he said, she said

I swear I'm not a crazed Michael Moore fan.

I know who he his, I think I have a sense of what he's about, and I think he performs an important role in presenting information and viewpoints that aren't always heard but need to be recognized and discussed. But I've never actually seen any of his films, and having read a thing or two about Bowling for Columbine, I'd definitely approach his films with a critical eye. (more on that later)

Anyway, I think I first read about the whole hullabaloo regarding his new movie in a news article on Yahoo. Food for thought, certainly. Accusations of censorship. Troubling, to say the least. But there's also the whole business about the business of Disney; I can certainly understand the argument that as a for-profit corporation, and an entertainment company at that, that they have a vested interest in not pissing off their viewers, customers and visitors. (perhaps more on that later, too)

But there's a lot of stuff going down these days and I've been crazy busy at work and I really don't have the time or the inclination to get myself all worked up about stuff like this right now. I mean, there's that whole Abu Ghraib badness and the Bush administration's handling of it that just seems to get worse and worse as the days pass. Michael Moore getting screwed is the least of our problems. At least he has the resources to do something about it, not limited to opening it up to the media (albeit at potentially considerable expense).

But when I'm busy and stressed at work, I have been known to take breaks now and then and surf around. And on one of those days, I ended up stumbling upon this post, (er, the May 5th post here since the archives seem to not be happy at the moment) which the author originally finishes with:

"Let's not confuse the First Amendement with having standards and enforcing them."

Certainly a valid argument. But in my reading of it, her tone seemed to imply that the film was clearly a load of crap and that any claim of censorship was simply a pathetic attempt at pressuring Disney to release a film that didn't come up to snuff. I'll certainly admit that's possible; I certainly haven't seen it. Obviously, it hasn't been released yet, but has there even been a review written? I wasn't sure where the opinion came from; I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and assume it's based on historical evidence.

This movie sooo isn't important to me. I don't care. I really don't.

And yet I felt that the post had such a narrow perspective that several points (that I thought were important in understanding the issue) were ignored. Thinking about this now, I realize that what bothered me was that without the full picture, it wasn't fair. I suppose that's why my posts get so long. You burn a lot of words trying to cover all the bases.

Anyway, I thought, people might read this and think that's all there is to it. And I thought, hey, she seems like a decent person. she's a local. We must have some common ground. I ended up at her site through the bostonites webring, after all. I'm just going to post some additional, relevant information; it's not like I'm attacking her or anything. And, I mean, that's what the comment links are for, right?

But it's still weird, because you're basically talking to someone you don't know. And it's not like a newsgroup or forum where it's understood that it's a free-for-all. It's a specific response to one person's writing. It's a bit like heckling the TV or a movie, I suppose, except they can actually hear you.

So I posted a comment, and she sent a polite reply via email. I sent a response (that probably crossed a line; I really need to learn to shut up sometimes), and read her own comment response. And the follow-up (Again, if the direct link is dead, check for the May 7th post here) based on a bunch of articles (like this one) about how Moore had just pushed the censorship button as a publicity stunt. (I think I may have even suggested as much in my email.) And that was pretty much the end of it.

Until I stumbled onto Michael Moore's response, posted on his own website: [BoingBoing]

In April of 2003, I signed a deal with Miramax, a division of the Walt Disney Co., to finance and distribute my next movie, Fahrenheit 9/11. ... In my contract it is stated that Miramax will distribute my film in the U.S. through Disney's distribution arm, Buena Vista Distribution. It also gives Miramax the rights to distribute and sell the movie around the world.

A month later, after shooting started, Michael Eisner insisted on meeting with my agent, Ari Emanuel. Eisner was furious that Miramax signed this deal with me. According to Mr. Emanuel, Eisner said he would never let my film be distributed through Disney even though Mr. Eisner had not seen any footage or even read the outline of the film. ...

But Michael Eisner did not call Miramax and tell them to stop my film. Not only that, for the next year, SIX MILLION dollars of DISNEY money continued to flow into the production of making my movie. Miramax assured me that there were no distribution problems with my film.

...

Yep, you guessed it: I posted another comment.

This leads me to a couple of other things that are on my mind, but I'll end this here for now. I'll put the rest in another post to break it up a bit and give folks a chance to go take a bathroom break. ;)