My reaction to "Bowling For Columbine" a documentary by Michael Moore

As the American people we tune into the ten o’clock news every night. We get comfortable in our pajamas and the family dog and settle to regard what has happened while we were preoccupied with life. But who knew that a source of information such as the news that we trust would also be a source of fear. In the documentary “Bowling for Columbine” directed by Michael Moore, we see this behavior in the media.
In April 20, 1999, two teenagers from Littleton, Colorado shot and killed twelve students and one teacher, wounding many others. This event caused much havoc all over the country. Everyone was afraid but most importantly mourning this tragedy. After this, every Tom Dick an Harry had a theory of what caused these two boys to turn guns on their school.
Soon the alternative rock artist Marilyn Manson was being blamed. “I represent what everyone’s afraid of…we forget about the President and Monica Lewinsky and that we’re dropping bombs across seas…their objective is keep everyone afraid and they will consume,” says Marilyn Manson in response to being blamed for what these boys did (Moore 2002). And “consume” is exactly what we do.
When the turn of the century was approaching in 1999, there was something called the Y2K scare. Essentially the Y2K scare warned people that the end of the world was coming as soon as the clock struck twelve midnight on December 31, 1999. People stocked up on water and food preparing for “the end of the world”. On December 31, 1999 at twelve o’clock midnight everyone waited. We kissed each other and said Happy New Year and my mom popped a bottle of Champagne. The end of the world had not come close to nearing us.
Most recently we have had the swine flu. The medias solution was to buy hand sanitizer, stay away from people who had flu-like symptoms and some people even bought masks to cover their nose and mouth. Although it has claimed the lives of people all over the world, it has made people crazy. In china a group of Americans are being quarantined in a hotel because they may be infected with the swine flu also known as the H1 N1 virus.
This isn’t the only was we are bamboozled into fear by the media. In the time of the Columbine shootings and even today, the most common suspect is Hispanic and African American males. This is another reason that the Columbine murders came as such a shock. So not only do we have to be afraid of possible terrorist attacks, sickly and deadly flues, but we have to be afraid of Hispanic and Black males (Moore 2002).
It’s amazing that we regard the media as such a reliable source of information. And the messages after we watch that ten o’clock news cozy on the couch is, “be afraid, be very afraid.”