See, Doug, that's my point. You felt a need to EXPLAIN to me that "it's not Roger Smith who closed the plants and fired thousands, it's capitalism." Oooh, really??? C'mon! That was exactly why "Roger & Me was made." Of course it's capitalism. And most people who saw the film got that point. I said it over and over again in every interview I did -- this is not a movie about Roger Smith or General Motors -- it's about an evil economic system. And do you know why most workers got that message? Because they were and are going through the same nightmare themselves at the companies they're working for. Give us all some credit here.
You seem to bemoan the fact that one just can't do a movie on "capitalism", that it has to be all gussied up and made funny and personalized in order for people to watch it. That's called, I think, effective storytelling, and it's been around a few thousand years. If the left would learn to speak not only with a beginning, middle and end but also with a sense of humor and a sense of humanity instead of simply enjoying the sound of its own ineffective and irrelevant voice, maybe we'd all get somewhere.
To Doug and the others who got defensive over the words "smarty pants" and "rough hands and clean fingernails" -- read the sentence again. I was saying that those of us non-academics need to stop dismissing what the rest of you have to say (and thinking of you as smarty pants) because you have a valuable contribution to make even if some of you think of us as "underdeveloped" and "simplistic." I want to see the name-calling cease -- it ain't getting us anywhere. Stop insulting people like me with statistics on how many retail workers there are -- "they're working class, too!" -- we already know this! If you don't own the business, you're part of the working class as far as I'm concerned. Unfortunately, because certain people either forget where they came from or believe that because they have a degree or two they're not like the "rest of us," we waste a lot of time bickering over all this bullshit when all of our energy should be directed at those in power who run the whole freakin' mess we're in.
And It is not I who believes the working class is like the Bundy family. Sadly, it's many of you and others on the "left" who don't think we read poetry or can speak a foreign language or understand that Roger Smith is only a symbol. We don't want to turn the opera house into a bowling alley; we want you to take down your invisible "Do Not Enter" sign and let us in.
Well, I hope this clears some of this up. At least the words "smarty pants" were used for probably the first time on this list. I truly appreciate those who teach my films and Ben's book. Thank you very much. I consider us all in the same boat.
Michael Moore