Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)

Interesting to note that while the rest of the Internet goes up-in-arms over the Walt Disney Company's "blocking" of Michael Moore's upcoming Farenheit 9/11, the humble netizens of MoFo sit back and zip their lips somewhat...

I mean, what in the Holy Hell?! Why aren't you people arguing about THIS yet?

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Probably because there's nothing to argue about. Just as free speech gives Michael Moore the right to make the film, it also gives Disney the right to decide not to distribute it. Not to mention that it'll surely find another distributor before long.

Oh, how very typical of you! How infuriating!



Sure, it'll find another distributor, but that's beside the point. The way you're spinning it, the concept of free speech allows someone – who in this case happens to be the bigger, more powerful [and the conspiracy theorist in me hastens to add "more Right-leaning"] party – the right to override the rights of someone else.

So, while the picture will indeed find another distrubtor [thus meaning that Moore's rights will not realy be violated in the long-run], the fact is that Disney has, in essence, well...violated someone's democratic rights in the interest of economics [though the conspiracy theorist in me thinks it's probably a lot more politcal].

But as I wrote on my blog [and as you're ultimately saying yourself], despite the vulgarity of their actions [as far as I'm concerned, at least] Disney's move doesn't really change a thing.

Disney isn't overriding anyone else's rights anymore than I'd be overriding your rights if I decided not to post one of your reviews on this site. Moore is exercising his right to free speech by producing the film. The people at Disney are exercising theirs by refusing to distribute it.


Unless we've amended the Bill of Rights to include major film distribution, I don't see how anything's been "violated" here.

But it's not their place to refuse. It's Miramax's. What Disney is doing is preventing one of its smaller bodies from doing something that it is perfectly entitled to do. Miramax's contract with Disney "[allows Disney] to prevent the company from distributing films under certain circumstances, like an excessive budget or an NC-17 rating". This is not, by any means, a film that poses a serious [or even mild] economic risk to Disney by having "an excessive budget or NC-17 rating," or any other finanically damaging variable [if anything, it's exactly the opposite], so to cite fiscal reasons [as they have done] is ludicrous.

This is an illigitimate infringement on Disney's agreement with Miramax. The so-called "economic" reasons behind their decision are completely transparent and politically-charged and they have no contractual right to block the film's distribution on such charges.

First thing's first: this isn't what you said before. You said that Moore's rights were being "violated" and "over[ridden]." Fact is, they're not.

Now, concerning whether Disney had any right to override Miramax; I'm not completely up on their relationship, but if they own them, they have every right in the world to. I've not heard them specifically cite "fiscal" reasons (in fact, I heard Eisner specifically say today that they'd merely rather stay away from such hot-button topics at times like these), but even if they have, it wouldn't be entirely ludicrous. You know as well as I there'd be some kind of mini-boycott among some of Moore's detractors, and there'd certainly be some negative publicity along for the ride.

I still maintain that, in basing their decision on political "hot-button topics" [and their stance towards them], Disney's actions are a form of censorship, even though I'm basing that assessment on a gut reaction more than anything else. It's a tricky area to navigate and I think it's open to a number of interpretations. My use of the term "violated" was probably a little left-of-centre [and the term "democratic rights," I'm pretty sure, suggested rights in the official document, capital "D"-democracy sense as opposed to the basic, little "D"-democracy sense I actually meant]. Regardless of what Disney's reasons atually were, I do feel Moore has been "violated" in some way, though maybe "violated" isn't the right word. For the time being, at least, he's been – on a very simple, basic and un-political level – "censored". It just so happens that the content of his film makes the whole thing a politically-charged issue, which unfortunately clouds the simple fact of the matter, which is that Michael Moore has been censored and censorship is the death of "art".

Maybe I'm being overly melodramatic in my use of the word "violated," but I'm an idealist in matters of art, so you can go ahead and sue me.



Yeah, just like how that whole anti-Semitism thing sunk The Passion.

