Photoshopped Diversity

If you’re a designer or otherwise work in graphic arts, take note: This is wrong. Like, really, really wrong.

Wow!

Analysis of "Fahrenheit 9/11"

Michael Moore is not a big fan of former president George W. Bush. At least that’s the feeling I came away with when I recently revisited his unashamedly anti-Bush film, Fahrenheit 9/11. This political documentary, released in 2004, serves as a treatise against the Bush administration, and highlights what Moore sees as governmental corruption and disinformation by the former president and his staff in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorism attacks, and in the lead up to the American invasion of Iraq. At the time of its release, Fahrenheit 9/11 was a critical success, sparking widespread debate about the United States’ involvement in Iraq and raising public outcry against Bush administration policies. But how was Moore able to have such a profound impact on the public with such a subversive film?

Moore pulls no punches in Fahrenheit 9/11, and as a result, the film serves as a cultural forum from which the general public is introduced to ideas that would otherwise be suppressed in mainstream media (Newcomb & Hirsch, 1983). Although Todd Gitlin (1979) suggested that counter-culture ideas might be contained or domesticated in television texts, his theory is also applicable to the big screen. While many directors might try to temper their texts in order to appeal to a larger demographic, Moore chooses an altogether different path. Instead of domesticating his abrasive message, Moore intercuts the graphic violence of real war-zone footage with formal White House dinners to produce gut-level reactions. These connotations and allusions are meant to highlight the brutality of war and the perceived indifference of America’s former leaders.

When the film was released in 2004, America was at war, public consent was still mostly on the side of the Bush administration, and people were afraid of a repeat terrorist attack. Considering the social climate at that time, Moore’s film should not have found such a receptive audience in the U.S. However, he was able to use narrative and semiological strategies to covey his ideologies to an otherwise unreceptive audience. By juxtaposing iconic symbols and video montages of former President Bush against grisly war scenes and emotional personal interviews, Moore develops a number of second order meanings for corruption and greed, and ends up helping the viewer relate to his message. He first builds rapport with his audience and then gradually introduces his own ideologies. He does this by relying on the established documentary film genre to draw his viewers in and create an aura of credibility. He then subverts the genre with a heavily biased presentation of his own political ideology.

According to Jonathan Gray, “Genres depend on receptive audiences who are willing to grant credibility to the conventions of the genre to the extent that those conventions become invisible” (2006, pg. 28). Moore used the established generic format of the documentary because he realized that his viewers would consciously and unconsciously group his text with other documentary texts that they had seen before. As a result, he was able to smoothly integrate ideological messages into the established documentary format. Because people use generic conventions to make sense of other texts (Gray, 2006), viewers of Fahrenheit 9/11 might have come into the film expecting an objective documentary portrayal of events. However, genres are cultural categories that are subject to change and redefinition. Moore used his audience's preconceptions and understandings of the genre to his advantage, and introduced highly discordant material into his film, thus redefining the political documentary.

Was it all just a dream? That’s the question Moore asks at the beginning of Fahrenheit 9/11 in response to George W. Bush’s defeat of Al Gore in the 2000 Presidential election. In the scenes thereafter Moore intercuts shots of various news agencies misreporting Al Gore’s presumed victory in Florida and their embarrassed retractions that George W. Bush had actually won. Moore’s intent is to portray the national media as foolish and unreliable, and to get the audience in a cynical frame of mind. A semiotic analysis of Moore’s work further reveals that he very carefully chose all of his shots from a large set of possible options (paradigms) and arranged those shots, sometimes deceptively, in a very particular (syntagmatic) way so as to convey a specific ideology.

One of the most effective paradigmatic choices Moore makes isn’t seen, but rather heard early in the film. After a series of shots with voiceover describing Bush as a lame duck president, Moore suggestively asks the audience what could salvage Bush’s first term in office. Moore then cuts to a black screen. For nearly two minutes there is no image on the screen, but the background sounds are instantly recognizable: loud explosions, wailing sirens, screaming people, news reports of aircraft hitting the World Trade Center and weeping women. By using only sound, Moore deftly manipulates his audience, forcing them to relive the tragic events of 9/11 in their own minds. This paradigmatic choice is chillingly effective. The first time I watched this film I actually remember seeing people crying in the theater when the screen slowly faded back to scenes from ground zero. Their personal recollections of that horrible day were undoubtedly more painful than anything Moore could have shown them on the screen.

The aforementioned sequence masterfully sets the emotional stage for Moore's ensuing tirade against Bush, and serves as a kernel (or major plot point) for the entire film. As we learned in class, the narrative choices that the producer makes in presenting his ideology suggest an implied viewer. By examining the characters, settings, kernels and satellites (minor plot points), we can determine who the implied viewers are. By introducing the events of 9/11 as the focal point of his film, Moore’s implied viewers are people who were negatively impacted by the events of 9/11, and those who feel like the government didn’t do enough to prevent the terrorist attacks.

Since the events of 9/11 serve as a catalyst for everything else in the film, Moore introduces satellite story arcs to develop the plot and further his message. One such satellite is an interview with Marine Corporal Abdul Henderson. Corporal Henderson claims that after serving in Iraq, he realized that the Bush administration had lied to Americans about why troops were sent there. Henderson reveals to Moore that he would refuse to go back to Iraq if he were reactivated. This exchange, though brief, sets the scene for Moore’s guerilla street operation to stop congress members and have them sign their children up for military service.

