Rob Kall | June 26 2004
The handcuffs hanging from the burly hired security guard were clearly, intentionally evident. He was checking younger-looking ticket purchasers for age, to protect them from the R-rating of the movie. But he looked big and nasty. I was bringing my 14 year old son, and since he accompanied me, there was no problem.
The movie was incredible, besides weaving together a strong case against George Bush and his administration, it was a riveting piece of entertainment. The 24 theater megaplex had devoted its largest room to the movie and it looked like the previous showing and the one we went to see were both sold out.
I'd gone, wearing a blue shirt, like Moveon.org had suggested. I'd printed out flyers with a message from Michael Moore, that I'd downloaded as a PDF file from moveon.org-- ten of them. I started passing them out before I went out the main doors. The flyers just about flew out of my hands and I was disappointed I didn't have more. People wanted them. They wanted to DO SOMETHING.
As soon as I was finished handing them out, I just kept walking, and went through the main exit doors for the particular theater the movie was shown, which put me in the front area within the movie megaplex. This time there were three big, bouncer-type security guards rushing past me, towards the exit doors. "There are people in there handing out flyers," one of them said urgently, as they rushed to go through the doors to catch .... me. They'd seen people walking out with the flyers I'd handed out.
They were hot for action. Fortunately for me, I'd handed out all the flyers I'd brought. I'd only printed out a small number because I knew my teen-ager might not be thrilled with his activist father. It was a good thing. Getting grabbed or even arrested would not have been a good thing. Civil disobedience that's intentional is one thing, but getting hassled for handing out flyers-- I'm not ready for that yet, even though it REALLY felt like we were in a police state.
After all, I'm a regular at that movie, and I've never seen special security guards carding people, never seen three guards AFTER the movie. Germany in the 1030s seem to be inching closer and closer. I spoke to my daughter, in upstate PA, and she had to drive over an hour, more than 60 miles, to get to a theater playing the movie. She said they were militantly carding there too. And even there, in Santorum country, the largest theater in the local megaplex was almost sold out... for the Friday noon showing... and the rest of the shows that day were already sold out by the time they were leaving.
This movie IS going to make a difference. It's going to bring people together and it is flushing out the sold out faux journalist and news networks that have been attacking the movie using all the talking points the Republican attack artists have conjured up, repeatedly reciting the attacks on Michael Moore's character, downplaying the accuracy of the film.
After the movie my son and I were talking about what would cause the censors to give Fahrneheit 9/11 an R rating. I said, "The most obscene thing in the movie is the topic of the movie-- George W. Bush and what he's done."
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