http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/wackoattacko/
How to Deal with the Lies and the Lying Liars When They Lie about "Bowling for Columbine"
by Michael Moore
One thing you get used to when you're in what's called "the public eye" is reading the humorous fiction that others like to write about you. For instance, I have read in quite respectable and trustworthy publications that a) I'm a college graduate (I'm not), b) I was a factory worker (I quit the first day), and c) I have two brothers (I have none). Newsweek wrote that I live in a penthouse on Central Park West (I live above a Baby Gap store, and not on any park), and the Internet Movie Database once listed me as the director of the Elvis movie, "Blue Hawaii" ( I was 6 at the time the film was made, but I was quite skilled in directing my sisters in building me a snowman). Lately, my favorite mistake is the one many reviewers made crediting the cartoon in "Bowling for Columbine" as being the work of the "South Park" creators. It isn't. I wrote it and my buddy Harold Moss's animation studio drew it.
I've enjoyed reading these inventions/mistakes about this "Michael Moore." I mean, who wouldn't want to fantasize about living in penthouses roughhousing with brothers you never had. But lately I've begun to see so many things about me or my work that aren't true. It's become so easy to spread these fictions through the internet (thanks mostly to lazy reporters or web junkies who do all their research by typing in "key words" and then just repeat the same mistakes). And so I wonder that if I don't correct the record, then all of the people who don't know better may just end up being filled with a bunch of stuff that isn't true.
Of course, it would take a lot of my time to contact all these sites and media outlets to correct their errors and I think it's more important I spend my time on my next book or movie so I just let it ride. But is that fair to you, the reader, who has now been told something that isn't true?
With the unexpected and overwhelming success of "Bowling for Columbine" and "Stupid White Men," the fiction that has been written or spoken about me and my work has reached a whole new level of storytelling. It's no longer about making some simple errors or calling me "Roger" Moore. It is now about organized groups going full blast trying to discredit me by knowingly making up lies and repeating them over and over in the hopes that people will believe them ? and, then, stop listening to me.
Oh, that it would be so easy!
Fortunately, they are so wound up in their anger and hatred that they have ended up discrediting themselves.
Look, I accept the fact that, if I go after the Thief-in-Chief ? and more people buy my book than any other nonfiction book last year ? then that is naturally going to send a few of his henchmen after me. Fine. That's okay. I knew that before I got into this and I ain't whining about it now.
I also realize that you just don't go after the NRA and its supporters and then not expect them to come back at you with both barrels (so to speak). These are not nice people and they don't play nice ? that's how they got to be so powerful.
So, a whole host of gun lobby groups and individual gun nuts have put up websites where the smears on me range from the pre-adolescent (I'm a "crapweasel," and a "fat fucking piece of shit") to Orwellian-style venom ("Michael Moore hates America!").
I have mostly ignored this silliness. But a few weeks ago, this lunatic crap hit the mainstream fan. CNN actually put some guy on a show saying that my film contains "so many falsehoods, one after the other, after the other, after the other." They introduced him as a "critic" and "research director" of the "Independence Institute." He seemed mighty impressive.
Except they failed to tell their viewers who he really was: a contributing editor of Gun Week Magazine.
CNN saw no need to inform the viewers that their "expert"-- who has made a career out of opposing any form of gun control?has a vested interest in convincing the public that "Bowling for Columbine" is a horribly rotten movie.
So, what do you do when the nutcases succeed in getting on CNN? Do you just keep ignoring them? How do you handle people who say the Holocaust never happened or that monkeys fly? Ignore them and they'll go away? If you give them any attention, all the nuts will come out of the woodwork.
And that's what happened. I saw another one of these lunatics, this time on MSNBC. A guy named John Lofton. He went on and on about how my movie is all made up. The anchor on MSNBC never challenged him on his lies and never told the viewers who he really was ? a right wing crazy who believes Bush is too liberal. He was once an advisor to Pat Buchanan's Presidential campaign, and was a direct-mail writer for Jesse Helms. Writing in opposition to Hate Crime bills in the conservative Washington Times (where he was a columnist from '83 to '89), Lofton explained:
Take, for example, this business of so-called "anti-gay violence." This bill will be used to go after only those who commit crimes against people because they are homosexuals. But this is not the most pernicious form of "anti-gay violence." Not by a long shot.