No offense intended towards gut reactions (there's something to be said for them), but I'm fully convinced that it's actually technically incorrect to call this "censorship." It is one person expressing their will, and another doing the same. That's not censorship; that's a disagreement.

Technically, calling Disney's decision "censorship" would be the same as accusing Michael Moore of censorship if he decided not to put something I suggested into his film.


Forcing someone to distribute a film is as much a violation of freedom of speech as forcing someone not to make that film. Just because one wants to say something, and the other wants to have no part in helping them say it, it doesn't make either more or less of a violation of that right.

Censorship is the death of art, yes. But only censorship in the form of official blacklists or government intervention. It's not censorship when free people make independent decisions.


I'm not saying it won't make money. But Disney takes a lot of heat as-is for tiny little things. People actually protested Finding Nemo because openly gay actress and comedian Ellen DeGeneres voiced one of its characters. As if her voice alone was spreading homosexual propaganda to the minds of children.

Even if it is a foolish business decision, it's still a business decision, and therefore it's none of our business.

I don't know the exact deal between Disney and Miramax, but if I've understood it correctly Fahrenheit 911 doesn't match the official criteria needed for Disney to refuse to release the film (criteria being rating NC17 and somethig else). I'm quite sure though that a big corporation like Disney has a clause somewhere saying that they can refuse to release any film whatsoever. What's a bit fishy to me is the fact that Disney obviously owns the film since the Weinstein brothers of Miramax apparently is in the process of buying it back. Release it or give it back, corporate bastards!

Of course that is not the same. Disney is Miramax's and thus Moore's distributor. Miramax has a few but very strict rules to follow for Disney to release their films and Fahrenheit 911 isn't breaking any of those rules. The film is contreversial and something that Disney seemingly does not want to be associated with. And just like it's a form of censorship when the big corporations and rental chains will not release and rent out NC17 films, it is a clear form of censorship when the big corporations decide how many people will see a film that is anti-Bush. The american public will surely get the chance to see the film, but Disney is doing what they can to delay the release of the film. I think that Disney hopes that the longer the delay the less influence the film will have on the presidential election.

You are very right, but we are not talking about individuals here but about big corporations versus production companies and individual filmmakers. Apparently Disney has agreed to release the film since they allready own the rights of its distribution. They are not "following the deal", so to speak.. Of course you can't ask a company to do something that the executives believe will be bad for the company, but a deal is a deal. If they didn't want controversy they shouldn't have agreed to release a Michael Moore film in the first place.

Again, we are not talking about individual people but about big media conglomerats, the most powerful force of this age. Boards consisting of very few people control what enormous amounts of people see, hear and read. And Bush has always been their best pal. Disney knows that when they release controversial films they risk to lose the affection and support of republicans and the christian right. This has happened before (I think it was with the 1994 film Priest) when Disney lost some intluential conservative stock holders. I don't want those people to dictate the conditions on the media arena.

You call that "a lot of heat"?

It is very much our business. Disney is a commercial corporation and they should be open about why they make the decisions they make if they want us to buy their products. I don't know the laws over there but I don't think things like that are confidential. On the contrary, I think they are obligated, at least to their stock holders, to declare why they do certain things. Especially when they obviously do things that go against their own policy.

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The only difference between Disney refusing to distribute the film, and Moore refusing any suggestions I might give him, is that Disney's larger than Moore. Corporations are made up of people too, though, and those people have the same rights as other people. Therefore, when the people within those corporations make choices, it's no different than when you or I do. Free speech is independent of wealth or status; that's the beauty of it.


From a civil rights standpoint, I don't think there should be any real difference. Why should someone have less rights if they work for a large company?


Apparently, Disney told Moore roughly a year ago that they would not be distributing the film; it only became official recently. Looked at in this light, I think the controversy is more a publicity-grab than anything else.

Anyway, I'm sure they're well within the law. If they weren't, we'd know by now. Distributors have backed down before; there's nothing seedy or illegal about it. I seriously doubt that whatever contract they had was so ironclad as to not allow them an out.


