Michael Moore controversies

Main article: Michael Moore

Michael Moore
File:Michaelmoore1.jpg
Born	April 23, 1954 Flint, Michigan, United States
Occupation(s)	film director, author, social commentator
Website	www.michaelmoore.com

Michael Francis Moore (born April 23 1954) is an Academy Award winning American film director, author, social commentator, and political humorist. He is widely known for his outspoken, critical views on globalization, large corporations, gun violence, the Iraq War, and the George W. Bush administration.

Moore's body of work has attracted criticism from both conservatives and liberals, especially after the release of his film Fahrenheit 9/11 in 2004. One critic asserted that it was "illogical". The film also inspired criticism from Dave Kopel concerning accuracy and honesty. Moore set up a rebuttal "war room" to support the content in Fahrenheit 9/11 and counter critics who felt he had been deceptive.

Kopel also made similar allegations of deceptive editing, staging or scripting scenes, or altering the original intent of the speaker, about Moore's film Bowling for Columbine. In Bowling for Columbine, on-screen text was altered in a Bush-Quayle campaign ad, and footage edited into it from a non-campaign ad, in order to make it seem racist. Moore denied that this was done in the film, but corrected the text for the DVD release.

In May of 2006, Moore was sued by a veteran who lost both arms in the war in Iraq. Sgt. Peter Damon, of Middleborough, MA, alleges that Moore used snippets of a television interview without his permission to falsely portray him as anti-war in Fahrenheit 9/11.

Ray Bradbury has also criticized Moore's adaptation of his Fahrenheit 451 title without permission. However, permission is not legally required, and Bradbury himself is the author of several books whose titles are taken from works by other writers. Moore responded, saying Fahrenheit 451 is the temperature at which paper catches fire, but that Fahrenheit 9/11 is the temperature at which "freedom burns."

With Moore's success, there have been some works criticising his books and films. These include the films Michael Moore Hates America, Celsius 41.11, Michael & Me, and FahrenHYPE 9/11.

Moore's style of filmmaking is an involved, essayed form, as much about Moore himself and his opinion as they are about the subject at the heart of the film. This is a potential criticism from more traditionalist documentary makers, who prefer a more observational style in which the filmmaker remains hidden behind the camera. The feature-length essayed form was pioneered by Nick Broomfield and was adopted by documentarians such as Louis Theroux, who himself worked with Moore on TV Nation.

Moore's style has come under fire from those who claim that when making his films, he unfairly edits and re-sequences events in order to twist or misrepresent the words of his targets or interviewees. The classic distortion example is in Farenheit 9/11 where he took a snippet of a self-deprecating remark by President Bush at the non-partisan Al Smith charity dinner to infer that the President was colluding with Republican contributors. In a similar vein to Dave Kopel's accusations of dishonesty and deceit, Slate.com's Christopher Hitchens compiled a list of Moore's alleged "lies". The caustic tone of these criticisms quickly drew counter-criticisms from OpEdNews.com articles like "Deception; Desperate Right Wing Attacks on 'Fahrenheit 9/11'" and "How Many Lies Can Christopher Hitchens Tell?" as well as an eFilmCritic article "Defending Truth: Slate's Chris Hitchens does a hatchet job on Michael Moore" and a Columbus Free Press editorial.

On September 12, 2001, the day after the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York City and Washington, DC, Michael Moore posted a message on his website that included the passage (since redacted from the message on the site): "Many families have been devastated tonight. This just is not right. They did not deserve to die. If someone did this to get back at Bush, then they did so by killing thousands of people who did not vote for him! Boston, New York, DC, and the planes' destination of California — these were places that voted against Bush!" This has been interpreted by some critics as Moore implying that an attack against areas that had voted for Bush would have been justifiable. These same critics have pointed out that, at a time when the people of the United States, including both major political parties, were coming together following the attacks, Moore was still focused on the electoral politics of 2000.

A recent controversy surrounds Michael Moore's public comments about the Iraq insurgency and terrorists. In a memo released on his personal website, Moore said "The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not 'insurgents' or 'terrorists' or 'The Enemy'. They are the revolution, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow — and they will win. Get it Mr. Bush?"

