MOORE IS LESS

Michael Moore and the consecration of victimhood: "...the film, and in fact Moore's entire oeuvre, revolves around the consecration of victimhood. After all, this is a man who hides behind the crippled, the bereaved, and the deceased whenever he tries to make a point. In Bowling for Columbine, he swaggers into Wal-Mart's head office pushing a wheelchair-bound, bullet-ridden teenager, and demands that the supermarket chain stop selling bullets... The assumption that underlies Moore's work is that victims have greater moral authority than anyone else, simply by virtue of their victimhood. This approach does a disservice to those disenfranchised individuals it purports to help, because it casts their predicament in crude emotional terms and thus precludes arriving at a rational understanding of it. Such an approach may appear compassionate, but it is actually about the egotistical display of Moore's own emotional credentials."

"The cinema is fast becoming a pulpit. And Michael Moore is not the only preacher in town. Showing in Europe are two companion pieces to Fahrenheit 9/11, both by acolytes of the American controversialist.... American power seems to loom so large in the Left imagination that the rest of the world is occluded from view. One rarely hears any discussion of the real global crisis: poverty.... An interesting configuration seems to be taking place. The Left is angsting about the US - the latest edition of Courrier International, titled Made in Bush, is entirely dedicated to American ugliness - while the US is beginning to talk about the world.... If your politics are fed by popular culture, particularly by the new trend in cinematic pamphleteering, you probably have the impression that only one thing really matters: the US. But this is easy politics - too easy. It is being fed by an alliance between film culture and Left politics; unfortunately, however, it represents shallow culture and narrow politics".

"Moore isn't just antiwar and anti-Bush; he is also virulently anti-American. That's a label some right-wing pundits tend to slap on anyone critical of the war and of President Bush. In Moore's case, however, the label fits."

Australian Treasurer Peter Costello has an accurate description of Moore after Moore said that both the Australian Prime Minister and GWB were idiots: "Mike Moore is entitled to his opinion but that's the quintessential ugly American, sitting down attacking the Australian prime minister,"

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