It's no secret that Mormons are a buncha crazed religious fuckers. I don't know if all that shit about them trying to reanimate Joseph Smith's corpse is true or not, but suffice it to say it's no coincidence they were eventually given their own state.
In the new film This Divided State, by director Steven Greenstreet, it's presented as a sort of wacky coincidence that adherents of a religion with such a history of persecution for their beliefs would turn out to be the most close-minded motherfuckers you ever saw.
But then this movie's evenhanded like that. Like The New York Times, it gives equal time to a range of views, regardless of how ridonkulous they may be. Also, from what I understand, the director himself hails from Utah and hence may lack a certain frame of reference.
Which is not to say that these problems don't exist elsewhere. I remember when the school I went to would bring in the likes of Phyllis Schlafly and Whatever Rush Limbaugh's Brother's Name Is and 8 of the 9 libruhl kids on campus (Bol doesn't do protests) would get all aggy.
But Utah, man... what the fuck?
So back in September of '04 (i.e. like two months before The Election), the student gov't of Utah Valley State College got the bright idea to bring Michael Moore to campus for a speaking engagement - the rationale being that hearing both sides of the issues might be constructive and perhaps even normal for an alleged "learning community."
Of course, there was no small amount of outrage from the student body and other members of the community. Michael Moore himself, especially after Fahrenheit 9/11, was a fairly contentious figure and this was, after all, an election year. Shit was mad tense already.
One guy, who was himself intending to run for student gov't, took advantage of the situation to circulate a rather misleading petition demanding that the current President of it resign. The aforementioned Kay Anderson, meanwhile, just went plain batshit.
He had already had some beef with the student gov't for bringing in a rap concert featuring Nelly. Not because Nelly sucks, you see, but because his house backs right up to campus and he could hear them shouting curse words, even with his windows closed.
Before it was all said and done with, he would attempt to bribe and eventually sue the student body.
In an attempt to calm shit down, it was announced that Sean Hannity would be brought to campus a few days (or weeks, or whatever) before before the Moore appearance. Furthermore, he would waive his normal speaking fee and only demand the $50,000 it would cost to use his private jet.
Michael Moore, on the other hand, was charging a $40,000 fee, which was one of the main selling points of that one metro kid's petition. Nevermind the fact that ticket sales would more than offset that amount. Anyone who would so much as set foot in Utah is basically doing that state a favor.
The middle third of the film got bogged down with some less than interesting shit such as a visit with a local 39 year-old student who happens to more or less resemble Michael Moore, a guy from another school entirely whose name happens to be Michael Moore and a local establishment named - get this - Moore's Pizza.
But then the actual footage of the Moore and Hannity events was fairly entertaining. The part where Hannity invites a "queer" from the audience up onstage so the crowd can yell at him is right out of Pink Floyd's The Wall. And Moore's speach was certainly rousing if rather obnoxious and ultimately ineffective.
An interesting point though was when he stood by and watched as the two Nader people in the audience were manhandled and literally thrown out the front door, after he had just gone through his thing about how the two kids from student gov't were such heroes of free speech for bringing him to campus.
Anyway, while I expected this to be yet another one of those bullshit films designed to cash in on the hype surrounding Fahrenheit 9/11 and the 2004 election, I found This Divided State to be both entertaining as shit and a fascinating exploration of the kind of free speach issues this country faces given the current political atmosphere.
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