And what's the alternative? Having "very few people" in another entity, such as government, dictating to the board members what they can show us? That's even worse. At least now, everyone is exercising their own free will.

Every media conglomerate, no matter how large, is still at the mercy of the consumers they serve, ultimately.


Protests outside of theaters? Sure.


A public-traded company does have to disclose certain things to shareholders and the public at large, yes, but I don't think methodology in decision-making is one of them. As for what they "should" do; the shareholders can decide that.

But how can you say that a corporation is the same as an individual?? You can't be serious when you mean that corporations and human beings are the same with the same rights and so on. And I don't see what wealth and status have to do with this.

I am having a feeling this discussion has reached a dead end.. especially since you didn't comment on the censorship part...

Of course they have the same rights.. I am not talking about each individual that is working for Disney. I am talking about Disney as a corporation, a thing, a company, an "it", not a person or several persons.

And I haven't viewed this from a civil rights standpoint. Frankly, even if I tried I would find it very hard to view it from that standpoint. This is not about Michael Moore's rights as a human being but more about his difficulties as a filmmaker. I think it has gone too far when Miramax, that are considerably huge, can't get their products out because Disney has decided it's too controversial.

I think you are right about the publicity... Miramax would be foolish to not use this to sell their film. They are movie producers after all. About when Disney decided not to distribute the film or not, I think we will never really know. It sounds more like Disney told Miramax and Moore they were skeptical but didn't give a definite answer before recently. What I don't get is why Disney still owns the distribution rights if they didn't want them one year ago.

Oh, I agree, and I've said that allready.

There used to be very good laws to prevent monopoly within the film industry. If I have been correctly informed, Bush is a warm supporter of taking away even more restrictions that work against monopoly. In other words, Bush is anti free trade and healthy competition in this sense and pro a few gigantic corporation that control the entire market. Nothing good can ever come out of that. Disney owns Miramax and even if Miramax wanted to take their film elsewhere from the beginning I don't think they could have. So the way I see it everyone is not exercising their own free will at all.

Sure, but they do what they can to limit the market down to include as few non-Disney products as possible. As long as the consumer pick a Disney product over another Disney product they are happy. And winning.

Well, ok. It doesn't sound like they had anything to worry about really.

Well, I don't know.. I just think that their business not being our business sounded a bit drastic.

Well, I'm not being literal, of course. But in general, I'm perplexed by the constant dehumanizing of corporations, as if they were entities, rather than just groups of people. I mention wealth and status because when you overrule a corporation, you're overruling the people making decisions within it, and I'm saying that people should not have their decisions overturned simply because they happen to have wealth and status within a successful company.


I didn't comment on it because my answer would have been roughly identical to my response to the rest of the post. It's not censorship when someone does something with their own property.


But Disney is a group of people. It's not an abstract concept; it's an organization made up of human beings. Thus, every decision "Disney" makes is actually the decision of a person, or a collection of people. They don't cease to be human decisions because they're done under a corporate name.


What's "too far" about it? People start a business, people hire people to work in it, people make decisions about their business. Which part of that is unjust?


I don't know. I imagine there are a few ins and outs in whatever deal they signed.


Bush is more free trade than anyone the Democrats have tried to put up against him; at least, globally. And he's taken a lot of criticism for it, too, I might add. There's a fine line between laws that prevent monopolies, and laws that simply punish businesses for success. The debate, then, is not over whether or not an economy should be open and free, but where that line exists.

And yes, they are exercising their free will, because Disney OWNS Miramax. You can say it's stupid, unfair, or a hundred other things, but censorship? No more so than when the local newspaper decides not to publish a letter someone sends them.


Exactly. As long as the consumers pick a Disney product. The power never leaves the hands of the consumers.


Well, I don't know. How much of a bother it was doesn't really change what we're talking about, I don't think. I was just trying to illustrate that even the smallest things can become a nuisance to such a publicly visible company.


I disagree. Telling someone how to run their business isn't far off from telling them how to live their life, as far as I'm concerned.

