To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of “dissenting” bravery. —Christopher Hitchens —Unfairenheit 9/11: The lies of Michael Moore (Slate)
Woah… Hitchens is known as one of the few to attack pop-culture saints such as Bob Hope and even Mother Teresa, so it can’t be easy to dismiss his attack on Moore. He’s not a conservative who’s annoyed that Moore has trumped Rush Limbaugh-style politics-as-entertainment by using images (which speak directly to our emotions, as opposed to words, which at least sometimes engage our minds).
Hitchens, who has made a few documentaries himself, sounds a bit bitter in the following quote, but I think it’s an important perspective to consider:
[A] documentary must have a “POV” or point of view and that it must also impose a narrative line. But if you leave out absolutely everything that might give your “narrative” a problem and throw in any old rubbish that might support it, and you don’t even care that one bit of that rubbish flatly contradicts the next bit, and you give no chance to those who might differ, then you have betrayed your craft. If you flatter and fawn upon your potential audience, I might add, you are patronizing them and insulting them.
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Tim, and anyone else reading this thread, this is the kind of careful refutation that I was hoping to find.
Fifty-six Deceits in Farenheit 911
Are there any refutations of THIS document that poke holes in it?
Naturally, any text that criticizes another text is going to focus on the weakest parts of the target; therefore, we can assume that if no rebuttals are offered for a particular assertion, it must stand (for the time being).
Again, I haven't seen this movie, but I'm enjoying the online debate.
Thanks for pointing out the fisking, Tim.
I'm not sure that the refutation really adds much to the argument... Hitchens uses, in prose, the emotional techniques that Moore seems to use in his film (though I haven't seen it, so I can't say for sure). If someone faults Hitchens for doing it in writing, is it fair to give Moore a pass for doing it in film?
The best fiskings do a lot of fact checking -- the one Tim suggests only includes a few outbound links. Is it true that "In a recent interview, [Moore] yelled that if the hijacked civilians of 9/11 had been black, they would have fought back, unlike the stupid and presumably cowardly white men and women (and children)"? I think Hitchens is right to call attention to this claim, and that the author of the refutation can't simply dismiss that paragraph as an ad hominem attack.
It's one thing to say, for example, "We shouldn't listen to Michael Moore because he is an overweight college dropout." It's true that Moore is overweight, and it's true that he didn't finish college, but if we ignore his films for those reasons, then that's definitely ad hominem.
It's perfectly appropriate to investigate issues such as haracter and motivation (ethos) when examining rhetoric. Since Moore titled one of his own books "Stupid White Men," I don't think it's intellectually honest, when discussing Moore and his art, to condone ad hominem attacks when the victims are people you don't like, and criticize them when the vicitms are people you do like.
I don't think Moore would be comfortable in a world where anyone who supports George W. Bush (or any of the other targest of Moore's films) could simply dismiss Moore as someone who makes an ad hominem attack -- but that's what the author of the refutation seems to be doing in response to Hitchens.
Anyway, thanks, Tim, for pointing out another viewpoint.
There is a refutation of Unfairenheit 9/11 provided here.
See also what Jeff Jarvis has to say on the film.
Great article. This one reminded me of the reaction to Oliver Stone's JFK many moons ago, for some reason. This is more an issue of textual authority than politics or truth -- people want their documentaries to be "factual" despite the post-structuralist realization that images don't inherently signify anything "real." -- Mike A.