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Too hot to handle?
Michael Moore versus Miramax
BY PETER KEOUGH

Long before the recent revelations from the September 11 commission and those regarding Iraqi-prisoner abuse, Americans have suspected that they weren’t getting the full story about things. But few have really cared.

Prime time for Michael Moore to promote his new film Fahrenheit 911, from all accounts a typically muckraking, scathing, and perhaps informative look at the strange relationship between the bin Laden and Bush families and its influence on the war against terror.

According to Moore, the Disney Corporation has quashed release of the project for political reasons. He says that Disney — which as the parent company of Harvey Weinstein’s Miramax financed the project and planned to distribute it — dumped the film because it was afraid of losing the "tax breaks" granted its properties in Florida by Governor Jeb Bush. ("What tax break?" asks Jeb, echoing his brother by claiming ignorance.) Another suggested reason is Disney’s support of the Republican Party. Disney’s Michael Eisner has contributed to Republican campaigns; Weinstein, on the other hand, has contributed to the Democrats. And it might not just be the Bushes that Disney fears offending. According to AlterNet, Al-Walid bin Talal, a member of the Saudi royal family and a big investor in Eurodisney, might not be too pleased with the movie either.

In his defense, Eisner states that he demurred on Moore’s movie because Disney "did not want a film in the middle of a political process where we’re such a non-partisan company" ("non-partisan" includes, it would appear, the right-wing rantings of the radio stations owned by ABC). Studio spokeswoman Zenia Mucha (former flack for New York Republicans George Pataki and Alfonse D’Amato) claims that Disney had told Moore it wasn’t going to distribute the film a year ago and that he’s spilling the beans just now to promote the picture’s premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. Moore has admitted on CNN that he knew of Disney’s reservations back then but was hoping Weinstein could "work something out" and learned of the final decision only on May 3.

What is Hollywood coming to when a movie studio bashes one of its directors for promoting his movie? It’s true that Moore has timed his disclosure for maximum self-promotion. He’s even invented a conspiracy theory of persecution similar to Mel Gibson’s PR campaign for The Passion of the Christ. (It was Gibson’s studio, Icon, that first financed Fahrenheit.) But so what? The film, which may or may not be a credible and worthwhile exposé of the powers that be, will no doubt be released soon by some studio other than Disney. The real significance of Moore’s disclosure is that Disney’s decision seems part of what Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-New Jersey), in a statement calling for a congressional investigation, describes as a "disturbing pattern of politically based corporate censorship of the news media and the entertainment industry."

Cases in point include Viacom’s dumping last November of the "controversial" mini-series The Reagans; Clear Channel’s canning of Howard Stern once he started bad-mouthing the administration; and the Sinclair Broadcast Group’s dropping of the April 30 Nightline episode that listed American soldiers killed in Iraq. And you might as well throw in HarperCollins’s refusal to publish Moore’s book Stupid White Men after September 11 and pretty much all broadcast and cable news coverage now that the Bush administration has exploited that tragedy to annul our right to the truth.


Issue Date: May 14 - 20, 2004
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