The ideologically bankrupt American populist right (not to be confused with intellectually honest, legitimate fiscal and/or social conservatives) has for many years now been handled with kid gloves. Social dialog in America has given serious consideration, for example, to such absurdities as given the "competing theories" of evolution and "intelligent design", "equal time." We have been browbeaten to accept obvious distorting blow-hards such as Anne Coulter as "columnists" and even "intellectuals." Here's the brilliance of Divided State: it doesn't take the kid gloves off (so it can't be accused of overt bias), but it does nevertheless show in no uncertain terms a clear dividing line between good and evil, between thoughtful and knee-jerk, between reasoned and ideologue. Without saying so explicitly, this movie very says loudly and clearly: these guys here are evil, greedy, manipulative buffoons and charlatans, while those guys are over there are decent and thoughtful.
But who is who? By any standard, the heroes of this story are the Utah Valley State College (UVSC) student leaders who took a not unreasonable stand against the many biases of their closed community at large and the many students of all political stripes who had the intestinal fortitude and intellectual honesty to support them. The heroes were the ones who spoke not in slogans, but in ideas, and could back up their views with reasoned, nuance, and, as this theme deals with uniquely American topics, Constitutionality.
By this and really any standard, the main antagonist, a local conservatively-minded resident, comes off as an absolute buffoon, and rightly so. The man was such a one-dimensional caricature of himself that I half expected a "kicker" at the end to be that he had done his actions as some sort of "test" to teach the students a good civics lesson (no spoiler here: he wasn't - he was sincere.) By this standard also, it's not too much of a surprise that windbag conservative host Sean Hannity also is far less than the sum of his salary might suggest when he is held up to the light.
The true genius of the filmmakers, however, was to show how even the movie's Messiah of sorts, liberal wind-bag Michael Moore, was also a particularly naked emperor.
There's a lot of good about this movie. See it.
But who is who? By any standard, the heroes of this story are the Utah Valley State College (UVSC) student leaders who took a not unreasonable stand against the many biases of their closed community at large and the many students of all political stripes who had the intestinal fortitude and intellectual honesty to support them. The heroes were the ones who spoke not in slogans, but in ideas, and could back up their views with reasoned, nuance, and, as this theme deals with uniquely American topics, Constitutionality.
By this and really any standard, the main antagonist, a local conservatively-minded resident, comes off as an absolute buffoon, and rightly so. The man was such a one-dimensional caricature of himself that I half expected a "kicker" at the end to be that he had done his actions as some sort of "test" to teach the students a good civics lesson (no spoiler here: he wasn't - he was sincere.) By this standard also, it's not too much of a surprise that windbag conservative host Sean Hannity also is far less than the sum of his salary might suggest when he is held up to the light.
The true genius of the filmmakers, however, was to show how even the movie's Messiah of sorts, liberal wind-bag Michael Moore, was also a particularly naked emperor.
There's a lot of good about this movie. See it.