Andrew Sullivan fleshes out a theme we wrote on yesterday, comparing Passion of the Christ to Fahrenheit 9/11, and since he’s seen both he has the gory details:
One was designed for the unthinking hordes of the far right; the other for the unthinking hordes of the far left. Both were deeply depressing indicators of how far our culture has curdled into unthought and emotional extremism. Neither sought to convert or explain or persuade. Both were designed to bludgeon the viewer into ideological conformity. And if you resist? You are a heretic or a dupe.
Seeing the intense emotional reactions to these movies – and especially Moore’s – I begin to understand what it must have been like to live in Germany or Japan in the 1930s. Angry mobs whipped up into an emotional frenzy by a manipulator who presses all the hot buttons, blaming their economic conditions on insidious cabals, and offering salvation and free stuff to all who will check their intellects at the door. Scary stuff, and where will it end?
I saw a movie last night that should be a double-bill with Fahrenheit, Shattered Glass. It’s the story of infamous journalistic con-man Stephen Glass who fooled some of the most prestigious organs of the elite liberal press a few years ago into publishing an increasingly bizarre series of fabricated articles.
Michael Moore is Stephen Glass with a camera.
(Sullivan link via Jeff Jarvis)