Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Irony In Roger and Me

Michael Moore's docutmentary Roger and Me has irony seeping everywhere. In every single part of the movie, beginning, middle, end, you can point out things that are sarcastic in the way they are portrayed. One of the things I noticed to be quite ironic was that someone like Ms. America is trained, from the moment they enter beauty pagents, to answer real world questions with a quick answer and genuinly know what it is they're talking about. Ms. America takes pride in being involved in various issues going on around the world to promote "world peace". The irony is that she could probably answer a touchy topic about an issue in another country with much grace on stage, but when it comes to knowing what's going on in her own state, she seems clueless and almost like it's "out of sight, out of mind". The way Moore bombards her is really used to his advantage because it makes her look bad and uneducated on issues she SHOULD care about more than pagents questions.
Another point in time where I found some irony is when Moore and the film crew go to the Great Gatsby party he interviews people attending the party about what they think about all the jobs that have been laid off recently. Here again we see people saying things like it's not as bad as it seems, when we were clearly just shown boarded up, almost demolished homes. Then the women with their husbands start talking about "all" the things Flint, Michigan has to offer, her examples are ballet and hockey that THEIR kids had access to. Not thinking that, that option is not available to everyone, they can afford it, regular people can't even afford their houses, let alone extra activities for their children.

1 comment:

  1. Your comment is interesting and pretty good.You present each point very clear. I agree the main points in the comment. The analysis of the examples you give is good. Moore establishes irony in documentary through interviewing the wealthy people and make the viewers feels that they even did not care the poor people's lives.

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