1Reviews and everything / Bowling4Columbine - analytical review
.docAlex Kvartalny @ flamedragon27.blogspot.com
Group 501
A Glorious Time to Be American
(Analytical Review of Bowling for Columbine by Michael Moore)
★★★★★
You woke up this morning
Got yourself a gun,
Mama always said you'd be
The Chosen One.
She said: You're one in a million
You've got to burn to shine,
But you were born under a bad sign,
With a blue moon in your eyes.
You woke up this morning
All that love had gone,
Your Papa never told you
About right and wrong...
– Alabama 3
Michael Moore, the director of Bowling for Columbine, was born in Davison, a suburb of Flint, Michigan in 1954. He was elected to the Flint school board at the age of 18 being politically active as a teenager. He briefly attended the University of Michigan but left to pursue social and political causes. Moore started a weekly alternative newspaper in the mid-1970s called the Flint Voice (later the Michigan Voice) and also hosted a radio show. In 1986 Moore was hired to edit the liberal magazine Mother Jones but was fired after a few months over differences with the magazine’s publisher. Moore moved back to Flint, where he became disturbed by massive layoffs in the city’s automobile factories, especially at General Motors Corporation. Although he never worked for the company, many of his relatives did in the past. Angered by the company’s decision to lay off thousands of U.S. employees and move jobs to foreign countries with cheaper labor, Moore decided to make a film about the high unemployment and resulting social problems in Flint. That movie, Roger & Me (1989), chronicled Moore’s many fruitless attempts to confront General Motors executive Roger Smith and persuade him to visit Flint. The film earned numerous awards and became the highest grossing documentary film up to that time.
Michael Moore’s film Bowling for Columbine was shot in 2002 and subsequently won several awards including the 55th Anniversary Prize at 2002 Cannes Film Festival, César Award for Best Foreign Film; it was named the Best Documentary of All Time by the International Documentary Association (IDA) and got an Academy Award for Best Documentary Features. The movie refers to the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado, in which two armed students killed 13 people and themselves. Before the shootings, the two students reportedly went bowling, hence the director’s allusion in the title.
The film examines several issues including the culture of guns and violence in the United States, it also alludes to the problem of racism, greed and environmental protection. One of the questions that the director raises is the pretext of the Columbine High School massacre. The film also explores the idea of a “culture of fear” and establishes a connection between the media and this culture. The film uses political satire to make a point about the issues the American society currently faces. Although fear within society and easy access to guns fuels a country’s economy, it also may result in huge problems, such as the Columbine shooting.
Most vividly, the problem of gun ownership is singled out. Many believe that it is the responsibility of any American to support gun rights. In addition, the Second Amendment of the US Constitution guarantees a right to keep and bear arms. The opposing point of view is that modern living conditions have made the Amendment obsolete. Critics are saying that it actually causes more trouble than it solves. If one imagines him- or herself into the conditions most Americans lived in when the Second Amendment was drafted in 1791 then it immediately becomes obvious that people had to protect themselves from the instability and from any danger out there in the wilderness, without police being around or even existing. Today, the situation both within the city and outside is dramatically different and there is a special service to protect civilians from threats. What is more, quite a number of people are of the opinion that the language of the document refers not to an individual but to the collective right of the people.
But whether or not people like it, the fact remains that the culture of guns in the United States of America is passed, like any other element of culture from generation to generation. Take for instance the Lockheed manager described in Bowling for Columbine. Michael Moore suggests that when a parent goes off to the factory every day and builds missiles, in other words weapons of mass destruction, the children might be as enthusiastic about guns as their parents. Like father, like son, they say. The contrasting view is that making weapons does not actually have anything to do with school massacres because it is up to every person to make their choices. Plus, parents do not kill people, they just do their jobs so that they could provide for their family. Or do they?
