Bowling for Columbine is a Michael Moore documentary about gun control and America’s violent national history. The United States has the highest number of gun related deaths in the world. Michael Moore sets out to get an understanding of why Americans have such a strong violent culture. To grasp the reasoning for the amount of forcefulness within our country, Michael Moore sets out to Columbine Colorado. Columbine High school was involved in a shooting massacre on April 20, 1999. This well planned shooting was strategized by two high school students.
It was later found that these two high school students had prior histories of violence and juvenile detentions. Despite their record, these students were eligible to purchase fire arms and ammunition. Before committing suicide the two assailants killed twelve students and one teacher while injuring an additional twenty one students. The tragedy leads many to question the nature and influences of the American societies. Furthermore the shooting resulted in an emphasis on controlling violent movies, video games, and with no doubt gun control.
Michael Moore had the opportunity to speak to various enthusiasts on the matter of violent media. Some of his interviewees supported the banning of harsh films in order to keep society clean of harmful materials. In comparison to what some people had believed, films and video games were not a direct contributor to our violent nation. While doing research Moore established that other countries have the same material media as the US but have less violent acts in their countries. Although many say that the US has a violent history Michael Moore depicts eras in which other countries had just as much violence.
Examples include: Germans exterminating twelve million Jews and The British Slaughter of India. Fatalities each year due to guns is drastically different between the countries. There are 381 gun related deaths each year in Germany, 255 in France, 165 in Canada, and 11,127 in the United States respectively. Like our discussion in class money equals access within the media industry. Michael Moore describes how the media injects violence into society. While showing the negative connotations our community gets an understanding of American gun culture.
Michael Moore attempts to answer the question of why gun related deaths have risen in the past years. Moore comes to the assumption that the physical environment could be a large component. However in our country we have seen multiple wars, and terrorism that has brought a violent negative appeal to our views. Bowling for Columbine portrays good information on terrorism within our country including information on the American military killing 4 million people in Southeast Asia, America training Osama Bin laden and terrorists to kill the Soviet Union, the CIA giving terrorists $3 million, and U.
S. providing billions to saddam Hussein for weapons. Our class discussion of the Cold War goes hand-in-hand with the issues of war and terrorism described in the movie. The movie describes how the U. S. gave money and weapons to other countries in order to combat the Soviet empire. Due to this the Soviets had a difficult time competing with our stronger and more dynamic army which resulted in a decline of the Soviet ideology. The Nixon administration allowed the USSR to expand the economy which essentially gave the Soviet’s “enough rope to hang themselves”.
In the end the US prevailed and Communism lost. The terrorist movement has seen a dramatic increase in the 20th and 21st century; however, their violence is now targeted more towards civilians. Terrorists use media to attract attention to their cause. Our society views the terrorist acts repeatedly through our media which brings hatred and revenge feelings towards the terrorists native countries. The main issue established in the movie is that international terrorism was supported at first by U. S. aid.
Bowling for Columbine is an insightful movie on an issue the effects our daily lives. With the dramatic gun violence presently in our country Michael Moore puts gun control and gun related violence in better perspective. Terrorism has been a significant topic in our society which has impacted international affairs and homeland security. As we have seen the media can be a large proponent to the key issues of violence within our country. It is in my dream that at some point we will be able to distinguish the key problems and eliminate the issues in order to ensure world peace.
