Fahrenheit 9/11 is an attack on conservatism…In a nutshell.
The movie touched on many important political issues. The first issue was the controversial presidential election of 2000. Michael Moore satirizes the outcome of that election, claiming that Fox determined the winner of the election, and Bush did not legitimately earn the position of President of the United States. In creating the film, Moore used live news coverage to prove his point that the news channel made Bush the winner, since people are more likely to believe him if he has “evidence” backing him up. He also discusses the ways in which Bush was connected to the news anchors and workmen of the news station, showing that he had an insider’s advantage.
Additionally, Michael Moore often only tells one side of the story. Partly as a result of the filmmaker’s choices and partly as a result of my liberal views, I was willing to accept that Bush did not do what was best for the country during tough times. After discussing the movie in class and hearing my classmates’ points of view, I realized that Michael Moore was a biased, but crafty filmmaker. He forces the viewer to accept his point of view, and takes advantage of the viewers who might be uninformed.
One example of this was his claim about Bush’s reaction to the World Trade Center attacks. He shows Bush reading to a group of kids on September 11, 2001. He continues reading nonchalantly even after he is told that the nation is under attack. What Michael Moore “forgets” to say is that Bush was told to stay where he was. It was unsafe for him to be in any location, and it was not appropriate to create turmoil for the children in the class. I am not saying that I am pro-Bush…I’m merely showing that Michael Moore was making a political statement by allowing his own political views to influence the “truths” in his movie.
In Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore also depicts the impact of the war on the families of the soldiers. Michael Moore interviews Lila, who has both a son and a daughter involved in the war effort. He shows that the war in Iraq is, like many other wars, a poor man’s war. Many soldiers enlist because it’s the only way they will be able to pay for college, or because college is simply not an option. At first, Lila seems to be pro-war, and is very patriotic towards her country. After she learns of her son’s death, she becomes anti-Bush and finds herself in front of the White House protesting the war. Many of the soldiers, like Lila’s children, come from lower income neighborhoods plagued with high rates of unemployment. When Michael Moore went to Washington D.C. to ask senators to enlist their own children in the army, not one senator was willing to do so.
Fahrenheit 9/11 is a movie that makes a clear political statement. Michael Moore is against the war, and does not think that Bush handled the attacks on World Trade Center in the proper way. He shows pictures of Bush with the soldiers, implying that Bush is only aware of the glorious aspects of the war. Bush gives his famous mission accomplished speech, and in the next clip, Moore shows violence in Iraq. He states that we have not found weapons of mass destruction, which was Bush’s initial reason for declaring war.
I definitely think that a viewer’s own political agenda would influence his opinion of the movie. On the same token, I don’t think it’s possible to watch the whole movie and not agree that Moore is a liberal who is not in favor of Bush. As a result of Moore’s strong opinions and real footage, he was probably able to convince many people of his own views, making this movie a form of political art.