The most violent - indeed fatal 100 percent of the time - form of "anti-gay violence" has been committed not by so-called "homophobes" who bash homosexuals - but by male homosexuals and bisexuals against other male bisexuals and homosexuals.
To date, tens of thousands of male bisexual and homosexual men are dead in our country because of AIDS, because they engaged in high-risk homosexual sex.
Is this not "anti-gay violence" which numbers its victims far beyond anything any "homophobes" have done?
Well, I figured I better deal with this because the nutters were now being turned into "respectable critics" by a media that either had an agenda or were just plain lazy.
So, how crazy are the things they've said about "Bowling for Columbine?" Here are my favorites:
"That scene where you got the gun in the bank was staged!"
Well of course it was staged! It's a movie! We built the "bank" as a set and then I hired actors to play the bank tellers and the manager and we got a toy gun from the prop department and then I wrote some really cool dialogue for me and them to say! Pretty neat, huh?
Or...
The Truth: In the spring of 2001, I saw a real ad in a real newspaper in Michigan announcing a real promotion that this real bank had where they would give you a gun (as your up-front interest) for opening up a Certificate of Deposit account. They promoted this in publications all over the country ? "More Bang for Your Buck!"
There was news coverage of this bank giving away guns, long before I even shot the scene there. The Chicago Sun Times wrote about how the bank would "hand you a gun" with the purchase of a CD. Those are the precise words used by a bank employee in the film.
When you see me going in to the bank and walking out with my new gun in "Bowling for Columbine" ? that is exactly as it happened. Nothing was done out of the ordinary other than to phone ahead and ask permission to let me bring a camera in to film me opening up my account. I walked into that bank in northern Michigan for the first time ever on that day in June 2001, and, with cameras rolling, gave the bank teller $1,000 ? and opened up a 20-year CD account. After you see me filling out the required federal forms ("How do you spell Caucasian?") ? which I am filling out here for the first time ? the bank manager faxed it to the bank's main office for them to do the background check. The bank is a licensed federal arms dealer and thus can have guns on the premises and do the instant background checks (the ATF's Federal Firearms database?which includes all federally approved gun dealers?lists North Country Bank with Federal Firearms License #4-38-153-01-5C-39922).
end part 1.
How to Deal with the Lies and the Lying Liars When They Lie about "Bowling for Columbine"
by Michael Moore
One thing you get used to when you're in what's called "the public eye" is reading the humorous fiction that others like to write about you. For instance, I have read in quite respectable and trustworthy publications that a) I'm a college graduate (I'm not), b) I was a factory worker (I quit the first day), and c) I have two brothers (I have none). Newsweek wrote that I live in a penthouse on Central Park West (I live above a Baby Gap store, and not on any park), and the Internet Movie Database once listed me as the director of the Elvis movie, "Blue Hawaii" ( I was 6 at the time the film was made, but I was quite skilled in directing my sisters in building me a snowman). Lately, my favorite mistake is the one many reviewers made crediting the cartoon in "Bowling for Columbine" as being the work of the "South Park" creators. It isn't. I wrote it and my buddy Harold Moss's animation studio drew it.
I've enjoyed reading these inventions/mistakes about this "Michael Moore." I mean, who wouldn't want to fantasize about living in penthouses roughhousing with brothers you never had. But lately I've begun to see so many things about me or my work that aren't true. It's become so easy to spread these fictions through the internet (thanks mostly to lazy reporters or web junkies who do all their research by typing in "key words" and then just repeat the same mistakes). And so I wonder that if I don't correct the record, then all of the people who don't know better may just end up being filled with a bunch of stuff that isn't true.
Of course, it would take a lot of my time to contact all these sites and media outlets to correct their errors and I think it's more important I spend my time on my next book or movie so I just let it ride. But is that fair to you, the reader, who has now been told something that isn't true?
With the unexpected and overwhelming success of "Bowling for Columbine" and "Stupid White Men," the fiction that has been written or spoken about me and my work has reached a whole new level of storytelling. It's no longer about making some simple errors or calling me "Roger" Moore. It is now about organized groups going full blast trying to discredit me by knowingly making up lies and repeating them over and over in the hopes that people will believe them ? and, then, stop listening to me.
Oh, that it would be so easy!
Fortunately, they are so wound up in their anger and hatred that they have ended up discrediting themselves.
