Stupid White Men...And Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation! - Michael Moore > Reviews (15)

Having enjoyed a couple of Michael Moore films I was interested to see what his written work is like so I arranged a book swap through readitswapit.co.uk to get a copy of Stupid White Men.

For those not in the know about whom Michael Moore is and his work well he is first and foremost in my opinion an American political activist. In a country whose political landscape is either right wing or middle of the road leaning to the right Moore can comfortably be found to the left of those in the Republican and Democratic Party. He is probably best known as a film maker with his latest film Sicko a commentary on the state of the health service in the States however he is best known for Fahrenheit 9/11 which I found to be a good film (pretty sure I reviewed it in the past) and the even better, in my opinion, Bowling for Columbine which focused on gun control and crime in America.

Having watched Fahrenheit 9/11 actually presented a problem with my enjoyment of this book. The film opens with how, in Moore opinion, George Bush stole his first election for President from Democrat candidate Al Gore with the assistance of his cousin Jeb Bush, the Governor of Miami. After a foreword and an introduction to my paper back copy that details the troubles Moore had in getting the book published and the censorship that he faced the first couple of chapters are essentially a repeat of what is contained in the film. This for me although interesting was basically an academic rant as the election was over, not only that but American voters had since given Bush a second term so I guess for them Miami was not such a big issue.

I must admit I struggled initially with this book, I found it hard to get into the style of writing that Moore uses, he has a sort of "stick it to the man" approach, the man essentially being those in power, the stupid white men, in his language. Certainly I did not find the comedy that I was promised on the back cover, this for me was not the "hilarious must-read" that I was told to expect. Where I did detect traces of humour they were heavily dosed with sarcasm and sceptism, now I'm a sarcastic individual at times, well most of the time actually, but in his writing Moore does not always get this right.

On the plus side the book got a lot better the further into it I progressed. The subject matter is essentially a lament by Moore and an expose of how those in power in America collude with each other to further their own causes, wealth and more power, to the detriment of the average citizen. The Republican Party comes in for the most stick however Moore also turns his attention on the Democratic Party. He details his reasons for supporting the left wing Ralph Nader, the little known third candidate in the Presidential elections, and how this impacted on Bush election. He also reserves a whole chapter for detailing the fact that Clinton was little different to Bush in the policies he pursued on the environment and abortion. This chapter was the one that I found most informative as he listed Clinton track record and how he was able to spin his own record with the media to effectively hide the truth.

A book like this is intended to change the readers' attitude on matters, to get them to question matters and maybe ultimately to take a stand, this is something Moore does advocate and what I liked was that rather than just spending the entire book moaning and highlighting injustice he does actually propose some solutions. He details how easy it is for people to get active and how to make a change in their local community first which can lead to bigger things on a national platform. He also has some rather novel ways of getting his message across. His chapter on race, called Kill Whitey, was particularly interesting and backed up with a huge amount of date (a theme that does run through the book, lots of data to support his arguments) and towards the end he does come up with a rather amusing us for a Whites Only sign and where to place it. Actually in this chapter he is probably at his funniest, not saying a lot compared with the book as a whole, but it is disturbing how he can raise a laugh while highlighting some very scary facts on the lives of black America.

At times the writing style is rather "pally" like he is having an intimate chat with the reader over a cup of tea. This style works quite well in places and certainly Moore is good at keeping things simple and breaking down the arguments without the use of jargon. Where he is less subtle is when he tries to convey his anger over certain issues and then he resorts in some cases to profanity, now for me I find that a little lazy and something that may work well on film to get across an emotion but is less effective in the written word.

In summary this is a book I would recommend but with a couple of reservations, do stick with it as it improves the more you get into it, also you need to recognise that things have moved on significantly politically since it was written although I'm pretty sure that the central issues of the abuse of power by politicians and big business to the cost of the majority are still happening. It is written to an American audience but you can certainly see the links with our own political structure and it is a book that will certainly have an influence on your opinions. Certainly in my case my opinion of Clinton and his legacy has changed significantly and maybe Hilary not winning the nomination was a good thing after all. Personally I will be reading more of his work as there was enough in this to keep me interested in his work.

The paperback version I have was published by Penguin. The rrp was £7.99 which is too much for a 258 page paperback, Amazon have copies for £6.99 new (still too much) but from a penny in the new and used section. The ISBN is 0-141-01999-9.

Thanks for reading and rating my review.