Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man (Hardcover)

by David T. Hardy (Author), Jason Clarke (Author) "Here we are again, a year or so later..." (more)
Key Phrases: United States, Michael Moore, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Someone was bound to go after Michael Moore eventually and this book holds nothing back. An immensely popular figure to political left-wingers, Michael Moore presents himself as a regular working-class guy in a baseball cap with the courage to take some rich and powerful folks to task for their corrupt and deceitful ways. David T. Hardy and Jason Clarke say this populist, muckraker image is pure whitewash. Believing that this charade has gone on for too long, and done too much damage to the U.S., they have written this book to expose Moore as narcissistic and irresponsible and his body of work "as manipulative as totalitarian propaganda." To prove their point, they pick apart Moore's books and movies to illustrate how he is consistently manipulative, dishonest, and, at times, simply absurd. They show how he altered the timeline of Roger and Me in order to unfairly blame things on General Motors that happened before their layoffs, not as a result of them. Regarding Bowling for Columbine, the authors explain how he took quotes out of context and reassembled them to give the impression that people made speeches they did not make---most famously his interview with Charlton Heston, then president of the NRA. They also illustrate how Moore manipulated statistics in his books Dude, Where’s My Country and Stupid White Men to fit his theories, making some truly outrageous claims in the process. The authors have certainly done their homework, and it's impossible to view Moore's work the same way after reading this book. "How does a man with so many contradictions manage to blind his enormous trove of followers to how hypocritical he really is? How does he get away with it?" they ask. If the authors have their way, he won't much longer. Now that Moore has joined the ranks of the rich and powerful, Hardy and Clarke have engaged in bit of muckraking of their own. --Shawn Carkonen

Product Description
Watching Michael Moore in action -- passing off manipulating facts in Bowling for Columbine, spinning statistics in Stupid White Men and Dude, Where's My Country?, shamelessly grandstanding at the Academy Awards, and epitomizing the hypocrisy he's made a king's fortune railing against -- has spurred authors David T. Hardy and Jason Clarke to take action into their own hands. In Michael Moore Is a Big Fat Stupid White Man, Hardy and Clarke dish it back hard to the fervent prophet of the far left, turning a careful eye on Moore's use of camera tricks and publicity ploys to present his own version of the truth.

Postwar documentarians gave us the documentary, Rob Reiner gave us the mockumentary, and Moore initiated a third genre, the crockumentary.

How, they ask, does Moore pull off a proletarian, "man-of-the-people" image so at odds with his lifestyle as a fabulously wealthy Manhattanite? And how large of an impact do his incendiary, ill-founded polemics have on the growing community that follows him with near-religious devotion? Loaded with well-researched, solidly reasoned arguments, and laced with irreverent wit, Michael Moore Is a Big Fat Stupid White Man fires back at one of the left's biggest targets -- politically and literally.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 250 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow (June 29, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060763957
• ISBN-13: 978-0060763954
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (708 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #340,067 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

82 of 91 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Actual Book Review, August 6, 2004

By	Ms_Scout (Texas USA) - See all my reviews

I ordered this book from Amazon and just finished reading it a few days ago. I wanted to read the whole book before I posted a review. Along the way I have read other reviews, and I know without a doubt that some of these one-star reviewers haven't read this book. One reviewer stated this book is satire, and not very good satire. This book is NOT satirical. The men who wrote this book really did their homework and research, with pages of sources in the back that any of us can look up.

I agree with a couple other reviewers who have said the title of this book is very misleading as to the contents of the book. I understand why they named it "Michael Moore is a big, fat stupid white man." It is a combination of Al Franken's early 1990s book title about Rush Limbaugh, and Michael Moore's "Stupid White Men". There is a bit of humor here and there. At the beginning of the book the authors give us a time line between 1989 through the present of Michael Moore words and actions, and how we can know what will happen by what Moore says. Whatever he says - the opposite will happen.

I would recommend this book to anyone who doesn't know much about Moore and his background. I didn't, and I learned alot - from his first so-called documentary "Roger and Me," (GM president Roger Smith) up to his latest propaganda piece. "Fahrenheit 9/11" had not been released at the time this book went to press, but the authors accurately hit the nail on the head telling the reader what will be in it, just by knowing Moore's history and how predictable he is.

I found this book to be so informative I began to keep a pencil handy to underline and check certain passages so I could refer back to them later. One thing that really struck me is how often Moore contradicts himself, and how when anything doesn't go his way, he starts screaming about there being a conspiracy against him. Or, he will fabricate a conspiracy if it will help him make a few more bucks. Example: Moore publicly accused Disney and Miramax of censoring him by not distributing "Fahrenheit 9/11." But the authors state "later, Moore lets it slip on CNN that he'd been told nearly a year before that Miramax would not be his American distributor-which means that unless he'd somehow forgotten for all that time that he didn't have a distributor, all had been arranged in advance."

Don't let the title of this book fool you. It is not a light-weight, mindless attack on Michael Moore. These authors did pain-staking research on Moore. This is a serious book chocked full of statistics and facts, and unlike Moore, I bet they will let the chips fall where they may.

96 of 109 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A shining example of the first amendment put to good use, June 29, 2004

By A Customer

As a librarian I believe very strongly in the value of the first amendment, which protects the right an individual american has to speak his or her mind. This book is a brave and important balance to the work of Michael Moore, who has openly denounced and threatened legal action against those who challenge his assertions.

As Americans, we need to remember that free speech can be taken from us not only by our government but by individuals who would threaten, menace, and use the weight of their status as celebrities to silence dissent and exert influence. In this book - and in other works of film and print that are emerging - we are finally seeing a response, an intelligent response to unbalanced propaganda that is presented as fact. It is a brave and important work, and should be read by any who are concerned about the influence of propaganda in society.

Propaganda is poison for democracy. Read this book and you will learn a great deal about America's preeminent propagandist.

Read this book, and support free speech!

110 of 128 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fact-checking the film-maker, June 30, 2004

By	R. Nelson "shrinkman02" (Beverly, MA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Hardy and Clarke give great examples of how Moore manipulates
the truth through ignoring facts that don't help his case,
deceptive editing, and his aw-shucks Midwest persona. His films aren't really documentaries; they're one-sided opinion pieces that "preach to the choir" of conspiracy theorists. The authors point out that when others challenge this writer/filmmaker,
he attacks them instead of trying to defend his allegations. Issued right in time for Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" film, which many may see as gospel truth.
Perhaps this is also preaching to the choir-- how many Moore
fans will buy this? But maybe liberals should check this out,
a work that's helping to keep Moore honest. Shining the light
on Moore's methods has helped to balance his opinions; and also
led to changed narration on the DVD version of "Columbine",
for example, where Moore had to admit that Willie Horton
did NOT kill again, despite his claim in the original movie.
Good for the fact-checkers!