In the book 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America by Bernard Goldberg, Moore is ranked number one with the comment: "Michael Moore's popular films and supporters are too hateful of America that he doesn't deserve to be talked about."

In their book Michael Moore Is a Big Fat Stupid White Man, David T. Hardy and Jason Clarke criticize Moore for allegedly being untruthful in his film productions, especially with respect to Bowling for Columbine (the book's release predated "Fahrenheit 9/11"). Their allegation is that he primarily includes interviews and speeches that are heavily edited to create a negative image of the subject being portrayed and present misleading or false facts.

In the Peter Schweizer book Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy, Schweizer accuses Michael Moore of hypocrisy suggesting that he owns a variety of company stocks, including Haliburton stock, while at the same time criticising these companies. This accusation is based on a tax return from a foundation Schweizer alleges is controlled fully by Moore. Moore denied this on C-SPAN, with the statement "Michael Moore own Halliburton stock? See, that's like a great comedy line. I know it's not true - I mean, I've never owned a share of stock in my life. Anybody who knows me knows that, you know - who's gonna believe that? Just crazy people are going to believe it - crazy people who tune in to the Fox News Channel."

In 2004, Moore transferred the deeds of his New York City home to a private corporation that was formed specifically for this purpose. Although his reason for doing this has never been identified, it is a quite common method of reducing property taxes. Given Moore's frequent suggestion that rich people should be taxed at a higher rate, critics, including websites like MooreWatch, have accused him of hypocrisy for doing this.

Oscar acceptance speech

When Moore accepted the Oscar for Bowling for Columbine, he created a stir when he took the opportunity to state his point of view on President George W. Bush having started the 2003 invasion of Iraq:

"Whoa. On behalf of our producers Kathleen Glynn and Michael Donovan from Canada, I'd like to thank the Academy for this. I have invited my fellow documentary nominees on the stage with us, and we would like to — they're here in solidarity with me because we like nonfiction."

We like nonfiction and we live in fictitious times. We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons. Whether it's the fictition [sic] of duct tape or fictition of orange alerts, we are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you. And any time you got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up. Thank you very much."

The televised speech was met with a mixture of boos and applause from the audience. In a backstage interview with Moore afterwards, he stated that the majority of the audience was cheering. Moore repeated the part of his speech that had been cut short due to the orchestra starting to play music and his microphone being turned off, and gave the reason "I'm an American" in defense of his choice of acceptance speech. In commentary included on the DVD for Bowling For Columbine, Moore indicated that the majority of the audience were cheering for him, prompting boos from some other audience members, and that further booing was actually Moore's supporters responding to the detractors who had become vocal in the audience. Lisa Rein believed that the boos were mixed by re-broadcasts of the Oscar

When the host, Steve Martin, returned to the stage after Moore's speech, he joked: "It was so sweet backstage, the Teamsters are helping Michael Moore into the trunk of his limo."

Critics also note that he identifies himself as being from Flint, using Flint in his handle and signing e-mails as "The Man from Flint" and mentioning it in the introductions he has written for books.. These critics, such as in Hardy and Clarke's book as well as Peter Schweizer's, note that Davison, his childhood neighborhood, is a middle class community with better employment rates and higher incomes as opposed to the lower class status of larger Flint. However, those who reject this criticism note Moore's inconsistency in discussing his hometown, noting that he spoke of growing up in Davison in the Flint Voice in 1982, as well as point out Davison's proximity, as Davison is a suburb within 10 miles of Flint. Further, for his DVD set of "The Awful Truth" (1998), he is wearing the Davison High School baseball cap in his picture on the outside box for the second season. Identifiable as a gold script D on a maroon hat, Davison's school colors being maroon and gold and is similar to the white script D on a blue hat worn by Major League Baseball's Detroit Tigers, also worn by Moore but on the DVD box for The Awful Truth first season. In the DVD content itself, he also wears the cap and in the DVD commentary feature he mentions it as being the Davison Cardinals hat (the mascot of Davison High School). Also, it is noted that Davison is a bedroom community with the vast majority of the town's middle class employment coming from commuting to the nearby city of Flint (historically for GM employment), and therefore is heavily affected by the economic status of Flint. Both Flint and Davison are in Genesee County, Michigan, of which Flint is the county seat.