Sunday, November 15, 2009

Week 9: Dislike Mike


So last week we looked at This Divided State and watched a large amount of opposition to Michael Moore as he he gave a speech at Utah Valley State University. I was curious to see how common this was for speakers to experience after I learned about a similar occurance that happened to Dick Cheney. The only difference between the two is that BYU is known for their conservative viewpoint, yet opposition was still heard towards Cheney. When "speech protest" is typed into Google, a large number of results appears. It seems understandable, even though every American has the right to their own opinion (even if they are a leader of a cop-killing terrorist group that wants to give a speech at the University of Massachusetts.) There are plenty of Americans that would argue that certain free speech needs to be censored, so long as it's not their's.
So this week we started Mike Wilson's masterpiece, Michael Moore Hates America. I thought Moore angered me before, but this some of what's in this movie just outraged me. Specifically, when Wilson approached Moore and Michael just attacked him for the documentary, when it is not slandering Moore any more than Michael did to the victims of his films. In fact, it's interesting to see how Wilson tries to avoid fallacies as much as possible. If he notices himself doing it, he points it out to his audience, which is much more respectable than Moore's techniques. Michael misleads the audience, and then when questioned about it, he convinces everyone (including himself) that everything happened just as he depicted it. Wilson has his producer and Penn Jillette hold him accountable for any propaganda that he might accidentally

I must admit, I'm enjoying the film a little more than I should be. Even though Wilson appears to avoid these fallacies as much as possible, they're still there. This man is using Moore's own techniques against him, but since my opinion of Moore was so negative from the start, it's hard to not side with sweet, innocent Wilson on everything. That's a very positive thing Mike Wilson has going for him. No matter what he's doing, Wilson has this innocent, common man appeal that Moore strives so hard to portray, but unlitmately fails doing. Perhaps that's why I find myself rooting for Mike Wilson.

As this week continues, I'd like to look a little further into how honest ans innocent Mike Wilson really is. I'm sure that most of my opinions on him won't change as we wrap the movie up, but there might be a few fallacies that'll slip through the cracks if I'm not looking specifically for them.

Sources:
Michael Moore Hates America. Photograph. The Veiled Chameleon. Web. <http://www.veiled-chameleon.com/weblog/httpdocs/images/blogcontent/michael_moore_hates_america.jpg>.
Penn Jillette. Photograph. Downshore Drift. Web. <http://www.downshoredrift.com/.a/6a00d83451d87169e2011278d5491d28a4-500wi>.
"Rare Protests at Brigham Young Over a Planned Cheney Appearance." NY Times. Web. <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/11/us/11byu.html>.


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