moore

[Daniel Marcus]

I used to use the Rabbit Lady sequence in Roger and Me in my teaching, but
dropped it as being too treacherous (meaning dangerous in its complexity) to
deal with in the time I could allot to it.  It's a really complicated scene,
and both the defenses and attacks made on the film as a whole here have been
justified (I loved it when I saw it).  I showed the scene to my video
production class of Wisconsin undergrads, as an example of the uses of
graphic depiction,  the power of metaphor (as the residents of Flint are
propelled to questions of basic survival), and the questions it raises about
the manipulation and the power of subjects to speak in their own voices.
The Rabbit Lady apparently liked her portrayal, as she also appeared in his
follow-up Pets or Meat, but a question remains of her mental judgement,
which added to my misgivings every time I screened it.  (What she didn't
like was that it brought the powers of the state down on her, as it provided
evidence of illegal behavior!)

 As one example of the different ways the scene could be read, many students
were horrified at the skinning of the rabbit, while some of the kids from
rural Wisconsin thought it was a great shot at urban sophisticates who are
unwilling to confront the realities of food production,  and who look down
their noses at the hunting culture that is so strong in the Upper Midwest.
Rural audiences just don't find the scene very shocking.

  Moore usually responds to charges of attacking the working class by
claiming his own membership in it, thus invoking the right to self-mockery,
as it were.  I do think that we need to give some leeway to artists in their
portrayals, or we end up with the suffocating humorlessness that's been
referred to by others, or a one-note attack on elites that non-leftists
often find too narrow.  On the other hand, yes, some of R&M (and TV Nation,
which I also thought was very good overall) misfires (the Yugoslavia report,
for instance, that made light of the Serbian massacres, if only indirectly).
But  the left has a tendency to eat its own, and I think we should recognize
that the incursion of TV Nation into prime prime was a big (if temporary)
step forward, and we need more Moores.

Daniel Marcus

 
Daniel Marcus				Damarcus at students.wisc.edu
Dept. of Communication Arts
University of Wisconsin-Madison