Does anyone have any idea why the Michael Moore film about health insurance in America, Sicko, got nowhere near the same amount of publicity as Bowling for Columbine or Fahrenheit 9/11? I’m not asking how you feel about the message / content of any of these films. I’m just trying to understand why Sicko seemed to fly so far underneath the collective radar. And why aren’t more people discussing it now, when Obama is in the middle of a media blitz about health care reform?
If the hot button topic right now was gun control, you can bet every other news channel would be referencing Bowling for Columbine repeatedly. I thought Sicko was a great film. It was not even remotely as volatile as either of the other two, and it’s pretty tough to argue that the state of health insurance in the United States is at least as bad — if not worse — as he portrays it. But even if you ignore the fact that nobody is talking about Sicko in 2009 — it has been two years since it was released — why didn’t it garner the same media attention that the other two did when they were released?
Dave,
I’ll be perfectly honest (I suppose you wouldn’t expect less from me, anyway) – I think the lack of “hype” over M.M.’s latest is due to his lack of integrity, ACTUAL facts and disgusting mis-use of reporting abilities (if one can call what he does an ‘ability’ or ‘reporting’). The guy is a nowhere, unintelligent pig who makes his money selling snake venom as a cure-all and professes to know of topics he’s never researched. Essentially, he stirs the pot where there is heat and waits for money to boil to the top… and then he (obviously) heads to McDs.
Remember: just MY opinion.
GREAT question, btw.
j
Pretty simple answer to me – Bowling for Columbine and F.9/11 were about tragic, stunning, singular events. That interests people because singular events are more fear-inspiring
No one is interested in fear caused by a crumbling infrastructural institution; that’s just an everyday worry for most people. People go to the movies for once-in-a-lifetime experiences.
First of all this isn’t his “latest” film. Second of all it was poorly made. He had slacker uprising and is about to release another one. I tried to watch sicko on 2 separate occasions and hated it.
It just wasn’t a good film so no one cared.
People are focused on more personal things, IMHO because of the severe recession. You can go back to the 1930’s and see some amazing similarities. People felt that Roosevelt and his administration had a good handle on things, and we were more focused on personal survival. We have the same thing today. People think the Obama admin has a good handle on things, so we don’t pay so much attention (except for a small minority of us who are ‘into’ politics/current events, and our perspective is jaded). Although we have more access to information today, human nature has not changed. You can see many parallels. The situation developing in Japan & Germany in the 1930s vs. the situation developing in Iran and North Korea today, the handling of the economy by the govt, etc. Mark Twain once said “History doesn’t repeat itself ….. but it certainly rhymes” ……. Yulie