Ethnography and Sarnia

[bcholmes]

So tonight I went to see Bowling for Columbine. I quite enjoyed the film; I can't say that I've been disappointed by much of Moore's work. And there was something really weird about the fact that Moore travelled to my home town of Sarnia to find out why Canada is different than the US. I squealed in the movie. (I had no idea that Sarnia was the kissing capitol -- the things I learn from Michael Moore).

A while ago, I read firecat's comments on the film. I've always really admired firecat's perspective on a lot of things, and I wondered if I'd have similar reservations. I doubted it, as I'm pretty sure that firecat and I have different opinions about gun control.

(BC positions herself within the discourse: I have no problems with people who like guns, who enjoy collecting them, shooting with them, etc. I think that there should be reasonable processes by which people can acquire guns, for some value of reasonable. But I don't believe that gun ownership is a right, and I'd oppose something like the US Second Amendment being passed in Canada.)

mamatiger posted this link to a pretty critical review of the film. For my part I have a lot of thoughts on the review:

• Fritz's comments about Moore having altered a campaign ad -- especially the comments about adding text -- just didn't work for me. I never believed that the text was part of the original ad. It was in the same typeface as all the other text in the film.
• I don't think Moore is attempting to articulate a single, unified thesis. I think that he consciously undermines any attempt at simple answers. He proposes a lot of ideas in the film and then goes on to question all of them. Is it "history of violence"? No. See Germany. The British Empire. Is it poverty? Too facile. Other countries have huge poverty. Is it "just" racial strife? I think his answer to that is hugely ambivalent.
• His fear hypothesis seems to get the most treatment, but even that position has problems. The former executive in charge of COPS talks about how a show that didn't involve car chases and shoot-outs probably wouldn't be palatable to the TV-watching public. We can't be talking about unidirectional causal relationships here.
• I think that Moore believes in his gut that guns are too prevalent and a problem, but I think he's pretty up-front about not really understanding the nature and cause of that problem. The most poignant scene, for me, was the one in which he's talking to one of the parents of a kid killed in Columbine. "Why is that?" "Yes, why is that?" "Yes, that's my question. Why is that?" Finally: "I don't know." Something is wrong, and it's evading people's ability to find the root cause.

I guess what I found somewhat thought-inducing was the representation of Canada. Moore presents a funny, quirky Canada where people never lock their doors and our news stations talk about negotiation and health care. And the reason that I was laughing is that I know that that image of Canada is superficial.

And this is a problem that plagues ethnographic documentary-making. Can this other people be documented? Is the Canadian public representable? Is there some checklist of traits that can be itemized and captured on film? Is the Canadian character knowable? And I think Moore's use of tongue-in-cheek humour and irony as he attempts to film "Canadians" is exactly right. He's describing the silliness and ultimate futility of that endeavor.

And in a sense, he's also describing the futility of answering the question: "what is it about America and guns?" It's irreducible. America can't be represented. All answers must ultimately be facile because the question starts with a mistaken premise. It's like the classic, "Have you stopped beating your wife?"

So what's a good, liberal intellectual to do? Through up his arms and admit defeat, or try to pry to gun out of Heston's dead, cold hand?

Comments

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

Note that my objections to the film had little to do with my opinions about gun control and a lot more to do with my dislike of the trend of using emotional manipulation as a substitute for intellectual discourse about political issues.

I take your point. I'm reminded of a lot of the criticism that came out in response to a relatively famous National Film Board of Canada documentary called Not a Love Story: A Film About Pornography. If I recall correctly, Not a Love Story is the most viewed film ever produced by the National Film Board. It's an anti-sex-trade-industry film and I'm pro-porn myself. Not a Love Story is pretty successful at tugging emotional strings.

(For that matter, The Birth of a Nation, considered by many to be a landmark film in the history of modern narrative, is pretty successful at tugging emotional strings in my opinion. It's a horribly racist film -- heck, it's a textbook for racism -- and the Ku Klux Klan comes riding to the rescue at the end. But when I watched it in film class, I must confess that some part of me was carried away by the story, even though whole other parts of me were repulsed.)

Anyway, a lot of the criticisms of Not a Love Story could be leveled against Bowling for Columbine. Moore interviews well-educated, white-collar, articulate people (white men, mostly) about pro-gun-control positions, and (with the exception of Heston) largely interviews working-class, less educated people about anti-gun-control. I agree that that's manipulative, although (as you noted) he was at least willing to give people like the Lockheed Martin suit a chance to respond to direct questions about his ironic juxtapositions.

On the other hand, I didn't find Moore's interview with Heston to be very manipulative, myself, whereas you did.

And I hafta confess that I am sympathetic to the argument that is attributed to Moore: most people aren't interested in engaging in intellectual discourse and that he feels that his use of emotional manipulation is necessary to get people to care. Also, I don't think that Moore can be singled out for special criticism merely because he's playing by the same rulebook as everybody else.

I know that you said that a lot of your annoyance with the film had to do with expectations that had been set up in you that this was going to be a even handed treatment. And I grok that.

[firecat]

I saw the Heston interview as more of a battle of manipulations between Moore and Heston - Heston was manipulating by taking the interview in his little shack with his various memorabilia, and Moore was manipulating by chasing him across the lawn with a picture of a kid who was shot. The overall result probably caused most of the audience to feel something, but not necessarily sympathy for Moore, so it could be said that the scene wasn't manipulative of the audience, in particular.

I saw Not a Love Story. Like most anti-porn stuff I was exposed to back then, it succeeded mainly in getting me hot. I remember one of my friends felt angry about it because she thought it had the message that it was wrong for women to give men blowjobs.

And I hafta confess that I am sympathetic to the argument that is attributed to Moore: most people aren't interested in engaging in intellectual discourse and that he feels that his use of emotional manipulation is necessary to get people to care.

That's probably true. I think it's got a lot to do with people not being taught how to think, and I think that's a systemic abuse just like "welfare to work" and other things that maintain an underclass. I also wouldn't be surprised if people not being able to think well contributed to the culture of fear that Moore rightly criticizes. So when I see emotional manipulation being used instead of intellectual discourse, I get angry because I think it perpetuates all that. Maybe it's necessary anyway.