Less is Moore

Less is Moore : "Michael Moore should know. He is a master of fiction, which extends to himself. He is the capitalist anti-capitalist who has used books, the internet, television, film and, above all, a brutal wit, to become a master propagandist, clown prince, and de facto leader of the American anti-war movement. He is also generating the fierce distaste that flows to all propagandists when their manipulation of the message is revealed.
Moore's moral universe is in large part an illusion. The bedrock of his public persona is the carefully nurtured image that he is a knockabout, blue-collar guy from a blue-collar family who grew up in a quintessentially blue-collar town, Flint, Michigan, an industrial city since screwed by the giant corporations he despises.

Problem: Moore is not from Flint. He is from Davison, Michigan. The two places are not far apart, but the social distance between them is considerable. It would be like Moore moving the postcode of his formative years a couple of kilometres from Woollahra to Redfern. Small distance, huge difference. Flint is working class, industrial, down-at-heel, where the majority of the population is black or Latino. It's where the factories are."


Paul Sheehan