Kay Anderson, UVSC, and Free Speech

Journal 1-4

Last week I asked what Michael Moore thought of the movie Michael Moore Hates America. In the movie, when Wilson tried to get an interview with Moore, Moore attacked him and said his film was a joke. He thought  the title was slanderous and libelous, and told Wilson "Everything I do is because I love America, its people like you who hate America!" He immediately shut Wilson downed and ridiculed him, and was clearly not receptive to his film idea. I could not find any information on whether or not Wilson ever got the interview, but we know from the movie that Moore  was not willing to sit down with Wilson. We also know that Moore told the press, that Wilson's movie was a fraud and would never be released.

This week in class, we watched the documentary This Divided State, about the 2004 controversy at Utah Valley State College. Utah is the home of the Church of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) and is a very conservative, republican community. The student government at UVSC, which is in Orem, Utah (aka Family City, USA), made the decision to have two very different political activist come speak at the school, rightist Sean Hannity and leftist Michael Moore. What happened next was unprecedented. The community and many students were very upset that the school was paying Moore to come speak, when his political views are not looked upon kindly in the red state. There were petitions to cancel the event, lawsuits filed against the student body president and vice president, and many heated debates about whether is was right to have Moore come speak the the students. One outspoken community member, Kay Anderson, offered the school $25,000 to have the event canceled.

I really enjoyed the movie. The overall story was very interesting, and I had no idea that it had ever happened. I knew Utah was a conservative state, but I did not know the residents were so hostile, to say the least. Not to say all Mormons or Republicans are angry, outspoken people, but many represented in TDS were. Kay Anderson and other residents saw Orem as its own little bubble, and did not want it infected with other views, or real life in any way. He believed that Moore hated their way of life and was out to destroy them, and would corrupt the minds of the students. He believed this so strongly that he did not think Moore had the right to speak at UVSC, which violates the First Amendment. The people who made the decision to bring Moore however, thought just the opposite. Since his views were so different from their own, they believed his ideas should be heard, even if they didn't agree. One foreign student even brought up the point that free speech is not allowed everywhere, and that everyone should be able to exercise their rights.

Watching This Divided State reminded me of what is happening in North Korea. For many years N. Korea has been an isolationist country and is under strict rule by their dictator, Kim Jong Il. No one in the country knows about the outside world because the government think that if they learn about them, they will overthrow the tyrannical government in place. The citizens have also been taught that the outside world is a bad place, and that North Korea is a safe haven. Everything that is out stays out and everything that is in stays in. This reminded me of Kay Anderson's views about the safe haven that is Utah. He doesn't want his children to experience the outside world, because in his mind where they are now is the only good and safe place.

I wonder who made the documentary This Divided State and how they made it so objective. Out of all the documentaries we watched it is definitely the least biased one, because the filmmakers weren't trying to promote a personal agenda, they were just trying to show the facts.



Works Cited:
1. Wilson, M. Brian Cartmell & Michael Wilson. 2004. Michael Moore Hates America [Film]. HCW Films.
2. Greenstreet, S. Steven Greenstreet, Kristi Haycock, and Phil Gordon. 2005. This Divided State [Film].
3. North Korea. (n.d.). wikipedia.com. Retrieved October 29, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Koreahttp://
4. (2004, November 4). Retrieved October 29, 2011, from http://sensoryoverload.typepad.com/sensory_overload/2004/11/free_states_vs_.htmlhttp://

Michael Moore vs. Michael Wilson

Journal 1-3

In answer to my question in my last blog posts, I could not find any reactions to the film specifically from  residents of Littleton, or families of the victims. But in watching Michael Moore Hates America this week I learned the reactions of those who had been in the film, like employees of North Country Bank. An employee at the NRA also spoke on Heston's behalf about how he had been construed in a false light. The workers at North Country felt they had been taken advantage of. They were told Moore was doing a film on unique businesses in America, which was a lie. Moore staged his visit to make it seem like the guns were right at the bank to hand out, when really they were kept 300 miles away, and shipped to a licensed firearm dealer for the owner to pick up after the account was made. But Moore contacted the bank ahead of time and had the gun shipped so that it would be ready for him to take home the day he made his account. The NRA representative talked about how the Heston's speeches had been spliced to make it look like it was all one speech, when really they had taken place at two separate times. It made Heston look insensitive for coming to Denver ten days after Columbine, when by law the meeting could not be canceled. There were also parts in Heston's Denver speech when he showed respect and remorse for the community of Littleton, but that was not shown in BFC.

Last week in class we finished Bowling For Columbine. I was out of class two days for college visits, but in the last part of the film Moore got a sit down interview with Charlton Heston. We also learned about the death of six-year old Kayla Rolland, who was shot by a classmate at school. When talking about Rolland, Moore ultimately blamed Dick Clark for her death, which made no sense. His reasoning was that Kayla's murderer's mother was evicted, and forced to move in with her brother, which is the home where her son found the gun. But since his mom worked on the welfare-to-work program, which employs some of its workers at Dick Clark's restaurant, it was his fault. In his interview with Heston, he also made him feel guilty for Kayla Rolland's death, which again made no sense to me. Heston invited Moore into his home, and completely disrespected him and made him look stupid. He asked questions Heston could not have possibly known the answer to, and left a picture of Rolland on Heston's property. Heston is in no way responsible for Rollands' death. Though he does support gun ownership as president of the NRA, Rolland's murder was a six year old who stole the gun, and the second amendment which the NRA supports is for people eighteen and over. This week we also started the film Michael Moore Hates America which follows filmmaker Michael Wilson as he tries to prove America is not the horrible place Moore makes it out out be.HE also discredits Moore editing techniques.

