This Divided State (website link is HERE) is a remarkable documentary: one that gives you all of the information on a topic, communicates the almost fetid emotions swirling around the issue — yet lays it out clinically and objectively.
And here’s the bottom line: liberals will love it (and feel vindicated), conservatives will love it (and feel vindicated) and centrists will love it (and feel repelled watching the mounting polarization). And, we suspect, all of the key figures involved will feel they were fairly represented.
The context is the bitterly fought 2004 Bush-Kerry election and polarized America itself. It’s an America we now see every day in dueling talk radio cultures, blogs often judged by readers strictly on whether readers agree 100 percent with them (and personal insults hurled at those who write things with which they don’t agree)…even ideological dating services.
21st century America is not exactly teetering on the brink of civil war, but understanding other perspectives clearly isn’t considered the virtue it once was. More often than not, it’s considered a sign of weakness and the perceived real virtue is in trumping the other perspective and political domination.
And that takes you to Utah. Before the election day, liberal filmmaker Michael Moore is invited to speak at Utah Valley State College to balance an invitation that was made to have conservative talk show host Sean Hannity speak. Moore’s invitation sparks a virtual firestorm among redstate-bluestate divided students and aggravates town-gown tensions…particularly when a well off homeowner veers the anti-Moore battle into new heights (or depths: choose your politically-packed adjective) by sparking allegations of bribery…and eventually even suing the pro-Moore student leaders.
Director Steven Greenstreet’s incredible film clearly deserves even MORE awards than its 2005 Best Documentary Award at the Santa Cruz film festival. It’s a rare film indeed that can be watched by people on the left, right and center and give EACH SIDE the sense that their perspective is well represented (a feat the commercial and cable networks often can’t accomplish). But it’s not just the political content: as a film, it’s masterfully cut, well-paced and has zero padding. Every second advances the narrative. So This Divided State should be REQUIRED VIEWING for aspiring documentary makers and fans of documentaries everywhere.
Of special interest: chunks of Hannity and Moore’s speeches are in this film. Those two segments are worth the price of the DVD ALONE — and they’re not even the main thrust of this film. Perhaps Hannity’s appearance is most striking because:
- Conservatives will love him goading liberals in general and trying to make a fool of one student in the audience in particular. They’ll love his every word.
- Liberals will detest his every word and feel it’s proof that he is a GOP Talking Points ideologue.
- Centrists and independent voters will quickly tire of his partisan shtick. I personally cringed when he started out by asking if there were liberals in the audience and started calling, “Here liberal, liberal, liberal…” (Moore hurls around fewer labels in his segment but shouts louder).
The movie is about what happens to Orem City’s college students and residents in a political confrontation resembling an unstoppable car race crash: both sides are in a frenzy, student politics is at its best/worst (choose one), and examples of left and right extremism abound. The film records some blatant spin/distortions (particularly of one anti-Moore student not being honest with petition signers and trying not to answer a question about what he’s doing when confronted).
The heroes/villains (choose one depending on your own personal political view) are the student association leaders and Moore foe Kay Anderson, a well-off homeowner who lives near the campus and seems almost frantic to stop Moore from appearing on the campus. He has a line that will be truly chilling to centrists, liberals and most thoughtful conservatives: “Free speech works because most of us know when to keep our mouths shut.”
We’ll take Anderson’s advice here. Although we know there are plenty of reviews that’ll tell you every single facet and twist of this DVD (here is a link to a host of them) we will NOT do that.
So does “free speech” win? Does one side win? Or do they both win — and lose — in a seemingly winner-take-all grudge match? And DOES winner really take all? Or do the winners take little and the losers take little? Or in the end were the real winners polarizers Hannity and Moore who garnered tons of publicity for their future big buck appearances?
See it and judge for yourself…
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.