Do Americans understand the meaning of the word "lie." It appears to me that a lot of people out there don't. According to www.dictionary.com a lie is:
1. A false statement deliberately presented as being true; a falsehood.
2. Something meant to deceive or give a wrong impression.
This seems like a pretty simple concept to me. But let's take a look at what people in the media are calling "lies" in response to Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9-11. I feel confident in commenting on this because I've seen the film twice and I also consider myself capable of some amount of logical thought.
Let's get an easy target out of the way first:
CBN.org (The Christian Broadcast Network). had a take on the film. In an article entitled Fahrenheit 9/11: Inaccuracies Being Ignored By Many" Sarah Pollak writes:
"Fahrenheit 9/11" has been highly criticized for a number of factual errors. One of the many problems critics have with the film is that Moore makes life look really good in Iraq before the American invasion.
Director Moore said, "I wanted to spend just 20 seconds so that the people in the United States could see what human beings look like in Iraq. Children flying kites, a kid getting his hair cut in a barber shop, a couple getting married, these were human beings."
Nowhere does Moore discuss Saddam Hussein's torture and political oppression of Iraqis, or the genocide of the Kurds.
Hmm. I guess what Pollak said is true. Moore did not show Saddam's regime torturing everyday Iraqis in that sequence. Certainly that was going on at the time. But the fact is that Moore did show real Iraqis living their lives before the US's invasion. Is it a lie? No, because it really happened. I believe the filmmaker was trying to say that most Iraqis are not all that different from most Americans. They don't spend their days burning American flags, chanting anti-American slogans or organizing terrorist cells. This is in contrast to the images of Iraq I remember seeing on the news before the war. Is it a complete picture? No. But that doesn't make it a lie. It's just a picture that wasn't shown (at least not much) before. I'm not convinced, that's not an inaccuracy. This reporter failed to use a single fact that would prove her point. Pollak goes on to report. "A theater owner in California is choosing to ignore the film's R-rating. He is letting in teenagers under 18 to watch the movie." This is probably just a simple mistake, but I'm pretty sure that people 17 years old and older are allowed to see R-rated films without a parent. So much for this reporter being careful about inaccuracies. (You know, I can't seem to find any articles on their website that criticized theater owners for allowing young people to see the R-rated Passion of the Christ. Who's biased?).
A journalist from PBS should be a less easy target for my leftist views, right? Gwen Ifill of PBS's Washington Week has also criticized the film's accuracy. She appeared on NBC News' Meet the Press on June 27, 2004 (transcript). She said
You know, I look at this movie as a journalist, and as a journalist I have this affection for facts and accuracy. And even though there are facts in this movie, on whole it's not accurate. Michael Moore is guilty of the same thing that he and a lot of Democrats say that the Republicans are guilty of, especially on the Iraq-9/11 connection, and that's--I call it guilt by juxtaposition. You put several facts out there then and say to the viewer, "How could this not be true?
However she doesn't really contest anything that was in the film. She doesn't point to any fact and provide evidence that those things didn't happen. You'd think that a journalist with "affection for facts and accuracy" would do that.
Hugh Hewitt (talk radio commenter) wrote a commentary entitled "Michael Moore: The Dems' David Duke" which appeared on the World Net Daily on June 30, 2004. He writes, "It is an anchor around John Kerry's neck as ordinary Americans not filled with self-loathing will despise Moore for his tranparent lies and not trust a political party that does not reject them." But he doesn't really offer any evidence of what these lies are. He does point to an article on The Hill which quotes former counterterrorism advisor Richard Clarke as admitting that he approved the order to allow Bin Laden family members to leave the US while all other flights were grounded. (Clarke claims responsibility). However this article was based on an interview that was conducted after the film was shown at the Cannes Film Festival. So there was no deliberate misleading going on here either.
Richard Mullenax of Michnews.com wrote, "Despite the argument of the Black voters and certain congressmen, not one Democratic or Republican senator supported the accusation. Micheal Moore attempts to get sympathies from his audience rather than provide the facts" (Michael Moore's Un-Fair-enheit). I had an entirely different view of that footage. First of all it was shown immediately after a clip of Al Gore stating that he didn't agree with the Supreme Court's decision to declare Bush the winner, but that he had decided to accept it. The film then cut to Gore presiding over the joint session of Congress that certified the electoral vote. Gore followed the rules, he did his job. Al Gore was not Mr. "Sore Loserman" he was true to his word. I saw it differently than Mr. Mullenax did, so I'm sure others did as well.
I don't claim to be immune from propaganda nor do I claim to be the best critical thinker on Earth. I do however, know what a lie is. I honestly don't think I saw any lies in Fahrenheit 9-11
Due to a technical problem all of my previous blog entries needed to be re-posted. Sorry I've been absent from here for a while. I have a few things that I've posted in my Live Journal that I will be posting copies of here as well.
