Fahrenheit 9/11 changed how I thought of documentaries. I used to think of documentaries as boring and depressing, very serious, and just presenting information to the viewer by means of a monotone announcer’s voice reading off of cue cards while black-and-white footage of bombs played in the background. Fahrenheit 9/11 couldn’t have been further from what I imagined. When I first started watching it, it was in color, it was upbeat, happy, with music and Ben Affleck. I was actually nervous that I was watching the wrong film, but I saw that I wasn’t.
Fahrenheit 9/11 is a political documentary that is anti-Bush and anti the war in Iraq. The documentary clearly presented Michael Moore’s point of view, which was anti Bush and the war in Iraq. The documentary showed his point of view through using different tools such as humor, popular culture, and opposition instead of just saying it outright, which would have been boring.
The best example of how Michael Moore used these tools to make a point is when he shows Bush on vacation, playing golf and by the beach, etc. with the bouncy vacation music playing in the background, which was clearly sarcastic and mocking the situation. It also shows a great example of how Moore uses humor and music to make the documentary easier to watch, which makes us more receptive to the information and point of view he’s presenting.
He also used opposition, like when he was showing war footage with soldiers dying and people crying (mothers who lost their sons and Iraqi civilians), and then immediately after he shows Bush posing with a group of soldiers, smiling like a celebrity as if everything was awesome. Meanwhile, the soldiers who he posed with probably would die a few days later in battle. These opposition scenes played on our emotions because when I saw the people crying over all the deaths, I felt really bad for them that they were going through all the loss and tragedy, and then when it immediately goes to the footage of Bush posing like a celebrity, it makes him seem really ignorant to what is really going on in the war.
Everything in the documentary was true, it was all facts, but Michael Moore was able to manipulate them to show his opinion, by ordering them in certain ways (juxtaposing certain scenes), choosing what music to put in the background, etc in order to make a point.
Michael Moore’s strategy in presenting his view actually made it more persuasive than had he said it outright. If he just stated his opinion, you would think, “Okay, that’s your opinion” and could either ignore it or disagree because it would feel really impersonal to you. By presenting it in the way that he did, and not saying anything outright, but just hinting towards it, allowed the viewer to make the connections on their own. For example, he doesn’t say Bush won Florida and the presidency because there was a conspiracy theory. Instead he points out all the connections Bush had, makes a few sarcastic remarks, and lets the viewer jump to their own conclusion about a conspiracy theory, which is what he wanted to show. Since the viewer reached the conclusion on their own, they’ll think about it more thoroughly than if someone else said it to them. Its harder to ignore it if you reached that conclusion on your own, so you are more likely to agree with it because you understand where it came from since you came to it yourself.
Another way Moore convinces you is by choosing what pieces to include and which to omit. For example, on the day of 9/11, Bush was reading to a bunch of children at a school. Michael Moore made Bush seem like an incapable fool by saying (and I am paraphrasing), “And when Bush found out about 9/11, there was no one to tell him what to do, no Secret Service or advisor, so he sat there reading ‘My Pet Goat’ to a bunch of kids.” It was just so mocking and so comical to contrast the seriousness of the 9/11 tragedy, with the image that our President was reading “My Pet Goat,” a baby book. I am pro-Bush so as I was watching the documentary I was trying to justify and explain to myself why I didn’t agree with some things Moore showed. When I saw this clip, I wasn’t sure how to explain it to myself- it did seem absurd. But then in class Professor Healey said that he left out some pieces, like those that said it was a smart move for him to stay put so as not to startle the children, or that the Secret Service told him to stay there for his own safety.
