Stupid White Men

So it's raining in London, as usual. The big decision is what to go see at the movies this afternoon. Since there is a significant lag between the release of movies in the States and their appearance on British shores, I am left deciding between Michael Moore's new film, Fahrenheit 911 and a bargain showing of blood-and-guts zombie celebration that is Dawn of the Dead.

Now if I were Michael Moore, the obvious choice might be to draw a direct line from the brain-dead, nation-destroying zombies right to the Oval Office. It is an easy comparison and Moore's gift for diatribe would lend itself well to the idea. One of the sneaky things about him is that his methods are effective. His brethren-in-arms in the political humor field have to include Al Franken, whose Lies and the Lying Liars That Tell Them was better written but less vilified than Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot. Beyond Franken, there are a ton of people ready to swing at the current administration ranging from former Clinton aide James Carville to the New York Times' heavy hitter Maureen Dowd, who will take her own Yankee-sized swing when Bushworld hits the stands later this year.
 

Yet with all this competition, not to mention a nation completely divided right down the middle by a colossal idealistic fissure, how the hell did Michael Moore not only win the Oscar, write not one but two number one bestsellers, and make the must-see film of the year? It is because Moore, to paraphrase John Hughes, paints his targets with the simplest terms and the most convenient.definitions and people eat it up. The concept is not radically different from either White House tactics or Keebler Cookie advertisements, really, but boy, does it sell.

Stupid White Men is where Michael Moore learned to shoot. If Fahrenheit 911 aims its laser focus at the Bush/Iraq target, Stupid White Men is a shotgun. Moore makes a good head start on his new favorite subject with a mind-blowing intro, "A Very American Coup," which not only lays waste to the debacle of the 2000 election but also contains a detailed list of the SWM running the nation including Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft, and Ken Lay. Wait, Ken was indicted yesterday. Well, I'm sure that will be corrected in a later edition.
 

However, Moore's attention also wanders a lot in later chapters. While the failings of the current White House are a running theme, Moore also finds time to ponder global warming, the state of the American educational system, stem cell research, and a dozen other hot-button issues. It is not that any of his conclusions are deeply flawed but there's no real passion behind them as there was even in his one-man attack on General Motors, Roger & Me.

Admittedly, there are some hilarious ideas here but about a third of the book feels a bit like filler. It is almost as if Moore cannot trust himself to be voice of pissed-off America and has to throw in a joke to offset the idea. He apparently loves sidebars because they also show up throughout Dude, Where's My Country? Sometimes they're a scream, as in the typical day in the life of "President" George Bush: "8:30 P.M. - Cheney awakens POTUS, takes him to his room, tucks him in, says good night. Co-POTUS goes downstairs and resumes plotting destruction of Planet Earth." Often, though, it's one-inch boxes comparing the drinking habits of the Bush daughters and Boris Yeltsin or "Other Water Additives I'd Like To See."
 

When he really thinks about it, though, Michael Moore does have a king-size, wickedly smart sense of humor that rivals the best of National Lampoon's glory days. One of the most controversial chapters in Stupid White Men is also one that Moore loves to read. "Kill Whitey" is among Moore's best work on paper. When Moore writes, "Didn't I notice the suspicious gangs of white people lurking on every street corner, drinking Starbucks and wearing their gang colors of Gap Turquoise or J. Crew Mauve?" and "White people scare the crap out of me," he's not preaching to the choir. In less than thirty pages, he takes apart the racial divide in America, points out its innumerable idiocies, gives a hell of a lot of hard statistical information to back up his points, and given out survival tips like "Don't Marry Whitey." It's funny, biting, accurate, and socially conscious all at the same time and doesn't cater to anybody. If Moore were this dead-on all the time…well, actually, you probably wouldn't know who he was. You get the idea.