playbook. Many conservatives, neo and otherwise, blame Saudi Arabia for fomenting terror worldwide. It is outrageous that fifteen of the nineteen mass-murderers were from Saudi Arabia, a despicable dictatorship that Democrats and Republicans, let alone Europeans, Canadians and the holy UN, have embraced as a “moderate” Arab regime.

Moore disdains the Saudis because he wants to tar the Bushies with a Saudi brush. He tendentiously lists ties, coincidental or not, between Bush relatives and Saudi Arabians, using guilt-by-association to suggest some unspecified complicity in murdering 3,000 people. True, the Saudi investment of $860 billion in the American economy is terrifying and constrains American actions against the Saudis. But isn’t it racist to treat all Saudis as equally guilty? And Moore’s “smoking gun” – that the Bush family—not, of course, the American government – arranged to fly Bin Laden family members home immediately after 9/11, without interrogating them, is also misleading. Officials insist some were interrogated. The airplanes flew after some commercial flights had resumed, making the treatment less special. Even the hypercritical 9/11 commission has found no scandal there. And the response to those of us who criticize the indulgences the Saudis enjoyed has been that the administration worked hard to avoid anti-Muslim riots during those first tense days. Of course, that benign, even noble, motive is discounted.

Having demonized all Saudis as murderers and caricatured the Bushies as their greedy accomplices, Moore then minimizes Saddam Hussein’s evil. While describing Saddam’s regime benignly, forgetting that he pillaged Kuwait, mass-murdered Kurds, persecuted Iraqis and threatened Americans, Moore runs pictures of happy Iraqi children playing. It therefore seems incomprehensible why the evil Bushies would slaughter Iraqis willy-nilly and send lovely American soldiers to die.

Predictably, the one grieving mother of an American soldier Moore shows is a saintly patriot whose son was anti-war and who herself rejects the war. If any soldiers are pro-war, or any grieving parents are proud, one would never know from watching this film.

In fairness, Moore makes some important points about the tragic bloodshed in Iraq. He justifiably criticizes the administration for downplaying American casualties, when it should be encouraging broad sacrifices to fight terrorism. And Moore, a master of guerilla theatre, delivers a great Roger and Me moment. Rather than hunting down GM executives who destroyed Flint, as he did in his breakthrough film, or embarrassing K-Mart executives who allow ammunition to be sold over the counter, as he did in Bowling for Columbine, Moore targets the Congress. Justifiably enraged that only one of 535 members of the House of Representatives and the Senate has a child in the military, Moore ambushes legislators on camera, offering recruitment brochures for their children. America’s leaders – or at least the handful shown on tape – appear cowardly and cloddish. None are smart enough to thank Moore, agree with him, and promise to discuss it with their colleagues and their children. Most duck or squirm.

Michael Moore has emerged as Canadians’ and Europeans’ favorite American, caricaturing George W. Bush’s America. Moore confirms elite prejudices about America being buffoonish, violent, greedy, and easily manipulated. There is, of course, much to debate about terrorism, the Iraq war, and President Bush. But if people perceive dishonesty, manipulation, and propaganda coming from the White House, the response should not be to try to outdo those efforts. We need a vigorous, open, substantive debate – remembering the pain, confusion and trauma of 9/11 rather than using it for sport.

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