Last Sunday’s Sunday Times’ News Review section had a revealing article by Richard Brooks, entitled Me and Michael, the stupid fat man (possibly requires free registration).
If you don’t have time to read the full article, here are a couple of paragraphs to give a flavour of it: “Moore’s world — like America — is divided. For him there are the good guys and the bad guys. But which one is he? There is the good Moore, who says he gives away a sizeable chunk of his income to worthy causes, and whose movies often side with the little man and the underprivileged.
And then there is the bad Moore, who can be a bully and a hypocrite. He uses private jets, demands the best hotels and sends his daughter to a fee-paying school in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Yet he also claims to be the ordinary working-class guy from the downtrodden town of Flint, Michigan, where he set his first and best documentary, Roger & Me, which looked at how General Motors treated its workforce. In fact his father was a well-paid manager who was able to retire in his early fifties to play golf.”
Especially pleasing is the news that Moore is subject to a more rigourous critical analysis than the BBC has managed, in a new book, Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man by David T. Hardy and Jason Clarke, as well as a forthcoming documentary about Moore by Mike Wilson, Michael Moore Hates America. I won’t hold my breath waiting for the BBC to show it!
As Ed Thomas mentions in his blog, he & I corresponded a few weeks back about the BBC’s uncritical obsession with Michael Moore. I did a write up about it back then, but didn’t get round to posting it. If there is sufficient interest I’ll dust it off and post it this time – let me know.
Whilst I appreciate the Michael Moore is a twat the BBC’s coverage has been pretty bland – the blokes made a film that is politically interesting…lots of people disagree with it.
This post reads more like a desperate plugging of anything that is critical of somebody who’s been nasty to your beloved George Bush rather than a crtiticism of the BBC.
Way OT and this’ll teach me to listen to Radio2 in the morning… but I was a little surprised that there was no mention of Saddam’s trial on their morning news bulletins.
I’m not imagining a genocidal maniac was in court yesterday am I?
RB
The whole point is that mostly the BBC has omitted the criticisms – or made it seem that only Bush-loving rightwingers had attacked the film. Skewed reporting – as usual.
With Moore having been called on so many fibs lately, it’s not surprising that people are starting to wonder about his claim to proletarian roots. I’ll be watching sources other than the BBC (or Fox, or talk radio, etc.) for the story.
I heard recently in a radio interview on US NPR that Moore presents himself in Britain as a barely noticed US voice of dissent, not as the major celebrity that he is. Is this accurate?
It looks like there’s a very tiny slight shift away from the anti-war bleats in the European press. I wonder why?
Have they convinced themselve that Bush will lose the election (therefore their fether-spitting is no longer needed?) – or are they – (woah nellie!) starting to look at thing objectively?
When I last checked, the Times (of London, I assume) does not allow foreigners such as myself to view their pages without paying for them.
So, if you want most of those outside Britain to know what the Times has been saying, you’ll have to give longer quotes.
John Hensley
I heard recently in a radio interview on US NPR that Moore presents himself in Britain as a barely noticed US voice of dissent, not as the major celebrity that he is. Is this accurate?
Er. Well, celebrity’s a funny thing. The only thing I know about Jessica Simpson is that she’s a famous ditzy blonde. What she’s famous for, exactly — other than being a ditzy blonde — is beyond my ken.
And so it is with Moore. To the Hollywood crowd, Moore is probably a low-A or high-B list celebrity. To the Washington crowd, he’s probably known as a guy they pay attention to out in Hollywood. To the rest of the country, his celebrity falls somewhere below Jessica Simpson’s.
So the short answer to your question is: Moore’s a lot bigger celebrity in Europe than he is here.
Post your comments on the BBC and Michael Moore
If the right-wing had ever run such a biased and untruthful film, there would be no end to criticism and backlash.
Jim Russell
West Memphis, AR
Is Moore really a celebrity of any kind in Europe, other than amongst the Cannes set?? He hardly exists in any of the ‘popular’ media.
I think most Europeans are quite capable of despising the Bush administration for their own perfectly rational reasons without some overweight cretin telling them how to do it in such a dubious manner.
Moore exemplifies all of the US stereotypes that Europeans look down on: Earnest, evangelical, oversimplifying, badly dressed, overweight. The bloke is vile.
Moore exemplifies all of the US stereotypes that Europeans look down on: Earnest, evangelical, oversimplifying, badly dressed, overweight.
There is a theory that this is exactly why he is popular. Moore reinforces Euorpean stereotypes of Americans, kisses up to them, and tells them what they want to hear. Perhaps Moore has invented a new kind of celebrity: the living effigy. It takes a certain kind of genius to grow rich in that manner, to be sure.