"Fahrenheit 9/11" feeds the smugness of bicoastal elites

[Cocoa]

First, here's a photo of this defender of the common man from the heartland:




Now, here's his column, which reveals in a very ironic way how much he despises normal Americans, whom he claims to be defending. It's so strange to me how someone can see things so differently. I saw the people in this movie as normal people like me, people rarely seen in movies or on TV, and he sees them in the way I've highlighted:


<snip>

Virtually everyone in "Fahrenheit 9/11"--and it doesn't matter which side they're on--is a dupe or a stupe in Michael's world. A long segment features a Fresno peace group, supposedly infiltrated by an undercover cop. Filming in their meeting room, Moore makes them look like goofy, witless innocents, and just so you don't miss the point, he runs tinkly soda-pop music beneath their scenes.

A young Oregon state highway patrolman looks like a fool, because he's standing guard on a highway in the middle of nowhere. Residents of Tappahannock, Va., commenting on a bureaucratic snafu over their town's name, sound like bewildered country yokels.

Moore's on-camera characters are invariably lower middle class and inarticulate. In fact, no one is physically attractive or stylish, which allows Moore's big-city target audience to stay inside its normal film-going comfort zone of smirking condescension.

The U.S. soldiers who speak onscreen in Iraq come across as bloodless killers with Southern accents. They sound stupidly unfeeling about the war's destruction. It wasn't clear to me that even this audience was in sync with the filmmaker's willingness to make a mockery of American soldiers. Moore's misanthropy is equal opportunity; he shows a greasy white guy in Flint, Mich., with a tattoo on his arm, whose thoughts on domestic security are that you can't trust anyone anymore, even people you know. That got a big laugh. All the people in Moore's beloved Flint--which appears in "Fahrenheit" as a few bombed-out housing blocks--are either dopey white trash or oppressed blacks. Two Marine recruiters walking around a U.S. shopping center are manipulative and opportunistic. They're made to look bad.

more...


http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/dhenninger/?id=110005392

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Who is this...

Smarmy Human Lightbulb?

[RandomKoolzip]

2. Actually, the dude who says "you can't trust anyone....."

is from Tappahanock. Or is it Rappahanock?

[underpants]

8. Tappahanock

The talking points memo this bozo got must have been written by someone who didn't see the movie.

[ithacan]

3. this guy effectively damns himself

what a great column! It's so obvious that his comments are reflecting his own elitist biases, which he's projecting onto the film...

[ClintonTyree]

4. I registered...........

a nice response to his article, I suggest others do the same. The Wall Street Journal is not the paper of record for the majority of average Americans. Elitist? I told him to look in a mirror, and that I doubted there was a reflection.

[Cocoa]

5. here's my response

which I'm not expecting them to post...


The difference between the way Mr. Henninger saw the people in F9/11 and the way I saw them is striking.

I was overwhelmingly sympathetic to all those people, who seemed like normal people like the ones I know in my life, and which I rarely see in movies or on TV.

The exceptions would be the recruiters, which I saw as among the true villains of the movie, in the same class of social leeches as the Bush administration officials.

The terms Mr. Henninger uses to describe his own reaction didn't even enter my mind, in fact I'm shocked that anyone would react that way to these people.

"Goofy, witless innocents"
"looks like a fool"
"bewildered country yokels"
"lower middle class and inarticulate"
"no one is physically attractive or stylish"
"bloodless killers with Southern accents"
"stupidly unfeeling"
"greasy white guy"
"dopey white trash or oppressed blacks"


I think Henninger should find a way to meet some normal people. The people in Moore's movie are real people, they're not Henninger's twisted perception of them. They're people like me, and we're nothing for him to be afraid of. He doesn't even have to leave Manhattan, we're everywhere.

[rocktivity]

10. Did you hear the disco-type music played under the recruitrers?

I don't think that was an accident, LOL! And did you hear their promises to "hook up a few things" for the guy who expressed an interest in music? I can see it all now--"Private First Class Troop Doggy Tag iz in da house!" And they tell the guy with the wife and kid that having a family is "all the more reason" why he should join. Odds are he'd have to take a pay cut--assuming that he has a job, I mean!

:headbang:
rocknation

[skooooo]

6. Gettin' my smug on!!

You bet.

[bemildred]

7. Another attempt to spin the movie away.

The rhetoric he uses is not accidental, and his intent is to
turn people off from the movie.

[struggle4progress]

9. WSJ again panders to the prejudices of the corporate elite. eom