Fahrenheit surprises

I watched Fahrenheit 9/11 over the weekend with a couple friends and my wife, on the condition that I not have to part with any money to do so. I was somewhat surprised because I expected the movie's presentation of propaganda to be more effective. To put it another way, I didn't think it would be boring, and yet it was. Bowling for Columbine was more entertaining, both in terms of getting a roomful of people riled up and presenting interesting characters for the camera. Fahrenheit suffered from an abysmally low caliber of argumentation plus camera subjects and commentators who were tedious when they weren't outright unpleasant.

But my wife's reaction surprised me the most. A day later, she was still miffed at Michael Moore and went on her own rant right in the middle of our kitchen. I paraphrase here:

I'm angry! [Moore] pissed me off! I wanted to be challenged. I wanted to have some reason to think that maybe I'm just conservative scum. But instead it's la-la-la, let's play a song. La-la-la, show a little film. The audience is not four years old! I could have made a better anti-conservative documentary. [Moore] doesn't respect me. He thinks the viewer is an idiot.

And then she demanded to know why I wasn't angry too. But I've been witnessing Moore's schtick for some time now, while she just got her first look. And when you're just talking about some filmmaker, it's difficult to stay angry forever.