This is an odd paradox I've noticed among many liberals; the idea that government should be unintrusive and unconcerned with personal matters and choices, but constantly regulating and interfereing with private businesses. Where's the regard for property rights?

Then I would like to ask you if you think the desicions made by Disney's board of executives is the same decision that would have been made if every single individual would have had her say in the matter? A corporation isn't less an entity than a government, a parliament or an authority in general. On the contrary, it's even more of an entity since its decisions are not based on democracy. The decisions don't represent the majority of the group of people that the company is built up on.

Are you aware of that sometimes you almost sound like a communist? Speaking of communism... What would you say is the difference between monopoly controlled by a large corporation and monopoly controlled by a communist state? What makes the one thing good and the other thing bad?

Ok.

The part that is unjust is that there are no regulations that stop a few large conglomerats (and in fact a very few number of people) to own the entire media market and control what people will and will not get to see. That is not a healthy or an open market. And Disney has the right to refuse to distribute any film that their production companies give them, on that we've agreed, you and I. But do you think Miramax could sell their films to other distributors if they felt like it? I wouldn't think so. So that's unjust too.

That is certainly discussable, but in a different discussion.

Well, it's really simple actually. In the film industry you talk about vertically integrated companies. That's a company that produces the film, distributes the film and also owns the theaters where the film is being screened. In the 40's and 50's this created a climate where the big companies ate up the entire market and made it impossible for smaller independent companies to make it. It also affected the art of the films since the big companies had silent agreements on what company made what genre of films. This ended when the US Supreme Court ruled that this was a form of monopoly and illegal. A producer couldn't be a distributor at the same time after that. But this has slowly come back and also grown bigger with the birth of Internet, the rental chains, music video industry and the music industry in general. Today the same board of executives can control a film from the production stage, to the distribution stage, the theaters and so on. The executives see to that the film is talked about on their tv channel and written about in their news papers and that artists from their record company produce a sellable soundtrack to boost the ticket sales, preferably with a smash hit video on MTV to back it up even more. As you know, the best thing about competiton is that it brings better and better products. Well... I wouldn't go as far as saying that the mainstream films today are worse than ever, that would be completely subjective. But I think I can dare to say that they are being more and more conformistic.

It is a form of censorship when you can't publish that letter in its original form. If they tell you to come back with a few changes here and there, then it is a form of censorship. And that is what is going on in the film industry today, and in the entertainment business in general probably.

[EDIT] This itself is not censorship, of course. What I mean is that when this occur and the local newspaper is the only newspaper around, that's when it becomes a form of censorhsip.

I guess you missed my point. If all the products on the market are Disney, then the consumer doesn't have much of a choice, does she?

No, but as you know we have quite a few laws on how to live our lives and what we can and can not do. When studying film I have discovered that the american entertainment corporations are doing pretty much what they want. Show me an ordinary human being that can do exactly what he or she want to do?

Whose property exactly would you consider Fahrenheit 911 to be?

Private businesses need regulations too. We need frameworks within which the business can act freely. It's nothing strange and it has nothing to do with interfering. Take a look at Italy and Silvio Berlusconi. You can't possibly argue that that situation is a sign of healthy competition.

I think the central point is this thing about Disney not selling the film on/allowing others to distribute it. I don't know if that's true, but if it is the case, then they are impeeding the distribution of Moore's work in an unjustifiable way. Decide not to distribute it, fine. But don't stop others doing it.

(There's other related stuff, but i thought i'd be concise for a change )

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EDIT: Yay, go Pidz. Guess i didn't miss the argument .

Oh, and alright, where would we be without Yods' rational reductionism to spur us all on too . Interesting clinical thinking .

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Yes, now go and say something smart in this thread.

Well, Pidd, after having started THIS very underwhelming thread, that most of MoFo was completely blind to the fact that the Festival du Cannes was even taking place.

How's about you go say something smart in that thread? Surely, that's where your Moore post should have been in the first place?

Ok, then don't say anything smart in that thread or this thread.

Either way, I've actually got nothing smart to say.

In this or that thread? What thread?