The British and Michael Moore

I've known about Moore's work since Roger and Me. I also used to watch TV Nation on occassion. ( I was, honestly, a more dedicated fan of the Power Puff Girls, but that's another post.) After Bowling for Columbine, I though more people might know of him, but it wasn't until his stunt at the Academy Awards that many Americans ( including my students) knew he existed. Even then he was simply "that guy who talked about the war on that awards show." They didn't know or bother to find out why he had received the award, what he did, or even his name. Thirty seconds later he was back in obscurity.

I've tried to get my students interested in other "oddball" documentarists, most notably Nick Broomfield and Errol Morris. They watch for about fifty seconds and fall asleep. They could care less and about Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love, they could give a damn about a guy helps fix design flaws in electric chairs and lethal injection machines and wrote a report denying the Holocaust. To them this is the height of boring.

Now I notice two British bloggers have recently posted about Michael Moore. Billy and Kelvin have both posted about him, for seemingly different reasons. Both cast a skeptical eye upon him, which is good. But it's interesting that so few Americans seem to even notice him, even after he has pulled off such incendiary tactics. It makes me realize how utterly apathetic the public is.