I had heard of this movie for years, of course, and am a big fan of Michael Moore. Cried and cheered over Fahrenheit 9/11 and followed his other movies closely.
Our culture of violence and fear - wow.
Probably not gonna express myself real well here, but I'm going to try to get this out. Under the orange Satan squiggle, as it were.
We seem to be a culture that worships violence and bullying. And death. I don't understand it. Or maybe I do.
I watched Bowling for Columbine and was appalled at the ending - where Charlton Heston just walks away after being confronted by Michael Moore asking him why he held NRA rallies in Columbine and in Flint Michigan after the tragic shootings in each place, and suggested that maybe he owed both those places an apology.
My beloved boyfriend, lover, confidante and soulmate Patrick committed suicide in February of this year (I think this is the "Patrick" diary that I kept promising I would write). He was a really gentle soul who would never commit violence upon another person. He turned it all in upon himself. He was a lot younger than me. Younger than me enough to have his head turned by all this crap. The killer bees crap. The shark attack crap. The 24/7 9/11 fearmongering crap.
He was bipolar and suffered from depression, so I know that's what killed him, but how much of this can be blamed on this culture? He watched all this stuff and was all taken in by it. He used to watch some stupid-ass show on cable (I don't know the name and am not interested in knowing), showing all the stupid ways there are to die. He was fascinated by that. "Look Rose, here's a guy who choked on a cherry pit. Wow. Poof, one minute you're there, the next minute you're gone. Isn't that fascinating? No, fuckhead, it's not fascinating, it's gruesome, you really like that stuff? Well yeah, you don't think that's INTERESTING? NO."
He didn't use a gun. He hanged himself in his Mom's basement, and right up to the very day, hid it from me and everyone else very successfully. Except maybe I should have seen it. I knew he had this morbid fascination with death. Fed by all this crap on TV. I have tormented myself endlessly about it in the six months since then.
He was a big fan of shows like "The Deadliest Catch" etc. A little older Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, except that he would have never harmed anyone else. I don't THINK.
Well, who knows? He didn't and just took himself out and left all of us who loved him bereft and I'm left wondering how much of it is due to all that kind of crap he watched just like in the Bowling for Columbine movie.
Forget taking away guns (well no don't, but you know what I mean). Take away Fox News and cable TV. Might save a lot of lives if those pricks got their license pulled. I hold them semi-responsible for his death. Well no, I guess not. But yeah, I guess I do.