At one point in Bowling for Columbine, Moore played "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" followed by "What a Wonderful World." Both songs exert a peaceful emotion, but when combined with videos showing people dying via bullet wound and graphics illustrating the victims of war, the emotions turn sour. These two very contrasting medias also create confusion. Did I really just watch someone get shot while Louis sang, "'I see friends shaking hands, sayin' ,'How do you do?' They're really sayin', 'I love you.'?" This makes people think.
At first it seems so normal to be watching people get shot because it happens all the time in video games and action movies but once the realization sets in that Bowling for Columbine is not a fiction, there is no longer anything normal about the matter. It is also to hear "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and "What a Wonderful Rainbow" as background songs in movies and TV shows, but never when people are dying and blood is strewn everywhere. Maybe it's just me, but the combination of the two makes me think that either Moore was indeed just being terribly ironic, or that he was trying to send the viewer a deeper message about gun culture in America. Could it be that gun violence is so prevalent in America today that it is on the cusp of normalcy? Could it be that in order to create a wonderful world we need to shoot people we don't like? Or is Moore relaying the longing desire for there, somewhere over the rainbow, to be less gun violence?
Another approach Moore took in order to pull the trigger inside the viewer's mind was to take his documentary into everyday life. The viewer is introduced to multiple Michigan residents who all happened to be bomb enthusiast, gun loving, bullet crazy people that said they would never ever ever take someone's life with a weapon. They simply had weapons because the American Constitution said they could. Having guns simply because they can is something I think a lot of Americans can relate to. I used to think that people only had guns for hunting or for sport, but to have a gun just because you can seems childish. Moore also ventured north into Canada where he, as an American might call it, broke in and entered random homes. What was interesting about Moore's "crime" was that it was not seen as a crime in Canada as most people just leave their front door unlocked and often open anyway. They have no fear of someone breaking in much less breaking in with a gun. I think that fear-free mentality is something Americans should strive to adopt.
At first it seems so normal to be watching people get shot because it happens all the time in video games and action movies but once the realization sets in that Bowling for Columbine is not a fiction, there is no longer anything normal about the matter. It is also to hear "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and "What a Wonderful Rainbow" as background songs in movies and TV shows, but never when people are dying and blood is strewn everywhere. Maybe it's just me, but the combination of the two makes me think that either Moore was indeed just being terribly ironic, or that he was trying to send the viewer a deeper message about gun culture in America. Could it be that gun violence is so prevalent in America today that it is on the cusp of normalcy? Could it be that in order to create a wonderful world we need to shoot people we don't like? Or is Moore relaying the longing desire for there, somewhere over the rainbow, to be less gun violence?
Another approach Moore took in order to pull the trigger inside the viewer's mind was to take his documentary into everyday life. The viewer is introduced to multiple Michigan residents who all happened to be bomb enthusiast, gun loving, bullet crazy people that said they would never ever ever take someone's life with a weapon. They simply had weapons because the American Constitution said they could. Having guns simply because they can is something I think a lot of Americans can relate to. I used to think that people only had guns for hunting or for sport, but to have a gun just because you can seems childish. Moore also ventured north into Canada where he, as an American might call it, broke in and entered random homes. What was interesting about Moore's "crime" was that it was not seen as a crime in Canada as most people just leave their front door unlocked and often open anyway. They have no fear of someone breaking in much less breaking in with a gun. I think that fear-free mentality is something Americans should strive to adopt.
