Bowling for Controversial Film

by Stephanie Anderson

None of the Young Republicans wanted to go see Bowling for Columbine with me. This may be because I smell, but they say that it is because "Michael Moore is a piece of s**t." (You may note that I was a little too conservative to actually spell out a curse word and print it on the Internet, and even in my head, I said "beep" while I typed it.) Despite the advice of those feeling more self-justified, I temporarily teamed up with a couple of Donkeys and went to see what all the fuss was about.

To my amazement, Michael Moore, who cleverly stars in his own documentary, does not even resemble South Park's "Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo." Yes, he is slightly obnoxious and self-righteous, and no one could rightly accuse him of following through on a train of thought, but his film brings up some excellent points.

Influenced by pre-movie criticism or not, I expected the film to be one long tirade basically saying: "Guns suck. If no one in America had a gun, we would all hold hands and sing 'We are the World' every day before we sat down for warm cookies and milk." While Charlton Heston took more abuse than Moses ever should, that wasn't exactly the point. The movie seemed to think that guns cannot be the problem, citing Canada's giant gun ownership numbers as proof.
Instead, the film had three basic contentions: 1- The US government is violent. 2- Fear is ingrained into our citizens through the media. 3- That same fear stems commercialism. The thought process connecting these points, if drawn, would look something like a child's interpretation of cartoon tumbleweed.

The film raised interesting questions: Are we a more fearful culture than others with lower homicide rates? Is a combination Bank/Gun Shoppe a good idea? Does government foreign policy affect young people's attitudes toward each other and the world? How far will the media go to sell us something? Is bowling the root of all evil, and more importantly, can it be considered a sport?

But less philosophical questions also came up. Such as, Michael, could you accompany those numbers with percentages to make them at least marginally comparable? Do you know that it is not ethical journalism to only present the facts that support your side of the argument? And, do you ever consider shaping the bills of your hats? It's not enough that the hats are plain ugly, you could also cleanly slice cheese with his visor.

Though my head is mostly full, a little bit of learning and even an independent thought or two crept in as a result of seeing Bowling. I suppose that by entertaining views you disagree with, you run the risk of your mind being changed, or, even worse, your own views being validated.