"Why
are people scared?" This question lies at the heart of Bowling
for Columbine, Michael Moore's filmic essay on gun violence
in the United States. Taking Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold's 1999
assault on their classmates and teachers at Columbine High School
as a point of departure, the documentary considers a range of
contexts -- legal, cultural, political and media -- in order to
complicate this profound and difficult question. That it comes
up with no simple answers is to its credit.
At first glance, the reasons for fear seem numerous and overwhelming:
Images of violence pervade U.S. media (news, fiction, videogames,
etc.); ideals of masculinity are premised on aggression and possession;
guns are readily available, as well as a "right" granted
by the Second Amendment.
Moore's film notes each of these reasons, yet argues that they
don't constitute definitive answers. In fact, Bowling for Columbine,
the first documentary in competition at Cannes in 46 years, and
awarded a special 55th anniversary jury prize, offers up yet another
possible, disconcerting, and compelling reason, one that has not
been privileged in its promotional campaign: Race and racism continue
to divide and frighten Americans.
Partway through the documentary, Moore offers up an animated "Brief
History of the United States of America," by Harold Moss
of Flickerlab, which outlines the ways that racial fear has shaped
U.S. sensibility. The story goes, briefly, like this: Pilgrims
cross the Atlantic to escape persecution; in the New World, they
run into scary Native Americans whom they proceed to massacre.
Importing free labor from Africa ("the genius of slavery"),
the New World denizens find more reason to be afraid, arm themselves
against rebellion, and soon the U.S. is "the richest country
in the world." Increasing internal resistance to this particular
economic system is met by the invention of multiple shot weapons,
and when the KKK is declared illegal (a "terrorist organization"),
the NRA is born. As blacks migrated to cities, "whites ran
in fear to the suburbs, and once in the suburbs, still afraid,
they bought millions and millions of guns" in an inevitably
failing effort to preserve their property, privilege and sense
of "order." And so on.
As antic as the images may be -- crowds of little white folks
running from one section of the cartoon map to another, waving
their weapons, with stricken looks on their flat little faces
-- the point is made. Much fear in the United States is racially
based. Moore goes on to point to a variety of examples,some more
clearly related than others -- "Africanized" killer
bees, racialized designations of the "evildoers," Willie
Horton, Susan Smith (who accused a "black man" of carjacking
the children she killed), Charles Stuart (who accused a "black
man" of murdering his pregnant wife), and the ongoing fear
of perps "of color" inculcated and promoted by the long-running
series Cops.
As is his custom (see his previous films, Roger & Me
and The Big One), Moore's own story is interwoven throughout
his consideration of the nation to which he declares serious loyalty.
His response, for example, to Columbine begins with himself, a
lifetime member of the NRA, and native to Flint, Mich., "a
gun lover's paradise." He recalls his own childhood interest
in guns, both toy (Sound-O-Power) and real, used for hunting.
In
and around his immediate environs, Moore finds alarming and mundane
links to the broad-based gun culture he's investigating. He comes
on a savings and loan that gives a gun to anyone who opens a new
account ("Do you think it's a good idea, handing out guns
in a bank?"), and heads out into the fields with members
of the Michigan Militia. He also spends time with former Militia
member and current "tofu farmer" James Nichols (brother
of Oklahoma City bomber Terry Nichols), a visit that ends with
Moore agreeing to an off-camera retreat to Nichols' bedroom, to
get a look at the .44 magnum he keeps under his pillow (inside,
you hear Moore saying, with understandable distress, that Nichols
has cocked the gun and put it to his temple).
Descending on Littleton, Colo., Moore observes that Harris and
Klebold went bowling, for a class, on the morning before they
started shooting. On that same morning, the United States launched
its most devastating air attack on Kosovo. He also observes that
Lockheed Martin employs many of the kids' parents, that they make
a living building weapons of mass destruction. When he asks one
employee to comment on the apparent irony of this situation, the
man is incredulous, unable to see a connection.
Moore, however, sees connections everywhere, tracing the culture
of fear, seeking corroboration from a range of interview subjects.
Littleton native Trey Parker, co-creator of South Park, observes
that the NRA committed an act of astoundingly bad taste when it
refused to alter its plans for a convention in Denver, days after
the Littleton shootings. Marilyn Manson, heaped with blame for
this and other episodes of school violence, intelligently (and
in full "scary" face makeup) remarks on the perpetual
"campaign of fear and consumption," by which people
are convinced to buy products in order to stave off rejection
as well as attack. To exemplify the danger of this connection,
Moore brings a couple of Columbine survivors down to the local
Kmart to convince the chain to stop selling ammunition: Much to
everyone's surprise, Moore included, the managers agree to stop.
As startled and grateful as he is at this moment, there's no question
that Moore has an agenda. He's never pretended to be objective,
but instead sees his filmmaking and TV work as a kind of pop-cultural
agitprop. He pursues his subjects -- GM's Roger Smith, Nike's
Phil Knight, and here, NRA president and voluble spokesperson
Charlton
Heston -- with a relentlessness that is sometimes funny,
sometimes grating, and always disquieting for someone (usually
the subject). Here, Moore finally talks his way into Heston's
L.A. gates, whereupon he asks him pointedly about his NRA speechmaking
(in the wake of Columbine and again, during a rally in Flint just
after the shooting of 6-year-old citizen Kayla Rolland by another
first-grader). Heston insists he didn't know about Kayla's murder
and refuses to apologize.
Moore pushes on, pressing Heston to come up with possible reasons
for the States' inordinate rates of gun violence, Heston hems
and haws, suggests "historical" proclivities (until
Moore points out that Germany and Japan have violent histories
and remarkably low gun violence stats), then finally blurts that
it must be bound up in American "mixed ethnicity." Moore
doesn't wait, but repeats the phrase back to Heston, who blanches
when he hears his own words come back at him. He cuts off the
interview and shambles off, his back retreating from the camera
as Moore asks him to look at little Kayla's photo.
Certainly, Heston, virulent and nonsensical, is an easy target,
and hardly worth the amount of time that Bowling for Columbine
spends on him. But his slip speaks to the slippery workings, unconscious
or hyperconscious, of U.S. culture, politics and morality, an
inexorable campaign of fear and consumption.
