>I think you're way off base charging Moore of patronizing
>and victim-blaming.
i'm not saying HE does, but that he film does. as i noted already, you and i might know that moore doesn't take this position, but the film undermines his position b/c it focuses on things that are bound to evoke a reaction--for entertainment perhaps, too. the rabbit lady disgusts people. she is portrayed as a joke, laughable, an idiot. ditto the color lady who decides to invest money in a Avon-like venture where she sells people on color palettes for their make up and wardrobe. another doofy decision. she's portrayed as just as dumb as the town fathers and chamber of commerce boosters. (I know these types well, in my town, they wanted to put a dome over main st. to compete with the malls. quaintify it with street lamps and urban renewal funds for facade repair and try get yuppies to come first the olde tyme towne. @@ )
>Moore's focus is on the folly of officials
>in responding to the loss of jobs - it is a system outta whack
>looking to tourism and other bogus urban redevelopment
>schemes. The bad choices depicted in the film seem to come
>from those in power, not in the immorality of laid-off workers
>and people being evicted.
yes, for you. the memorable parts of the film for others, though, are the rabbit lady and the color lady. oh, and the black guy who goes to work for someone who evicts people. the black guy, in the camera's eye, is a scab, as carrol likes to call them. i suspect moore looks at them a little like that--i do in my worst moments. what my students think is something like this: "what a jerk he is. sure, he's gotta make a living. but other people aren't working for the company that evicts people."
now, we're supposed to think, "damn capitalism, look what it does to people." but the film doesn't encourage that sort of thinking--it's a limitation of a medium that relies on imagery, i suspect.
the rabbit lady scenese are thought provoking, but the viewer has to bring a framework to get there. otherwise, she comes off as a stringy-haired idiot who seems unable to reflect on what's happening in her life. i suspect that this isn't true at all. could moore have talked to her a bit more, to get her to address the issues he's implicitly raising? i think he could have, and he could have done so in ways that are a bit more flattering to the dignity of the people in that film.
i think the solution would have been to present an alternative narrative--something like that suggested by Jay MacLeod in _ain't no makin' it_. I'm assuming you have that book. If not, I'll quote relevant portions of it. basically, he says that there needs to be a narrative of the dignity of working class people and their history whenever we look at their individual lives and their plight. it's good stuff.
kelley