Bowling For Columbine

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Bowling for Columbine, a film by Michael Moore tries to bring some very

important points to the foreground of American culture and to some degree succeeds,

however, by manipulating different things in this movie it makes it hard for me to totally

agree with what he has to say. One point Mr. Moore and I do agree on is that racism,

specifically against African American males is still very alive in America. Also, I agree

that the media tries to find a quick and easy scapegoat to place the blame on because it is

easier than to actually deal with the bigger picture. However, I do not agree with his

portrayal of the NRA as a bunch of crazy insensitive people carrying around guns and not

caring about the feelings of mourning families. Mr. Moore does a good job of

manipulating things to make people believe what he wants then to believe

In the movie Bowling for Columbine, Michael Moore points out that the NRA

holds rallies shortly after gun related incidents including Columbine and in Flint

Michigan. However, according to David T. Hardy, Moore deceives the readers with

clever editing and fabrication. According to Mr. Hardy, the speech the NRA President

Charlton Heston gives is completely edited to fit Moore's persona of the NRA being a

group of insensitive gun touting maniacs. This is not true because the meeting held in

Denver was a scheduled meeting planned years in advance and all meeting, lunches,

seminars and all other events were cancelled in respect for the mourning families and

victims. Even Moore's point that Heston said," From my cold dead hands" is false, that

was actually spoken a year later in North Carolina and was in gratitude for Mr. Hesto...

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... given into

a culture of fear that the media has constantly feed to us every time we turn on the

television.

In conclusion, this movie does an adequate job of bringing some big issues of

American culture to the foreground. However, the portrayal of the NRA and Charlton

Heston is way to far fetched for me to agree with, especially since he splices together

different events to make them seem like they happened at the same time. I will agree

with him that as a culture there still is racism in everyday America and it needs to be

addressed. Another point he makes which I agree on the idea but not his presentation is

that our culture always tries to find a scapegoat to ever tragedy we have. This movie is

well constructed but Moore's manipulation of his points makes my respect for him as a

serious filmmaker decrease even more

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