There are numerous sections on the films which act upon intellectual pleasures, counter culture and counter reading pleasures in the forms of interviews, voice-overs, actuality, graphics etc. All these pleasure add to this entertainment aspect of the film. However this entertainment is not the overall objective of the producers but only the medium in which the message is travelling on. The film is highly political and subjective as we see Michael Moore confront the base of violence in "American Society."
He uses comedy as entertainment, used for instance on the intro of the show. We hear M.Moore list a number of events which happen every morning associated with America, the last event was: "the president bombs another country in which we couldn’t pronounce." Although humorous, he does more than entertain, he mocks American society with the idea that both Americans don’t know anything outside America as well as the self-centred-cruel nature of American presidency.
Within the documentary we see Michael Moore exploring political history of America especially within the case of Gun Violence. He explores this within the introduction of the Documentary; M.Moore presents us with a Banking company who issue rifles with their membership. We see M.Moore visit the bank and win himself a free-gun as he ridicules the American system pointing out to the audience how easy it is for anyone to get hold of a gun. Again although entertaining, he presents there is message.
He uses comedy-entertainment again when we see him go through Canadian streets opening random doors to investigate the idea that Canadians are so confidence with their safety that they leave their doors open. Here again he uses his entertainment to build his argument in comparison of American society to Canadians.
We witness Michael Moore interview iconic American figures-heads like Charlatan Heston. He is able to point out the ignorance of America through the very words of C.Heston revealing the ignorance which has been saturated into the American Psyche. He asks a series of confrontational questions which led to C.Heston commenting on issues in a manor he didn’t want to. This embarrassment caused him to get up and leave the interview spontaneously. (The shocking element here could be argued to be entertaining). M.Moore then follows C.Heston in presenting him the photo of the victim child. C.Heston reaction reveals to the audience the hypocrisy of such an iconic figure. This to was entertaining but there was a stronger issue on being presented.
In conclusion we see that Michael Moore has put into use the documentary forms and conventions and created a message. He gave advice, information and facts, a personal opinion, political history as well as entertainment. He understood that there had to be levels of entertainment for his text to be engaging and this is shown strongly through his use humour.
In reference to my definition, the focus of the piece wasn’t to entertain but to present Moore’s argument in which I personally felt was well crafted.
