F911, A month later

Fallout from Moore’s opus continues

by Bryan Zepp Jamieson

07/26/04

http://www.zeppscommentaries.com/Sociology/moremoore.htm

When a guy like Michael Moore jumps off the high-dive board, it’s gonna cause a few ripples.

When I wrote about "Fahrenheit 911" after seeing it on its opening weekend four weeks ago, I had a feeling I would be revisiting it later to gauge its effects on the body politic.

First, it’s the most successful documentary of all time. It’s grossed $103 million domestically, and very incomplete overseas figures show it having grossed $13 million. So not only has it shattered the all time gross for a documentary ($21 million, Bowling for Columbine), but it’s at or past the adjusted-for-inflation gross of Birth of a Nation, which is estimated at $125 million. Of course, Birth of a Nation got an eighty year head start, too.

Nearly 15% of the American electorate have seen F911, and of course, it’s expected to reach an even wider market when it comes out on Video/DVD at the end of September. By election day, it’s possible that 40% of voters will have seen the movie.

The folks at Harris poll had the same idea of checking on the aftereffects of the movie, and Harris is one of those outfits that insists that the Presidential race is a neck-and-neck affair, and that Nader can get five percent of the vote. So Harris is a poll that Republicans tend to look to when they feel a need for a little reassurance.

This particular poll would have brought them little of that. It’s hardly surprising that a vast majority of Democratic viewers (85%) had a positive view of the movie. But 70% of Independents similarly had a positive view, and 44% of Republicans.

That’s right; 4 out of 9 Republicans who saw the movie felt it was positive.

That’s devastating news to the Putsch campaign strategists. It should affect them much the same way Kerry’s campaign planners would be affected if they were to learn, say, that half the Democratic voters thought Faux News really was "fair and balanced."

Of course, in the case of Faux news, not only is it easy enough to show that they are lying to the American public and essentially acting as a megaphojjne for the GOP (in fact, you need only point to the case where they sued for the right to lie to the American public), but you can stop a GOP operative who shouts that Moore’s movie is a pack of lies by asking him to specify a lie in the movie. He can’t. And voters – including Republican voters – are noticing that lack of specificity.

The 9/11 Commission report is backing up Moore’s allegations that Putsch didn’t do enough to prevent the attack in the first place, and was slow to respond when it did occur.

The other main thrust of Moore’s movie was the injustice of the attack and occupation of Iraq, and even though there was that "transfer of sovereignty" back on June 28^th, American troops are still dying. And the resistance in Iraq has realized that the "Coalition of the Willing" is neither willing nor a coalition, and that countries that are unsure why they are in Iraq in the first place are perfectly willing to leave in order to prevent nationals from being murdered by kidnappers.

Moore’s movie suggested that Americans in Iraq were often behaving disgracefully, but it’s unlikely that Moore could have guessed at the utter depravity of the actions taken at Abu Ghraib. Today the Sacramento Bee ran excerpts of Seymour Hersh’s address to the ACLU, including the charge that the White House possesses videotape of American soldiers sodomizing young boys in front of relatives in order to attempt to coerce information and / or confessions out of the relatives. As far as I know, this is the first mainstream paper to break the story; you will be hearing more about it. Much more.

So not only has Fahrenheit 9/11 continued to appeal to audiences, but that appeal has moved beyond the liberal base and drawn considerable attention from moderates and conservatives. At least 15% of voters have seen it. And since its release, it has not only survived fierce efforts by the GOP to debunk it, but it has gained credibility, and as events unfold, now seems rather moderate in its allegations against Putsch.

The political climate in this country is undergoing a radical, sweeping change, perhaps the biggest since 1932. That was shown in the fortunes of a movie Disney released that was supposed to be a sort of a counterweight to Moore’s documentary.

"America's Heart and Soul" was a hastily thrown-together pastiche of what the London Guardian called "moving and heartwarming vignettes of regular American eccentrics," and while Disney denied that it had anything to do with Moore – and certainly wasn’t a clumsy and hamhanded effort to bounce back from the fiasco of dropping distribution of Moore’s blockbuster and the attendant wave of bad publicity that followed – it was Disney’s answer to what it perceived as Moore’s cynicism.

Whatever Disney’s motivations were, the group Move America Forward, which had been pressuring movie theater owners not to show 9/11, was crystal-clear. "Move over Michael Moore," their ads screamed, "Disney and Move America Forward team up to show a brighter side of America. Unlike the negative and misleading storyline of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11,

Disney's America's Heart and Soul features a collection of upbeat storylines of real-life Americans who pursue their passions in a way that underscores what makes America a great nation."

Hmmm. Well, between that and the famous Disney marketing know-how, with focus screenings and free copies to lure groups such as Americans with Disabilities and the Sierra Club in, it should have stomped F911 flat.

After four weeks of release, Moore’s movie has made about $125 million. After three weeks of release, "America’s Heart and Soul" has made about $311 thousand.

Of course, Fahrenheit 9/11 has a week head start. Maybe America’s Heart and Soul will catch up this week.

Or maybe, three months before the election, no matter how hard they push our buttons, it just isn’t working any more. When was the last time virtually NOBODY showed up to see a Disney flick?

Moore’s movie will be coming out on Video / DVD at the end of September. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that by voting day, 30% of those voting will have seen it.

And four out of nine people who voted for Putsch last time and saw the movie say they won’t be voting for him this time.