TOW #28: "Bowling for Columbine"

Michael Moore’s documentary Bowling for Columbine dives into the heated discussion regarding gun control that exploded throughout the nation after the Columbine High School Shooting. Moore was born in Michigan, a region where he calls “A State of hunters” since many individuals there have hunting down as one of their hobbies. Additionally, to gain a sense of ethos Moore specifically mentions that he is a member of the NRA, and more importantly, as actually a national champion as a teenager for rifle shooting. With the film including an immense amount of additions such as commercials, past videos, and more importantly many interviews, Moore orchestrates a documentary that collectively consists of many valid speakers and also enhancers to his documentary that speak much louder than the sole voice of Michael Moore. Moore has a snarky sense of humor, which is depicted in many of his interviews that adds a touch of relief to such a serious topic. Moore has fun with some of his interviews as he comes face to face with some of the most stubborn individuals who advocate the need to bear arms in the 21^st century American society in which we live in.  Even though the Columbine shooting is what sparked the interest of Moore, he travels throughout the country as well as Canada to interview individuals years after and questions them about overall gun policies that may not even pertain to the exact shooting at Columbine. With that said however, Moore definitely originates his search with the Columbine shooting and expands it to the bigger picture when he questions those of the NRA and also others around the country about their experiences with guns. Moore purposely creates this documentary into a movie in order to expand the general audience who will see his film, mostly because he wants the audience to be American people and they will therefore realize that Moore has created a strong argument. His purpose of the video is to question the reason we all need guns in such a safe modern society, and thus the audience will now be shifted in their opinions after watching his film.  

Moore first points out the obsession Americans have with guns, then transitions it to the fact that Americans have guns for the lone purpose of living in fear and needing a sense of security. In order to reach his purpose that guns are not needed as a necessity in our American society, he uses various techniques in his documentary such as humor and juxtaposition. Moore has a creative sense of humor that is clearly exhibited early in the documentary when he sets the scene by saying everything was normal in America, “our president was bombing some country we don’t even know the name of”. With the topic of gun control connecting to the emotional topic of death caused by guns, the occasional joke of Moore brightens the mood of the overall documentary to relieve the sense of sadness that is provoked from the insanely sad stories he mentions such as the death of a 6-year-old girl. Additionally, the use of humor suggests to the audience that this is nearly common sense what Moore is informing his audience. All of his evidence is so convincing and complied coherently that he comes off as blunt as possible in a humorous way to suggest to the audience that change needs to be done. With the hard work Moore did to compile all of his interviews and videos, the use of humor is only necessary because the audience will have no other rebuttal to such an argument.

Moore also uses juxtaposition in his documentary to further stress the American obsession to guns, and how our policies need to change to adapt to such violence arising from uncontrolled gun regulations. Moore compares the deaths around the world from the largest countries similar to the United States, and with such drastic numbers this comparison technique clearly illustrates the American issue when it comes to guns. Also, to further the comparison Moore travels to Canada where he interviews many Canadians and even walks into their open houses to stress the fact that these people lack fear and therefore have a limited number of deaths per year from gun use. Even though I only mentioned two devices Moore uses to achieve his purpose, it would be foolish not to recognize the fact that Moore strategically composed his documentary into a progression from one event in our history to a larger question about our society in comparison to other countries. With such a drastic progression, Moore needed to transition yet maintain the audiences understanding of such a complex issue with our society.