Bowling for Columbine

What a great movie. I really like Michael Moore a lot and he's worth listening to, if you bear in mind that he's one point of view.

Bowling for Columbine is Michael Moore's thesis on video of why people in the US tend to be more violent to one another compared to - well - everywhere else, really. He reckons it's because US society as a whole live on the edge in an atmosphere of fear and that people feel that the best way - the only way - to protect themselves is to be very ready to shoot the other person.

The case he builds is a meandering one, a little like he's trying to make up his mind. Several strands come into play: the ease and comfort with which a person can get a gun in America (he opens with a bank that gives away guns when you open a bank account - a pretty outragous alternative to a toaster, if you ask me), the way some Americans feel that toting a gun is a right and an obligation, all the way to this idea that the "American Way of Life" is to bully somebody into submission - Might is Right, you say?

He argues that people get their primary impression of the world around them from TV and newspapers and that the media in turn show what they think will attract the most viewers. Violence is one of these things, it seems. "If it bleeds, it leads," was one comment. And it's all just "entertainment", with a layer of hypocrisy there when Americans excercise their version of moral rights (right to own a gun, right to defend oneself, right to rid the world of tyranny by replacing them with other tyrants).

All the while, there are places where you just have to laugh out loud at the ridiculousness of it all. There is a portion where a newscaster easily switches between "concerned reporter at the scene of a shooting" to "concerned reporter at the lack of hairspray" when the camera is switched off. The funniest things are the ones that are true.

He also sometimes gets under some people's skin, on purpose. I don't like this aspect of him so much, when he ambushes unsuspecting targets (actor and NRA spokesman Charlton Heston, for example) who really have no idea what has hit them.

Moore is constantly worried about the state of his country, and continually points fingers at deficiencies, and yet is obviously as patriotic as it comes. He's definitely one of those who believe that it's an obligation to show up our faults to better ourselves.

All in all, it is a worthwhile thing to watch and should definitely be part of any ethics/morals class.