When young people commit violent acts who is to blame? Is it the gory-glory violence on TV, break up of the family unit and the fact that children are left unattended, poverty that leaves people with no hope for future, violent past that America had, or is it perhaps access to guns? Michael Moore believes, all those factors contribute to the problem, but there is one more. The one who is masterminding the whole business. Marilyn Manson and his music or Southpark can be blamed of course but Michael Moore is under the impression that it is the US media who is responsible for the high level of gun-related incidents in the country. How is it possible? TV news is number one source of violence in America. It has a lot to do with ratings, since crime, bloodshed and violence, being enthralling, sell really well. If you're zombied by violence, does it not seem a natural and logical idea to create a similar setting in your own life?
But there are other sides that the media with its constant flow of goriness incites. Firstly, television and newspapers, being the most useful instrument to scare people, play on one's fears and create new messages that people should consume this or that product in order to improve, be able to protect themselves, whatever. Thus, the interdependence between fear and consumption is highlighted. As Marilyn Manson puts it, “keep everyone afraid and they will consume”. To protect yourself and your family from terrorists you are likely to buy anything stores will offer you. No wonder military budget is top priority in the US because of the war on terror that can hurt you anytime, anywhere.
Secondly and consequently, the society that is always afraid will be mistrustful of one another. White racism, suggests the director, spawns fear. A lot of white people are interviewed in the film and many of them are likely to fall for the assumption that a crime is committed by a black person, rather than by a white one.
Another illustration of the interdependence between fear and mistrust can be observed when Mr. Moore compares his country with a neighbouring one – Canada, where the amount of firearms is the same due to the fact that Canadians are a hunting nation but the level of crimes and homicide rate is much lower there. People do not even lock their doors when they leave their houses, whereas Americans buy expensive locks and “lock themselves in”. So it's not the number of guns, according to the director that contribute to the violent nature of a society.
If we have a look at the existing legislation on gun ownership in different countries and compare it with the legislation in the US, we will see the following things. For instance, we take Europe. The United Kingdom is well-known for its strict rules against gun ownership. At the same time in Switzerland 14% of home have fully automatic assault rifles. Further, civilian long-gun purchases are essentially unregulated, and handguns are available to any adult without a criminal record or mental defect. Nevertheless, Switzerland suffers far less crime per capita than the United States and almost no gun crime. However, this case should be viewed rather as an exception from the rule since most gun control laws seem to make the overall crime levels decrease. As far as the 1993 US Brady law goes, while some believe this has improved the gun situation in the country, according to a study by Philip J. Cook, a Duke University professor of public policy, economics and sociology, The Brady Bill, the most important piece of federal gun control legislation in recent decades, has had no statistically discernible effect on reducing gun deaths. So the movie demonstrates eloquently the fact that fear is a normal part of the US culture , just like guns are.
And yet, there is another form of violence that contributes to young people committing brutal acts. Moore has stated that sometimes governmental acts, such as Michigan’s Welfare to Work program, amount to state-sponsored acts of violence on the poor. Gandhi used to say, “poverty is the worst form of violence”. And if one imagines themselves into a poor American's life when you have to work two jobs to make ends meet, then it does not come as a surprise that children are left unattended, within an arm's reach from their grandfathers' loaded handgun.
As far as my opinion goes, the arguments for the true reasons of violence in the US provided by Michael Moore are extremely persuasive and quite shrill I should add. You can hear from every corner of the US that it is a glorious time to be an American, but instead of glory you are given something gory. Gory-glory? Or perhaps glory-gory? A blue moon in your eyes – the American TV – stands for the modern curse. In my book, it is a powerful tool that has illustrated on numerous occasions how easy it is to distort “making love, not war” into making people love war. I realise how disastrous the situation is but in fact it does not make me angry or emotionally pumped with indignation. Why should it? After all, to exercise control and power over others, to hurt is just as human as to breathe, as JK Rowling wrote in Tales of Beedle the Bard. I am of the opinion that it is possible to reverse the condition for the better by stopping actively participating in any kind of war, for without warriors wars are doomed to fail. And we also, I think, must bear in mind that everything you fight against makes you weaker, everything that you support, makes you stronger. And as Tracy Chapman once put it, “for our bright future is in our hands”.