Media: Fahrenheit 911 on DVD

Just got done watching Fahrenheit 911 for the first time. My wife bought it for me on DVD at Wal*Mart in South Lyon the day it came out. She often buys DVD's there when she knows they're coming out because they're on sale for the first few days after their released; $15 instead of $21. She got the sale price, but this particular movie was not given the prominent placement in the front of the store the way other new releases usually are.

"It was all the way in the back of the store, " she complained to me.. "The first thing I thought was, 'damn, they don't have it." But she proceeded to the back of the store where the DVD's were kept and she got her Wal•Mart deal. You can always count on greed in the end, even if a product does not fit with a company's political ideology.

Another reason for poor placement in the store might be the completely unjustified "R" (restricted) rating Fahrenheit 911 recieved from the MPAA. It was restricted for, "violent and disturbing images and for language." There were violent and disturbing images, but they're real and the direct result of U.S. foreign policy decisions; dead, wounded and mangled bodies of U.S. servicemen and gruesome images of dead Iraqi women and children being carted away in a pick-up truck. But that's the reality of war. That's what happens when you drop bombs and fire missiles close to, if not directly on, civilian targets. War is the pornography of power and it is obscene. But I can't even recall one "fuck you" or "fuck that" in the entire film so I don't understand the "language" part of the restriction unless any language that questions the motives of the current administration are considered obscene. (After reading online about the restriction, it turns out that a G.I. in the film is reciting song lyrics that contain the term "mother-fucker." Like young teens aren't already surrounded by that language in their music. In any case, I don't think it hurt that fiim's exposure).

The MPAA's rating is consistent with the Bush administration's policy of suppressing the realities of war from the American people. The one valuable lesson that was gleaned from the Viet Nam era is that, if you want to sell an unjustified war to the American people to reap profits for defense contractors and reconstruction firms (with more than questionable ties to administratioin officials), you sure as hell can't allow images of dead civilians and servicemen to be shown on the nightly news. Thanks to the consolidation of media power in the hands of the few rich white guys, the Bush Administratioin has achieved that delicate balance of creating a largely unquestioned perpetual money machine. With the proper controls, the war on terror could last forever. Images of James Baker wringing his hands together at that thought are haunting. Don't know who James Baker is? Shame on you.

I didn't bother to see Fahrenheit 911 at the theatre because I was already aware of the factual materials that went into creating it. But I do think it is a useful and entertaining consolidation of the events that led up to the War in Iraq and the "American interests" that are being served by it. You can question Moore's stylistic choices in presenting the material (left-leaning, duh), but I think it would be difficult to challenge the validity of the facts he presents. Everybody should see this movie at least once before election day. That way, we can't pretend we didn't know where this all was heading.