Michael Moore's "Sicko"

This semester I've been taking a graduate course on documentary film as political communication, so it's probably not surprising that Michael Moore has come up a few times in conversation. I've never really been a strong fan of Moore's but not because I disagree with him or think his methods are shady, but just because I've always felt that he sees too many things as black and white when I don't believe things ever really are.

Bowling for Columbine was a great movie, if you watched the movie as a process rather than as an argument. I came away from it with a couple of important points, although I wasn't completely sold on Moore's agenda. After it was over, I didn't have any desire for any more controls over guns. But I did come away from it with a new perspective on the culture of fear that exists within American society.

Now, Sicko was really interesting. I know there are claims made that are controversial, like Moorewatch claims that he cooks the numbers when he claims there are 50 million Americans uninsured (where Moorewatch calculates that the number is closer to 37 million, with around 9 million uninsured "non"-Americans who are in the US. What's really funny about criticisms like that one is that the movie has NOTHING to do with the uninsured of America. It's all about those who ARE insured, so who cares if it's 37 million, 50 million, or 250 million when that's not the topic being discussed?

The movie itself does point out that our system in the US is really screwed up. I've known that for years before seeing the movie. I know that this year I've spent so much money on co-pays to see specialists and my regular doctor that I'm close to being bankrupt right now. And I HAVE insurance. By the time the movie ended, I started thinking about learning French and just moving to France, because it is so obvious that their system cares a lot more about their people than ours does. I remember the nightmare I went through last summer just trying to get Kaiser Permanente to refer me to a specialist for my shoulder. It took an act of God, and my sister, to finally get something done about that.

So, the movie introduces a very interesting thing to think about. And that's the goal of a documentary. My class would argue that the goal is to persuade, but I'm starting to believe that's really not the contemporary goal. I think documentaries are designed to make us think. Used in conjunction with numerous devices, it may persuade, but I think in the beginning the goal of a documentary should be to introduce someone to the possibility that one's ideas are limited and in need of rethinking. And I think Sicko did that very well.

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