Synthese de l'histoire des EU ("A brief History of the USA Michael Moore's movie)

« This document is a humoristic cartoon which comes from Michael Moore’s movie: Bowling for Columbine.

It is a documentary which focuses on the origin of violence in the USA and especially the environment in which the massacre of Columbine took place.

This movie was directed and produced by Michael Moore.

He won prizes as 55th Anniversary Prize at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival and the César Award for Best Foreign Film .

This movie has been really criticized too. In this film, Michael Moore wants to put into perspective both the 2 nd amendment of the American constitution and the Columbine massacre.

This tragedy took place in a public school where two adolescents killed twelve students and one teacher.

They also wounded 24 other people before killing themselves.

M.

Moore’s documentary talks about violence in the USA.

To what extent does this cartoon caricature the USA’s history? And how does M.

Moore manage to show that violence and guns are part and parcel of the American history? The cartoon starts with the departure of settlers to America to escape religious persecution in Europe and looking for peace.

As soon as they arrived in the New World, the Pilgrims felt threatened by the Indian local inhabitants and massacred them.

Then they fought against British troops and won.

After a witch hunt, they declared the second amendment in 1871 (eighteen seventy one) which allowed American people to own a weapon.

Later, they went to Africa where they captured black people and brought them back to America as slaves.

But the slaves started rebelling and standing up for their rights.

After the Civil war, black people became free.

Nevertheless, the peace was miles and miles away.

The WASP people (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) created the Ku Klux Klan, a racist organisation which persecuted black people.

When the KKK was declared illegal, the NRA (National Rifle Association) has been founded.

The right to own a weapon became illegal for all black people. In 1955, a black woman, Rosa Parks, broke the rule of the segregation.

It induced a movement of the black people, asking for equal rights: the Civil Rights movement led by Martin Luther King.

We can infer that all the American history is full of violence and fear.

American people have still many fears and can use their guns in an inappropriate situation.

This is what happened for Columbine massacre.

The easy access to firearms can lead to tragedies when weapons belong to dangerous people.

On top of that, we can deduce that the very violent history of that country leads to fear and this is why American people want to protect themselves.

To put it in a nutshell, Moore wants to caricature history of the USA in order to show that the right to own a weapon leads to violence and tragedies.

Moore’s goal is to put into perspective guns and violence.

According to him, the right to own a weapon generates fear and at larger scale, catastrophes.

As Moore’s film, A History of Violence, directed by David Cronenberg, raises the links’ question between violence and people . Louis Delannoy TS2 English. »