Note: Due to technical difficulties this entry was made to my Live Journal an June 15, 2004. If this site had been operational at the time I would have made the post here. It has been copied to this blog on June 26, 2004.
Documentary films are largely ignored in the U.S. (and probably in much of the rest of the world). This summer Super Size Me has been quite a success. The soon to be released Fahrenheit 9/11 is probably going to sell many millions of tickets as well. This is quite a shift in the type of film Americans are going to see en masse and I'm beginning to think that people have the wrong expectations for this sort of film.
First, let's look at Super Size Me. To summarize for those who have not seen it. I found it to be a highly entertaining film with a rather silly premise. Director/experimentee Morgan Spurlock eats all of his food from McDonald's for a full month. He even bought his water at McDonald's. That's dedication! He of course experiences all sorts of nasty side effects from this effort. He gets sick, his cholesterol goes up, he develops liver problems, he gains weight, etc. The film also examines how much of the food in the U.S. is heavily processed (not just fast-food), and how people in the U.S. get very little physical activity. The film also shows healthy people who eat fast food regularly.
Now many people are saying that Super Size Me is a bunch of lies and a bunch of propaganda. In Australia McDonald's is launching a huge ad campaign directly attacking the film. (http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/06/13/1087065034025.html). A web site operated by http://www.techcentralstation.com/supersizecon.html). All of these critics seem to be pushing the idea that a documentary should be fair, balanced and scientific.
I don't see it that way. A documentary film is a film that shows true events from a particular person's (or group's) point of view. It is not meant to be an exercise in scientific/philosophic rigor. Nor is it meant to be a work of unbiased journalism. Does Super Size Me present its information in a fair and balanced way? No! Nor should it. There are many raw facts in the film, use your brain and make your own decision about the issue! Should folk songs be written to be "fair and balanced?" Was Common Sense by Thomas Paine a threat to free society because it espoused a particular point of view? I don't think so, and neither should you. :)
Note: This entry was originally only published in my Live Journal due to a technical problem on this site. This review was written on June 12, 2004 but was not published on this site until June 26, 2004.
Supersize Me is a good film. It's gotten a lot of criticism for being misleading. After seeing the film, I don't really think that's the case. It's definitely worth seeing no matter what opinion you hold about the premise. It's an entertaining film.
The basic premise is that filmmaker Morgan Spurlock eats 3 meals a day from McDonalds for 30 days. He also gets all of his desserts and snacks from the Golden Arches. He doesn't eat or drink anything that doesn't come from McDonalds. He even bought all of his water from McDonalds. He also changed other aspects of his lifestyle. He used a pedometer to reduce his activity level to one that is closer to the average American. Thus, he took cabs and drove a car when he usually would have walked. He also stopped taking vitamins.
He ate everything available on the menu at least once. So he didn't just eat Double Quarter Pounders. He also only supersized when he was asked if he wanted to do so.
Because of this diet he suffered liver problems, breathing difficulties, sexual dysfunction, etc. His cholesterol, weight, triglycerides, blood sugar, blood pressure all went up. But what was really scary was that he seemed to be becoming addicted to the food. He claimed he had headaches that didn't stop until he ate at McDonalds again (Probably due to caffeine or sugar addiction).
Many people are criticizing this film because it isn't "fair." No, it's not completely balanced, but other views are shown. They even show Don Gorske, the man who eats two Big Macs every day. He hasn't gotten fat nor has he been diagnosed with serious health problems. They also show Jared Fogle who gained fame by losing a lot of weight by eating at Subway (a fast food chain).
There are several ways that the film's experiment could have been improved. First of all there should have been several different people doing the same experiment but each taking a different approach. Subject #1 could use Spurlock's method. Subject #2 could eat like Spurlock, but maintain his/her existing excercise program. Subject #3 could eat at McDonalds but specifically try to make healthy choices. Then perform all of the same health checks. This would be a slightly more balanced study. I wouldn't expect that the others would do much better on their diets (even McDonalds salads and yogurt parfaits contain large amounts of refined carbs and saturated fats). Even if they didn't gain weight, they would likely suffer in other ways.
As for the big question of whether or not the big corporations are responsible for poor nutrition and obesity, I'm not sure. They certainly play a part. Especially when you consider that many of these large food producers are also producing the food for our schools and are the producers of the foods we buy at the supermarket. A lot of these foods have preservatives added so the manufacturers cover up the taste of those additives with sugar and saturated fats. This just isn't good for us. Of course, we all have the option to refuse to eat this food. Why don't we refuse to do so?