Although I definitely like Wilson more than Moore, I think that they both use incredible sources. For example, Wilson has a lawyer talking about Moore's supposed narcissistic personality disorder, when he is not even a a professional in psychology. This is a fallacy of unqualified authority. And when Moore is talking about how much greater Canada is than America in BFC, he talks to three high schoolers who are skipping school at Taco Bell, and a couple of intoxicated people in a bar. This definitely doesn't  represent all the people in Canada. But Moore is a lot more deceitful in his editing. He stages scenes, lies, splices clips and sound bites but never admits that any of it is in the smallest way untrue. But when Wilson deceives a county representative from Moores' hometown of Davison, Michigan, he talks about how it was unethical and sends the man an apology.

I feel like Wilson is a more ethical filmmaker than Moore. Although its impossible for a documentary to ever be completely objective and truthful, Wilson does a much better job. He points out his faults in order to make his movie as truthful as possible, like in the situation with the Davison representative when he pretended to know less than he actually did. Also in the scene at North Country Bank he leaves in the cameraman's commentary on how Moore was not completely unjustified in making fun of the bank, because a bank giving out guns is funny. Moore on the other hand, seems to use every trick in the book to make you believe what he believes is true. He makes himself look smarter and funnier at other peoples' expense. In MMHA, the employees mention that while filming BFC one of the tellers made a joke that made Moore look stupid, and he admonished her and said it was his movie, and he'd be the one making the jokes.

Although Moore and Wilson's film making ethicality is a related topic, this reminded me of how sometimes two things are compared or attached to each other when they really have no logical connection. I feel like Moore sometimes does this in his films. In BFC he somehow related the death of Kayla Rolland to be Dick Clark's fault, which makes no sense. Because the welfare-to-work program employs some people at Dick Clark's restaurant chain, and Rolland's murderer's mother did not make enough money on the WTW Program to keep her house, and was forced to move in to her brother's house where her son found the gun that killed Kayla, it is Dick Clark's fault she is dead. The WTW program employs people at other stores that all happen to be in a certain shopping mall, which includes Dick Clark's restaurant. I don't believe he should be faulted for Kayla's death because the chance that he has control over who is employed in his restaurant chain is not likely.

I wonder how Michael Moore reacted to Wilson's film. He already chastised Wilson for making it at the University of Minnesota, and told press that movie was a fraud. I wonder if Wilson ever got his interview with Moore, or if Moore ever gave his review of or reaction to the film to the press.






Works Cited:
1. Wilson, M. Brian Cartmell & Michael Wilson. 2004. Michael Moore Hates America [Film]. HCW Films.
2. (2007, August 20). The Gun Zone. Retrieved October 16, 2011, from http://www.thegunzone.com/rkba/images/bc
3. Buell Elementary School demolition doesn't mean we'll forget Kayla Rolland. (2008, November 22). mlive.com. Retrieved October 16, 2011, from http://www.mlive.com/opinion/flint/index.ssf/2008/11/flint_journal_editortony_deari_1.htmlhttp://f_bankpromo.jpghttp://

Fallacies In Documentries

Journal 1-2

After studying heroic imagination last week, I was curious about the health effects of 9/11 on first responders. I found out that many firefighters had a steep decrease in pulmonary function. About four times as many firefighters and twice as many EMS workers had below-normal lung function for their ages six to seven years after 9/11 as they did before the attacks. Many are also suffering from cancer, but there is no proof that it is related to the dust they breathed following the attacks. Many rescue and recovery workers who started work on or soon after 9/11 are more likely to develop post-traumatic stress disorder, and almost 1 in 5 adults enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Registry reported PTSD symptoms. 

For the past two weeks we have been studying fallacies, which is an invalid argument. There are four different types of informal fallacies, which are caused by the words used in an argument. Fallacies of relevance, weak induction, presumption, and ambiguity. I found it very interesting, but I was a little confused since I was absent the first day we learned about what fallacies are and the different types. After we had studied all the different kinds of fallacies, we started to watch Bowling for Columbine, a documentary by Michael Moore about gun laws and the Columbine Massacre. As we watched, we realized how Moore skewed evidence which made the documentary biased and used many types of fallacies. He edited sound bites to make a person statement prove the point he was trying to make. He also had phantom questions, guerrilla interviews, and loaded language. He would make hasty generalizations about people and use loaded language to make a person or group of people look bad, without giving background information on those people or the situation they were in. Studying fallacies made me realize how I often used then as a child to win arguments. For example, if I got into a fight with my best friend, I would tell her to let me get my way or I wouldn't be her best friend anymore, which is appeal to force, a fallacy of relevance. 

After beginning BFC this week, I wonder what the community of Littleton and friends and families of victims thought about the movie. It didn't portray them in a bad light necessarily, but the way Moore presented the events and the reasons for what happened at Columbine and the days after was not all that positive or completely true at times. 


Works Cited: 
1. Farley, T. (2011, October 1) A Message from Thomas Farley, MD, MPH, the Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. What We Know About the Health Affects of 9/11. Retrieved from www.nyc.gov/html/doh/wtc/know/know.shtml  
2. (2011) michael-moore-young [Photograph], Received from http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Entertainment/images-8/michael-moore-young.jpg
3.  (2011) Comunbine_High_School_sign [Photograph], Received from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d0/Columbine_High_School_sign.jpg