Recently while watching Michael Moore's Film: Capitalism: A Love Story in class we were presented with the idea of capitalism and its effect on the middle class in America. The film showed tragic, emotionally charged stories of people who lost their homes because of inability to continue their payments. It showed individuals whose family members had been insured on by their employer under the dead peasant insurance, where they were worth a plethoric amount more to their employers dead than alive. The film also portrayed automotive workers like Michael Moore's father who were affected by the downfall of the auto industry in their town and as a result lost their well-paying jobs. Michael Moore went on to state how much capitalism has dwindled the middle class and some causes for its demise in the U.S., such as the auto industry expansion in Japan and Germany. Personally, while I do agree with some of the points made, such as voting being important, I can't take the film too seriously. It is too emotionally packed, and focuses too much on making the viewer (at least trying) feel deep emotions such as sadness, anger, frustration and then abruptly and continuously interrupts the emotive segments with straight-forward, "cut to the chase" facts. Also the major reason for why my personal indifference to the validity of the film is that it focuses largely in part on the struggles of middle class white Americans during the 20th century, but for the most part ignores the struggles of other Americans during that time. This missing history that obviously intertwined to create the conditions and results that arose, make me question his credibility as showing multiple viewpoints of the point he's trying to make. For this reason it's not a film I would recommend as being complete. Of course, there is also the consideration to be taken, that I am perhaps not Michael Moore's intended audience, but as an objective viewer who can extrapolate I don't see this film as all encompassing.
DIA--Nice job with your new entries. You are very thorough and thoughtful in your topic selection and development of significance. You are working to create authenticity and importance in your writing. Good. Keep at it.
ReplyDelete