Tuesday 8 September 2009

Capitalism: A Love Story

Darkness fell upon the room and the chatter subsided to a low whisper. The curtains stirred and then slowly drew back to reveal a large, hairy figure stood before us. A distant memory flickered fleetingly in the depths of my mind. Slowly, the realisation dawned that a vision from our past had finally returned, searching for new victims to devour as the thing before us stepped out of the half-shadow and prepared to launch yet another onslaught onto its unsuspecting prey.
Well, this was only a trailer but those three minutes gave a wonderful taster of what to expect.
Armed with his trademark megaphone, cap and large belly, Michael Moore is back and the chubby champion of the left is aiming his fire this time at those that tread the path of Capitalism and who brought the entire system to the very edge of ruin last year.
As much as i admire Mr Moore, i would be the first to admit that he isn't the best of this type of film maker out there and his style is crude and confrontational but he does have a wonderful knack of getting beneath the skin and hitting the right buttons of those he sets out to demonise.
As my views are pretty much in line with Michael Moore's, i am very happy to see him making the top banana's uncomfortable even though i would like to see him adopt a more considered style that sees him pose some difficult questions to his victims rather than just be bundled out the door and then heckle them from the pavement outside.
The right wing will set out to belittle him and whatever proof he holds up of a corrupt capitalist system because they see the danger in his ability to reach a large global audience, and they hate that because it gets people talking and shines a light on things that they would prefer were kept hidden.
The one strand of the film that i think will make an impact is the little reported story of the privatised youth detention centre, run with the help of a local judge who was found guilty of wrongly convicting 6500 children for minor transgressions, for a cut of the profits.
We need people like Michael Moore inflicting pain with shocking stories like this and i say long may he continue brandishing his megaphone in anger at the deserving.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

The previous comment provides me with little economic insight. As far as I'm concerned they could have kept it to themselves...

q

Falling on a bruise said...

It's just a bunch of links written in Russian. Probably links to vodka sites.

Nog said...

or spam, viruses, and pornography...

Anonymous said...

Lucy,

mr moore doesn't do things for the "deserving" (i'll come back to this)... he does things to create wealth for himself... he just uses the so called "deserving"...

now, what makes a person "deserving"? i think helpless or desperate would be better adjectives... deserving implies that they are "owed" something... none of us are owed anything...

q

Falling on a bruise said...

I would say that the people resonsible for the economic mess are 'deserving' of being heckled. Just happens that this heckler is a loud mouthed gentleman wearing a baseball cap and a lot of cinema screens to show it on.

Anonymous said...

lucy,

you could say the heckler is an ass in this case...

q