capitalism: a love story

capitalism is the new michael moore movie. as with every other movie i review here, i have not seen it. this review is based solely on bits i have seen and heard while delivering food (so i'm being about as stringent in my fact checking as moore). anyway, the movie is mainly concerned with informing people of the evils of the capitalist system (which, by the way, is the same system which has allowed moore to become so staggeringly wealthy).

this seeming confusion may be explained by the fact that moore (or at least his editor) doesn't seem to understand what capitalism is. in one of my favorite bits from the movie, moore interviews a woman who describes the bank bailouts as "pure capitalism." granted this woman isn't a financial expert (she is one of the jane everypersons that moore is so keen on defending), but surely someone on moore's editing staff should have pointed out that not only were the bailouts not "pure capitalism," they were an example of socialism, the antithesis of capitalism, and pulled that bit from the film. in a purely capitalist, free market system (which we don't have anyway), aig and the others would have tanked.

another of my favorite moments is the bit where moore describes the transition from carter to reagan. in that snide, condescending tone he uses to narrate his movies, moore explains that reagan was an evil, selfish man who took advantage of every opportunity that came his way. during this monologue, moore has chosen to include o fortuna (the first part of the first movement of the carmina burana) as backing music. you've certainly heard o fortuna before. it is often used as stock 'dramatic music' in action movies and commercials, and moore is clearly employing it similarly. if you'd like to hear it (and i do strongly encourage you to listen to it), here is a recording of a performance at uc davis (o fortuna occupies the first four minutes of the video). i do love the carmina burana - it is a stunningly beautiful peace of music - but it is delightfully relevant here because it is also unintentionally ironic. the carmina burana as a whole (the first movement in particular) is concerned with fortune. specifically, it is concerned with the fickleness of fortune and the utter necessity of taking advantage of every opportunity that comes your way.

along with these classic moments of self-clowning, moore throws in the usual lies and oversimplifications. for example, moore claims that "you are never going to be rich. the chance of that happening is about one in a million." if we follow moore's logic, we can confidently state that there are only about three hundred rich people in the us, and not say the three million people claimed by the 2008 world wealth report (bottom of page six). but hey, he's only off by four or five decimal places. of course, "rich" doesn't have to be defined as millionaire. moore could just mean that only the top three hundred are rich. in 2002, forbes reported there were 245 us billionaires, which is pretty close to 1 in a million. perhaps, moore believes anyone with less than a billion is in the struggling middle class. this would certainly be one way for him to justify claiming to be just another working guy.

and that's what really bothers me about michael moore. it isn't his eagerness to oversimplify and misrepresent facts. it isn't that he defends these misrepresentations by calling his movies "works of entertainment." it isn't even the fact that he chose to throw an opulent, hedonistic party to celebrate the premiere of his movie whose central purpose is to lambast opulence and hedonism. it's the fact that he portrays himself as a champion of the working class when he is in fact a multi-millionare who directly benefits from the evils he raves against.

all that said, the opening weekend gross was encouragingly low, so with luck it'll be gone in a couple of weeks and i won't have to hear that obnoxious, neckbeard having hypocrite's voice for the foreseeable future.