Look, I accept the fact that, if I go after the Thief-in-Chief ? and more people buy my book than any other nonfiction book last year ? then that is naturally going to send a few of his henchmen after me. Fine. That's okay. I knew that before I got into this and I ain't whining about it now.
I also realize that you just don't go after the NRA and its supporters and then not expect them to come back at you with both barrels (so to speak). These are not nice people and they don't play nice ? that's how they got to be so powerful.
So, a whole host of gun lobby groups and individual gun nuts have put up websites where the smears on me range from the pre-adolescent (I'm a "crapweasel," and a "fat fucking piece of shit") to Orwellian-style venom ("Michael Moore hates America!").
I have mostly ignored this silliness. But a few weeks ago, this lunatic crap hit the mainstream fan. CNN actually put some guy on a show saying that my film contains "so many falsehoods, one after the other, after the other, after the other." They introduced him as a "critic" and "research director" of the "Independence Institute." He seemed mighty impressive.
Except they failed to tell their viewers who he really was: a contributing editor of Gun Week Magazine.
CNN saw no need to inform the viewers that their "expert"-- who has made a career out of opposing any form of gun control?has a vested interest in convincing the public that "Bowling for Columbine" is a horribly rotten movie.
So, what do you do when the nutcases succeed in getting on CNN? Do you just keep ignoring them? How do you handle people who say the Holocaust never happened or that monkeys fly? Ignore them and they'll go away? If you give them any attention, all the nuts will come out of the woodwork.
And that's what happened. I saw another one of these lunatics, this time on MSNBC. A guy named John Lofton. He went on and on about how my movie is all made up. The anchor on MSNBC never challenged him on his lies and never told the viewers who he really was ? a right wing crazy who believes Bush is too liberal. He was once an advisor to Pat Buchanan's Presidential campaign, and was a direct-mail writer for Jesse Helms. Writing in opposition to Hate Crime bills in the conservative Washington Times (where he was a columnist from '83 to '89), Lofton explained:
Take, for example, this business of so-called "anti-gay violence." This bill will be used to go after only those who commit crimes against people because they are homosexuals. But this is not the most pernicious form of "anti-gay violence." Not by a long shot.
The most violent - indeed fatal 100 percent of the time - form of "anti-gay violence" has been committed not by so-called "homophobes" who bash homosexuals - but by male homosexuals and bisexuals against other male bisexuals and homosexuals.
To date, tens of thousands of male bisexual and homosexual men are dead in our country because of AIDS, because they engaged in high-risk homosexual sex.
Is this not "anti-gay violence" which numbers its victims far beyond anything any "homophobes" have done?
Well, I figured I better deal with this because the nutters were now being turned into "respectable critics" by a media that either had an agenda or were just plain lazy.
So, how crazy are the things they've said about "Bowling for Columbine?" Here are my favorites:
"That scene where you got the gun in the bank was staged!"
Well of course it was staged! It's a movie! We built the "bank" as a set and then I hired actors to play the bank tellers and the manager and we got a toy gun from the prop department and then I wrote some really cool dialogue for me and them to say! Pretty neat, huh?
Or...
The Truth: In the spring of 2001, I saw a real ad in a real newspaper in Michigan announcing a real promotion that this real bank had where they would give you a gun (as your up-front interest) for opening up a Certificate of Deposit account. They promoted this in publications all over the country ? "More Bang for Your Buck!"
There was news coverage of this bank giving away guns, long before I even shot the scene there. The Chicago Sun Times wrote about how the bank would "hand you a gun" with the purchase of a CD. Those are the precise words used by a bank employee in the film.
When you see me going in to the bank and walking out with my new gun in "Bowling for Columbine" ? that is exactly as it happened. Nothing was done out of the ordinary other than to phone ahead and ask permission to let me bring a camera in to film me opening up my account. I walked into that bank in northern Michigan for the first time ever on that day in June 2001, and, with cameras rolling, gave the bank teller $1,000 ? and opened up a 20-year CD account. After you see me filling out the required federal forms ("How do you spell Caucasian?") ? which I am filling out here for the first time ? the bank manager faxed it to the bank's main office for them to do the background check. The bank is a licensed federal arms dealer and thus can have guns on the premises and do the instant background checks (the ATF's Federal Firearms database?which includes all federally approved gun dealers?lists North Country Bank with Federal Firearms License #4-38-153-01-5C-39922).
end part 1.
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