The Perils of Michael Moore

The article I read, called The Perils of Michael Moore: Political Criticism in an Age of Entertainment, written by Kevin Mattson, describes Moore as a documentarian out to change the world. Mattson begins by describing Moore’s start in the business of filmmaking. He continues throughout the article, speaking about each of Moore’s films and the different kinds of impacts they have had on America. For instances, Mattson talks about Bowling for Columbine and how Moore and two students convinced Kmart to stop selling the type of bullets that were used in the Columbine shooting. This illustrates the power that Moore and is camera can have when big companies’ dark sides are presented to the public. Mattson praises Moore but also chastises him for failing to get interviews with important people in most of his movies. Mattson doesn’t understand why Moore has to use humor in every situation, even a serious one. His use of humor is a big turn off for all his interviewees and causes him to lose out on important information from CEOs. Moore is forced to use outside information from secretaries and security guards.
Mattson also criticizes Moore for linking together pictures of random occurrences trying to make a point that never really reaches the audience. Mattson does point out though that even though Moore doesn’t reach the big CEOs of companies, other parts of his films are factually correct. For instance, how news stations after Columbine were making smaller news bigger in hopes to frighten its viewers. Mattson seems to appreciate the information that Moore exposes to the public, but doesn’t always agree with the way Moore obtains the information or how he presents it.

I do agree with Mattson, Moore is striving to expose the dark side of big business through humor to make the film entertaining. This does help make the films entertaining but also limits the scope that Moore can accomplish. As Mattson says, “Generating a humorous buzz doesn’t shake things up so much as symbolize powerlessness.” Moore may be able to change some aspects that he doesn’t like about America, but his use of humor sometimes turns people away from answering his questions. I also agree that the way Moore presents the information he collects may not always be in the right format. Moore may need to focus less on the entertainment aspect of his films and more on presenting the evidence.