>[lbo-talk] Double Standard: Israel and Saudi Arabia
>Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
>Tue Jul 13 07:09:58 PDT 2004
>
>Hey Yoshie, I got an idea - why don't you make the movie Michael
>Moore should have made? I'd really like to see it done right, and
>I'm sure all the millions of others who've bought tickets would too.
>
>Doug
You've suggested several times (including in the above postings) that (1) those who criticize Fahrenheit 9/11 ought to be able to make better documentaries than it and that (2) those who criticize a very popular cultural and political phenomenon that we all agree Fahrenheit 9/11 is must be able to become (through movie-making or otherwise) as popular as it is.
I don't see the logic of either remark, though, even as cheap shots. :-)
If I were a professional film-maker, perhaps the first comeback would make at least some sense, but you know that I am neither a film-maker nor do I pretend to be one. Just as those who are not economists can criticize the work of economists, and just as common people can criticize the doings of professional politicians, I take it as a given that those who do not make films can -- and should -- critically examine them, including the ones that are artistically powerful and politically on the left like Fahrenheit 9/11 (as well as other works by Michael Moore). Apparently, you do not agree. Why?
As for your second comeback, there are many films (documentary or otherwise) that have as many political and artistic merits as (and sometimes more political and artistic merits than) Fahrenheit 9/11 but either did not initially or will never become as popular as it. To take just one example, Sergei Eisenstein's Potemkin, a celebrated film classic from which probably all aspiring film-makers and film critics of all political dispositions have tried to learn, did not enjoy great popularity in the Soviet Union. By and large, genuinely popular Stalinist culture in the Soviet Union and other Eastern bloc nations seldom included revolutionary works like Potemkin and mostly comprised of musicals shown in East Side Story and other forms of popular entertainment often in the genre of melodrama. That's neither the fault of avant-garde film-makers nor the shortcoming of the mass audience. In my opinion, popularity is neither the seal of artistic excellence nor the mark of political damnation, and the same goes for marginality.
What's ironic in your response and many others here, which show knee-jerk hostility to any critical examination of Fahrenheit 9/11 (including mine, even though I have said I praise two thirds of the film), is that, if the George W. Bush administration teaches Americans anything, it is that it's not a great idea to uncritically accept what others say, even if the speakers in question are overwhelmingly popular, as George W. Bush was for quite some time after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. One service that artists can do for people in America is to raise the level of media literacy, but that is not possible if intellectuals like yourself refrain from taking a critical look at wonderfully flawed works like Fahrenheit 9/11 and encourage all to accept it as 100% good and useful, mindlessly attacking those who criticize it in any way.
Lots of Americans overlooked the lies of George W. Bush, because he was popular and likable, and dissenters were branded as beyond the pale of decency. That's a tendency that most leftists know enough to criticize, but apparently not when criticism extends to what they worship. :-) -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>