Reply #47: Mabus - I don't read the OP at all as saying that the scene anguished the Gores... [View All]

[IndyOp]

I am more than willing to admit this is a matter that is open to interpretation. But I read the article quoted as saying that the scene was excruciating for the author of the article - as it was for most of us. I don't read it as saying that the scene was excruciating for the Gores.

Turns out “Farenheit 911” – which opens with an excruciating sequence in which, having had the 2000 election snatched from him, Gore must preside over the Senate and beat back, one by one, the protestations of members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who all refer to him as “Mr. President” in anguished and defeated tones – had a powerful impact on the Gore family.

It seems likely to me that the scene's powerful impact was, in part, liberating for the Gore family -- millions of people learned about the disenfranchisement that was part of the election having been stolen from him and from us.

Have you ever known a truth that few others knew and wound up feeling insane? It is liberating to have the truth out there.

We all knew about the hanging chads, but the corporate media did not cover the disenfranchisement of African American voters and so most Americans thought that the race was really, really close in Florida and that either "Bush won" or "we'll never know because SCOTUS stopped the count". As a professor colleague of mine said - Gore shouldn't have let it be so close. If those 1,000's of voters had not been disenfranchised it would never have been thought close.

Gore comes off in that scene as resigned, trying to maintain composure in a nightmarish situation, and - yes - a little pedantic as he tells the CBC members to sit down.

Gore's behavior is, if nothing else, a dramatic demonstration of commitment to the rule of law and to his belief that the system is self-correcting.

I would think that a lot of the feedback that the Gores got after the movie was very positive - in the sense that people had not know everything he had gone through, in the sense that it became less taboo to talk about the issue with him.

I wonder if part of the reason Gore agreed to do "Inconvenient Truth" was his experience with the power of "Fahrenheit 911"?

Finally, more often than not, grieving requires diving right into the most excruciating memories and staying there until they no longer have power.

The Gores invited Michael Moore to their home...