Captain Mike Across America

Captain Mike Across America

It is ironic that the people most likely to take it in the shorts from politicians, college-age young people, are the least likely to vote. They don’t make the connection between increasing tuition bills and their lack of a voice at the polls. Young women have been slowly losing the right to their own body over the last few years. Young men are the ones marching off into combat because of old men’s vanity. For every dollar the government goes further into debt, and for every degree the global temperature increases further, is a bill put off, until these slackers are bearing the financial burden. For better or worse, twenty-somethings are the people pushing the brooms at the end of our society parade. Every year politicians pander and pundits predict that this is the election that this group is going to come out in droves, and every year finds them sitting on their backside pondering where toe jam comes from, rather than who to vote for.

In 2004, as Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry repeatedly shot himself in the foot and made voters long for the charisma of Al Gore, in the midst of the Swift Boating and the Republicans waving flip flops, professional muckraker Michael Moore decided to do something to save the Democrats, well, from themselves. He was going to try to get this apathetic group excited about the gentleman Senator from Massachusetts, which is kind of like getting excited about taking your sister as your date to prom. Still, when Ernest T. Bass, I mean, George W. Bush, is your President and he is breaking every window in the world, you got to do what you got to do. In turn, calling it the 2004 Slacker Uprising Tour, Moor hit 62 stops in 20 “battleground” states trying to get the young-uns voting. Captain Mike Across America chronicles this tour.

What makes Moore interesting, is how much Republicans hate him. The only way they could hate him more, is if he was carrying Hillary Clinton’s baby and one has to wonder why. It is not like he has had much of an effect on the status quo. In many ways, he is a modern Jeremiah preaching a message that most of America is disregarding. When it comes to the big issues, he is a bigger loser than the kid in the Star Trek t-shirt who has spent most of his free time mastering World of Warcraft. In the documentary Roger & Me, he detailed the results of General Motors shutting down their plants in Flint, Michigan on the city. Since then, the world has become flatter and we are slowly watching the middle class roll off the table. His next major documentary, Bowling for Columbine, looked at the problem of firearm violence in this country. What are the results of the Academy Award winning documentary? America is the most well armed country in the world, with 90 guns for every 100 people, and our morgues are filled with bullet riddled bodies. The box office record breaking success of his next film Fahrenheit 9/11, a film designed to put a nail in George Bush’s hopes for a second term, changed almost nothing because, while our President could probably screw up a one man parade, he is at least protecting us from gays getting married, which I am still trying to figure out how it affects me, but I am told it is bad. Finally, his last film Sicko, urged America to adopt a government controlled, universal health care system. We now have 47 million Americans without any coverage, and most of the rest of us under covered and over paying, because you know socialized medicine is evil, just ask anyone over 65 on Medicare and Medicaid. Not one of the Presidential candidates that Moore has supported have sat in the Oval Office. If you don’t believe me, just ask President Wesley Clark or President Ralph Nader. The Washington Senators have a better record against the Harlem Globetrotters than Michael Moore does. Yet, that has not stopped the far right from overreacting to the round, sloppily dressed man in the Detroit baseball cap, like a bag of Cheetos thrown into a Weight Watchers meeting. Yet, there are hundreds of websites, several books, and at least half a dozen documentaries devoted to attacking the former editor of Mother Jones. In this documentary, the audience sees the great lengths Republicans go to demonize and stop Moore. There was an effort to charge the filmmaker with bribery because he would humorously toss underwear and ramen noodles to slackers who failed to vote in 2000, to get them to make it to the polls four years later. On another stop, a prominent booster offered the school $100,000 if they rescinded their offer to have the filmmaker speak. Politicians and local talking heads foamed at the mouth every time he showed up. There were lawsuits, petitions, and protests, all to stop a guy who has a lower batting average than a third grader facing Roger Clemens. Why?

I think it is because Michael Moore has the unusual ability to overturn the rock, and show us aspects of America, that we would rather not acknowledge, in extremely powerful images. Even the most rabid, punch drinking conservative, had to be bothered by watching our President freeze, while reading the children’s book The Pet Goat after the Twin Towers had been hit. No matter how hard you support the right to bear arms, it is kind of tough to be confronted by its victims. It is easy to believe that the American dream is open to everyone, until you confront those who did not quite make it. Better to attack the messenger, especially if he has a smirk and seems to be having a good time. In turn, it is interesting to see how many billions of dollars have been spent and how much effort corporations have gone to, to stop an overweight man with a video camera.

Much like the popular DVD, An Evening With Kevin Smith, Captain Mike Across America is basically a concert film, a film devoted to the personality of Michael Moore. Unlike his previous works, Michael is not trying to rally the nation regarding some cause and trying to influence the political process. This documentary is simply a snapshot of a time when Moore was one the few open critics of Bush. There are numerous scenes of young people jammed into large auditoriums, applauding and going nuts as he reminded them how the Republicans had stole the 2000 election and all the underhanded activities they had done since then. It is amazing how much the world has changed in four years. Moore’s sentiments that were earth shaking and ground breaking at the time, are now common place. Moore, is now preaching to an entire nation that is saying amen to his message. This is one of the few documentaries of Moore’s, that you can skip and not miss anything. In fact a much better documentary about an aspect of this slacker tour has already been done, This Divided State, which details the controversy surrounding his appearance at Utah Valley State College.

In 2004, young people aged 18 to 24 turned out to vote. Nearly 47 percent showed up at the polls, an increase of 11 percent and Michael Moore deserves some of the credit. The 20-point gap between this group and older demographics is closer than ever before. With Rock the Vote, Myspace, Facebook, and hundreds of other programs and organizations focusing on getting this group out in 2008, it will be interesting to see if they show up. Why should they? I do not know. Half of the casualties in Iraq were between 18 and 24. The unemployment rate of this group is twice that of any other demographic. In just a decade, student loan debt has more than doubled. The next President will be making appointments to a Supreme Court that is heavily hostile to a woman’s right to choose. I don’t know why they should.

Verdict: Pass