Saturday 10 February 2007

Bowling for Columbine

Sorry I haven't posted all week. I've been stuck in a bit of an "I'm such a failure and I'm not getting anywhere" kind of funk, so obviously I haven't had anything constructive to say.

On Thursday I went into Paddington for a "featured extra" role for a student short, and boy was that frustrating. 2 hours to get there, half an hour to park, 10 minutes doing make up for.... wait for it.... 2 seconds! of shooting. It was like a montage scene of various people wearing these certain t-shirts with slogans so each of us only had to stand and look at the camera for 2 seconds and that was it.

*sigh* Definitely no more freebies for minor parts.

Anyway. Watched Bowling for Columbine a few nights ago. I'd seen bits and pieces of it before but not the whole film through. It's a powerful documentary because it raises questions, offers *possible* answer, but hinestly doesn't answer them. Michael Moore is seemingly left with no idea why the USA has so many more gun-related deaths than any other country and he's happy to admite he really doens't know. I think he just wishes some more people in power would try to figure out the answer.

The opinions of the gun owning people were pretty frustrating. It seemed that their only reason for owning several guns (as opposed to one for self defence) was "it's my right". Whcih is a really stupid reason. Of course it's your right. It's also your right to do handstands on your roof and eat your dinner off the floor... and any other number of ridiculous things, but you don't see people doing all that just because they can, do you? Nutters.

I was particularly unimpressed with Charlton Heston. The man has the sensitivity of a lump of dirt. He held NRA gun rallies in the Columbine area and in Flint, Michigan, both within weeks of very disturbing gun deaths in both places. He didn't apologise for that, nor would he admit that it was an insensitive way to treat grieving local people.

I just don't know how you can hear about a 6-year-old boy shooting one of his classmates (that's what happened in Flint), and still think that it's okay to have guns in a family home. The idea of everyone having a gun is just so foreign to me that I can't comprehend the thinking behind it.

Anyway sorry, I wasn't going to start ranting about guns n stuff.

Bowling for Columbine was an awesome doco and I'm glad Moore made it. I only wish someone could find the sense and the answers in all those questions.

2 comments:

Connor said...

Flint, Michigan. Home sweet home. :)

Anyway, I liked Columbine and almost always agree with Moore's argument. I wish he wasn't so manipulative in the way he makes it. Like giving firearms deaths as a raw number instead of per capita. It feels deceptive, and a per capita number would still make his argument. Grrr.

I liked the moment with Manson, though.

Sumara said...

I thought of you, Connor, with the bit about Flint. Now I see why you're so passionate about Flint and it's leaders and social issues.

I also wondered about a per capita number of gun deaths, and I agree that he's pretty manipulative, but on the other hand he at least doesn't try to state a definitive answer, so that made the manipulation seem not as bad.

Marilyn Manson really impressed me! He's very thoughtful and eloquent - which I'm ashamed to admit surprised me because all I knew of him was the "evil" image that the media has given him. It provoked me to look further into his music and figure out what he's really all about... that's on the to-do list.