Bowling For Columbine Documentary Analysis

Bowling for columbine is a biased, deceptive and misleading documentary created by Michael Moore, detailing how gun legislation is the main cause for crime in America. Documentary is an undeserved title that Moore has falsely claimed, as stated in Farlex dictionary, a documentary is, and I quote, “Presenting facts objectively without editorializing or inserting fictional matter”, which Moore has consistently done. Good afternoon, my name is Tim Geldard, and I am a spokesperson for the NRA, protector of the American people and her interests.
Michael Moore creates an unrealistic, untrue recount of past and currents events. He doesn’t just do this by editing advertisements to warp its purpose. He doesn’t just do this by adding subtitles wherever
he wants, and he certainly doesn’t do this just by staging entire scenes to suit his own purpose. No, these are just minor examples of the strategies he uses to twist real events to suit his invited reading. He does this to such a degree, that their original message is lost beneath the misrepresentations, inaccurate statistics and poor acting. He uses emotions to position viewers, and creates gaps and silences to mislead the audience.
Moore creates lies by warping the truth. He does this by hinting towards something, but never actually stating it, therefore not technically lying, just not correcting a misguided belief. Evidence of this is six minutes in when James Nichols is introduced. Background information is selectively chosen early in that insinuates that he was a terrorist bomber, therefore already discrediting his opinion. Information such as his relatives being convicted of bombings is especially featured, followed by the statement “but the goods were never found on James”. This suggests that James was in fact involved in the bombings, but just not convicted. For all we know he could be a law abiding citizen who had absolutely nothing to do with any terrorist activities, yet Moore twists this information to position the reader to assume a misguided belief, and therefore discrediting any opposing opinions that James may express. This is clearly an example of how Moore creates an untruth by using assumptions. He knows you can be right a million times, but you only need to be wrong once, so the only times he gives an opposing side of the story, he discredits them by associating them with a characteristic that is negatively viewed by the audience.
Through the use of emotion, Michael Moore is able to position the reader to accept the invited reading. He uses music and imagery to effectively persuade the audience to agree with what he is representing. This is shown at around 34 minutes in, when an emotional insight into the columbine shootings is shown. These facts were true, but somewhat exaggerated by the music, and amount of sadness present. Michael Moore knew that emotion clouded judgment. And he used it. Directly following a very emotional part where students are describing the horrible things they witnessed during the columbine shootings, the video cuts to Charlton Heston, head of the NRA holding and a rifle in the air and saying “I have five words for you. From my cold, dead hands”. This positions the reader to associate Charlton Heston with an arrogance and very cavalier attitude towards the columbine shootings. To further position the viewer, Michael Moore continues to say that an NRA rally was held in Denver just 10 days after the shootings. This is evidence of how Michael Moore positions the viewer using emotion.
Finally, Moore uses gaps and silences that create a biased view of the truth.
He leaves out critical information which would otherwise change the outcome entirely. Several examples are present in his documentary, such as when Moore suggests that America is the only one that has had a massacre in the ten years before it was made. Just three years before Bowling for Columbine was created, a man in Britain drove around town with a shotgun for two hours, killing anyone he drove past, before eventually shooting himself. This is just one tiny example of a barrage if invalid “truths”. One major one is when Charlton Heston is making one of his speeches to the rally in Denver. Michael plays on the fact that it was just 10 days after the columbine shootings, and hints that Charlton Heston just didn’t care, and went there anyway. This representation, of course, is not true. Critical information is left out such as the fact that instead of staying there for nine days with dinners, shooting contests and festivals, they held only the rally, and left. Also, by law the NRA must hold an annual rally, and this one had been booked years in advance. But that begs the question, why didn’t they postpone, cancel or even move it? This at least has a simple answer. Again by law the NRA has to give at least 10 days notice for any changes to the rally, therefore making it illegal to change the date or place. Charlton Heston simply had no choice to hold the rally. Also, to further show how wrongly Moore portrays the NRA, the clip shown after that columbine shootings where Heston says “from my cold dead hands” was actually taken a year after the columbine shootings, hundreds of miles away from Denver. Michael then cuts in extracts from the speech made in Denver to make it look like the whole scene happened at one
time.
Michael Moore uses several tactics to misguide his audience. He falsifies events so that his truth becomes the truth. He uses emotion, gaps and silences, and one sided views to convince the audience to agree with him. The documentary Bowling for Columbine by Michael Moore, is not just biased, it is downright deceitful.