Bowling For Columbine Discussion Questions

Barbara Dority author of “The Columbine Tragedy: Countering the Hysteria”, illustrates how society becomes hysterical after a teen commits a mass school shooting. The Columbine shooting occurred April 20, 1999 in Littleton, Colorado. It was caused by two adolescents Eric Harris and Dylan Kledold, collectively killed 13 students and wounded 23 others. After the Columbine shooting, society looked in every direction for who is to blame for such a horrendous act of violence caused by teens. Dority expresses how society tends to panic, and take away the youths’ pleasures such as video games, music, and the very basic rights young people have. While society posit that media or Goth music is the catalyst for teen violence, it is not the media or Goth who are to blame for teen violence.

The film begins with a representative of the national rifle association talking about the film. This automatically puts the audience into a position to think about guns. The film techniques in this film are used to help tell a story and to re-enforce the argument to help get a certain response from the audience. The documentary Bowling For Columbine uses the techniques such as cartoons, music choice, and interviews with people that were involved in the mass shooting.This is to help convey the message of America's gun crazy and has a violent history begets violence.

To contrast his emotional appeals, Moore uses logos strategically in this film. Throughout the entire documentary, Moore travels around and interviews people about their opinions on guns. He also asks if they believe that everyone should have access to guns and why America is one the most dangerous countries in the world when it comes to gun violence. The whole film consists of Moore’s dialogue with common Americans, which allows the viewers to hear what other people think, not just

The idea of a documentary being an artistic or even personalised expression of a director is long gone, or so it seems in recent times. In Michael Moore’s latest documentary, Bowling for Columbine, he attempts to get across to viewers his, and essentially only his point of view, on the topic of gun laws. Although what Moore is trying to say is not necessarily wrong, he is at the same time not taking into account the other side of the argument either; all he is trying to do, essentially is hypnotise viewers into thinking

Dave Cullen’s purpose in writing Columbine is to expose the truth about the killers. Dave Cullen exposes Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris the Columbine shooters; everything from their extensive planning, their motives, and the harrowing results of the massacre are revealed throughout Columbine.

The tragic story of Columbine by Dave Cullen analysis’ the bitter events that were caused by Eric Klebold and Dylan Harris. Although tough to read, the description and imagery within the book about the intense news reports, the role both boys played, and the somber realization of a inspirational marter story furthers the reader's understanding of the truth. Cullen wrote with the purpose to develop each character while going in depth to tell the truth and dispel any rumors that were connected to the tragic 1999 massacre.

Terror, shock, desperateness, all feelings of the Columbine victims. Through the narration of the encounter between Patti Nielson and the shooters during the beginning moments of the Columbine shooting in chapter 11 of Columbine, a memoir, Dave Cullen adopts an informative tone in order to focus young adults’ attention to the ruthlessness of the Columbine shooting.

However, through the intelligent use of film techniques such as Omissions, editing (scene placement) and non-diegetic sounds, there is an obvious bias presented to the audience, as Moore wants to specifically convey a messages which benefits an agenda which he is following. The documentaries, Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine will be further explored through the analysis of its film techniques which indefinitely create an obvious bias and the positive and negative outcomes it has regarding Michael Moore’s film message.

A documentary is a genre of film that provides a factual report on a particular story, viewpoint, message or experience. In this essay, two documentaries, Bowling for columbine by Michael Moore and Made in Bangladesh by CBC news will be explored to show how persuasive techniques are used to make an audience feel a particular way.

On the morning of April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold approach Columbine High School, in Jefferson County, Colorado. Armed with one 10-shot Hi-Point model 995 carbine rifle, one Intratec AB-10 (TEC-9) pistol, two Savage 12-gauge shotguns, and as many as ninety-five explosive devices, Harris and Klebold enter the school near the cafeteria. Upon doing so, they are met with the words that God commanded unto Moses on Mount Sinai: Thou Shall Not Kill. Harris and Klebold tremble in fear and shame for what they have come to accomplish. Dropping their weapons, the boys fall to their knees, bow their heads in penance, and pray to God for forgiveness.

Dave Cullen uses specific words to help the reader visualize the shooting and intentionally uses different sentence structure to convey an informative tone. Cullen helps the reader to picture what happened in this beginning part of the shooting by describing how many kids, 500, were running, and for what distance, the length of the building. By giving key details, the author helps to reader to visualize what actually happened on this day in 1999. By using facts of the shooting the author appeals to reason as to how the Columbine shooting took place. He does this by giving the time of “11:24”-meaning the outside ordeal lasted only 5 minutes- and numbers of who was shot and how many times the guns were used. Cullen also shows the terror of the shooting by the use of the words “screamed” and “desperate”. The short sentence structure shows how rapid the events took place and the intensity of the moment.

To offer an explanation as to how America got to this “barbaric stage”, an animated short, courtesy of Matt Stone is played, which takes a satirical approach to the story of America’s gun laws. The general idea put across from this segment is that America’s obsession with guns has transpired from a fear of the black man; where it even went as far to suggest that the KKK negotiated with the NRA to restrict black people’s possession of a firearm. Moore then proposes that this fear has appeared in many different forms, and that of which has been orchestrated by the government and large corporations to boost consumerism. A hypothesis like this does seem plausible, however there is no tangible evidence to reinforce this claim, just a lot of emotional appeal.

Bowling for Columbine is a documentary directed and written by Michael Moore about the United States of America’s mindset on gun violence and finding out the key causes of why America has the highest amount of gun related deaths in the world. Moore does this by venturing to Flint Michigan, Ontario Canada, Littleton Colorado, South Central Los Angeles, and interviewing the locals, Charles Heston (the president of the National Rifles Association), Marilyn Manson, Evan McCollum (director of communications for Lockheed Martin Space Systems), and those who knew of or were involved with the Columbine high school shooting. Each scene is created to invoke the viewer into sympathizing with Moore’s argument that the media’s constant stream of negativity and violence manipulates the American mass into fear and that causes them to consume and spend money. Michael Moore takes control of the documentary by editing horrifying clips to feel good music to create an emotional appeal. He also makes use of logical appeals by showing the history of America’s wrong doings and coincidence of NRA rally’s shorty after a mass massacre tragedy. Satirically he makes light of how ridiculous Americans love their guns by use of song and cartoon. (Moss) These deliberate techniques push the viewer to side with Moore and they are very effective especially for first time watchers -including me. I agree that America is insecure and focuses too much on the bad; we want the quickest and easiest solution

When the documentary was produced, media exposure was limited to private and expensive mediums such as television, movies and radio. These outlets were plagued with marketing agendas designed to sell products under the guise of authentic music and entertainment. Formerly non-existent cultural archetypes such as the

Michael Moore’s flawed 2002 expository documentary Bowling for Columbine is ineffective in its goals to open Americas eyes to its very serious gun violence problem. Michael Moore sets out to uncover why the United States can’t seem to end its devastating and reoccurring mass shootings, by using deception as its primary tool of persuasion and effect, Moore attempts to vilify pro-gun activists. The humorous documentary frequently highpoints controversial decisions and actions made by the then President of the National Rifle Association Charlton Heston. Bowling also raises issues such as the ease of buying pointless high powered assault weapons just about anywhere, and American media’s film first ask later attitude towards gun crimes and social and racial issues. Americans are left even more paranoid and hostile than ever before, something the documentary should have set out to end.