Editing is the most dominant weapon in Moore’s arsenal. It’s obvious from Moore’s syntagmatic decisions that suppressing the audience’s realization of authorship is secondary to creating very strong signifieds from signs. For example, Moore highlights the buffoonery of the national press by juxtaposing a shot of a distraught Iraqi woman who has just lost her family to an American bombing attack against a bubble-gum chewing Brittany Spears who says she thinks that Americans should “just trust our president” during a CNN interview. This syntagmatic editing decision is obviously aimed at showing the viewer how out of tune the American people, and to some extent the national press, were with the state of affairs in Iraq. Another edit shows masked insurgents hoisting their weapons in the air as the lyrics to “The Roof is on Fire” play in the background. American soldiers interviewed by Moore admitted that they had listened to this same song, with the lyrics “Come on party people, throw your hands in the air” as they drove their tanks into Baghdad and “blew stuff up.” Again, this is not a very subtle allusion.

Perhaps the most effective editing sequence in the movie is the scene where President Bush lands aboard an aircraft carrier to announce the end of major combat operations in Iraq. Moore sarcastically plays the theme song from 1970s sitcom “The Greatest American Hero” to underscore the absurdity of Bush’s remarks. However, the real punch from the scene comes right as Bush announces “Mission Accomplished”. The scene immediately jump cuts from a shot of the Mission Accomplished sign on the ship to a shot of two soldiers on patrol in Iraq right as an improvised explosive device explodes and knocks one of them to the ground. Moore is using syntagmatic choices and strategic editing to assign a new meaning to the Mission Accomplished sign. Now, instead of simply being a sign that denotes an accomplished mission, it stands for a failed military strategy and the arrogance of American's leaders.

The movie ends with Bush’s paraphrased quote of “fool me once…” after which Moore quips, “For once we agreed.” Fahrenheit 9/11 had a lasting effect on the social consciousness and led to a convergence of politically targeted documentary films. This highlights the participatory culture that Jenkins describes in his book (2007, pg. 24). As the Internet culture evolves, audiences are demanding the right to participate in media culture and are pulling together to produce answers and solutions (Jenkins, 2007). Fans of the film connected through the Internet and created similar texts that criticized the Bush administration. One such fan-film “Loose Change”, built upon Moore’s idea that large corporations actually benefited from 9/11 by postiting a government conspiricy and cover-up. Unfortunately for Moore, these fan films weren’t able to rally enough support to force Bush out of office or prevent his reelection. However, many of the fan films were released online and received widespread recognition. Their messages, inspired by Moore, continue to influence popular culture today.

References

Gitlin, T. (1979). Prime time ideology: The hegemonic process in prime time television. Social Problems, 26(3), 251-266.

Gray, J. (2006). Watching with The Simpsons: Television, parody, and intertextuality. New York: Routledge.

Jenkins, H. (2007). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York: NYU Press.

Newcomb, H., & Hirsch, P. (1983). Television as a cultural forum: implications for research. Quarterly Review of Film Studies, 45-55.

When Man Plays God

I have been researching cults for a paper I'm writing, and came across an organization that has played a pivotal (read: negative) role in my perspective on and perception of religion, and Christianity in general. I wanted to provide a central resource area for information that I've gathered during the course of my investigation about Maranatha Christian Ministries. The previous links and those below are some of the sources I have found useful. Sorry for the short, URL-filled, post, but I'm pressed for time today. I'll undoubtedly elaborate much further on this subject in the future.

http://www.rickross.com/reference/maranatha/maranatha3.html
http://lisatrust.bogie.nl/Media/general-maranatha.htm
http://www.religionnewsblog.com/17055/a-statement-of-evaluation-regarding-maranatha-campus-ministriesmaranatha-christian-ministriesmaranatha-christian-church

What Does $787B Buy?

Oh wow! The President just signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Do you actually have any idea what that means? Where is your $787 billion going? If you're feeling left out of the loop for not having read the legislation you're not alone. There are certainly plenty of people complaining about Congress' lack of transparency. It would be refreshing to hear some intelligent discussion about certain aspects of this enormous expenditure rather than the litany of generalities being thrown about, but that requires an informed public. How are we supposed to make an informed decision about a landmark bill whose 1100+ pages were not disclosed until hours before its passage? Worry now.

One Ping Only

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Fear the Veeper

How awesome will it be to have someone with Gov. Sarah Palin's experience one heartbeat from the presidency. I'm stoked. The video below gives a pretty good idea of where Palin is coming from.

American Veteran Magazine

The Summer 2008 issue of American Veteran Magazine is fresh off the press and available online. This issue features interviews with Gary Sinise and AMVETS' new ARCA stock car driver as well as a special section detailing AMVETS education and scholarship programs. More information is available about these stories on AMVETS homepage .

Also of interest in the current magazine are letters that rebutt the critical reviews recieved last issue concerning Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) appearing in the Winter 2007 issue. As the editor, I address these comments and answer other questions in my American Veteran letters section.

We're continue to work on our Web site overhaul. We will continue to add additional content to the online magazine as work on the site continues. Enjoy.