Zeitgeist

[Dylflon]

You do know that there are documentaries that don't do what Michael Moore does, right?

I meant that Michael Moore is like Fox News in that he isn't there to look at something even handedly, but rather to propagate one set of ideas or values. This is what Fox News was created to do as well. This is essentially the main point of a documentary called Outfoxed.

Although you (Professor) might say that it's not valid because whoever made that documentary probably is doing the same thing Michael Moore does and then everything would come in a full ironic circle.

I'm not trying to argue with you about Michael Moore or his documentaries. While I do agree with some of his ideas, I don't necessarily agree with how he presents them through distortion of reality.

Mainly, what I was trying to say was that you can't claim that all documentaries are ruined because of one dude. Because frankly, that's silly. There are amazing documentaries made every year that present their subjects fairly and in a thought provoking manner.

Saying (or insinuating) that no documentaries are good because of Michael Moore is like saying all comedies are bad because the Wayans keep producing spoof movies every year or all action films are bad because of Steven Segal films, or that all dramas are bad because Atonement was really boring.


P.S. I never get why you bother defending Fox News. I mean, really.

[Professor S]

Ok, I will qualify my answer:

The Michael Moore documentary style dominates the artform culturally and financially, but there are other documentaries out there that no one watches or cares about.

To say my comments are silly because I ignore films that no one knows about and affect nothing culturally is quibbling over small points. The point is that Michael Moore changed the documentary artform for the worse and elevated bias over substance. If you want to argue that there are other documentaries out there, fine, I concede that meaningless fact.

And I don't defend Fox News, in fact I concede that they are biased, I only give a fair comparison to other news sources that seem to avoid your poison pen. MSNBC is far more biased that FoxNews ever was for the reasons I stated above. Fox News gives the opposition (which is non-stated admission of bias) a forum, and other news sources such as MSNBC do not. Thats not defending Fox News, I'm simply clarifying things because of people's omission of context.

For the record, I think CNN is the closest to being even handed right now, and I think much of that is owed to the rise of Anderson Cooper.