Michael Moore response

Watching Moore’s documentary, I was captivated by the unfortunate downfall of the town of Flint. I felt several different emotions throughout the film as it explored all aspects of the situation. It was very sad to see the 30,000 something people of the town of Flint suddenly lose their jobs. With Flint’s pride in GM and their glorious town all crash abruptly I could feel the sense of grave emptiness that Moore was trying to convey. Yet, when the topic shifted to the cause of all the grief, Roger Smith, I became frustrated and ticked off. When Smith does not own up to what he has done and uses his assistants to just get rid of Moore, you want someone to put this guy in his place.

I think GM  is directly responsible for the economic downfall of Flint because they were the town’s source of life. The loss of 30,000 jobs is the main reason why the town’s economy fell apart and the residents were left to either scrounge for another job or be unemployed. The rest of the town’s businesses followed suit as they couldn’t survive in the town any longer.

Moore uses many rhetoric devices to get his point across and these tactics are what makes his films resonate so well. We see a ton of ethos because he is narrating the film with the information and facts that explain the clips and images we are watching. Pathos is very abundant, I think mostly when the guy is serving the eviction to the poor family in the end of the movie and the mother is screaming while the children are looking around confused. This is all happening on Christmas Eve and it keeps switching between this heartbreaking scene and Roger Smith’s joyous speech about the magic of Christmas. Logos is also used.. For example, when he speaks with all of the GM people to try to get to Smith,  he uses a lot of reasoning and lays out the clear situation for them yet they keep dodging it all.

Ehrenreich, Mantsios, and Moore share very common themes between them. They all convey this idea that the struggles of the working class are overseen by those higher up in the class system. Ehrenreich goes through a personal experience of delving into a minimum-wage life and shows how you don’t know what it’s like until you’re in it. Mantsios proves that the top 1 percent are in so much control of the economy and those at the bottom are totally ignored. Moore gives us these images when we see the contrast between Roger Smith and his CEO lifestyle and the poor people that were left in the dark by his decisions.