"Haven't you noticed that it is usually Canadians who sight (sic) him as a source and come to his defense?"
Yes. But haven't you noticed that it is we, your closest english-speaking neighbours, who might be most inclined to follow US politics in detail? That, and he is widely praised and apparently widely agreed with in Europe and Australia, although I'm unaware of how he does in the non-english speaking world. In England, his books regularly top bestseller lists. In France, they've gone as far as to put "Roger and Me" and "Bowling for Columbine" on their curriculum. This is not just restricted to Canada.
From dictionary.com:
ster·e·o·type
n.
1. A conventional, formulaic, and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image.
2. One that is regarded as embodying or conforming to a set image or type.
3. Printing. A metal printing plate cast from a matrix molded from a raised printing surface, such as type.
Presumably, we're either talking about no. 1 or no. 2, or some combination of them.
So, let's see. Conventional? I've heard a lot of criticisms of Mike Moore, but conventional would be stretching the truth more than a little. Quite the opposite (radical, fringe, out to lunch) tends to be the criticism. Formulaic? To what formula, or whose? I don't recall hearing Mike's hypothesis about violence abroad reflecting violence at home before. If I have, I certainly haven't heard it often enough to constitute a "formula". There are plenty of formulaic notions on this topic, such as "guns cause violence", or "guns don't kill people". Bowling for Columbine certainly rejects the first one, citing Canada as a nation with plenty of guns, but no gun violence. Other formulae, such as "our history makes us need guns" and so forth are also rejected.
Oversimplified conception, opinion, or image? Not really. Simpler than the most detailed examinations of the issues, of course, but easily beyond par for the course. But, of course, all opinions one disagrees with are "oversimplified". That's probably part of why we disagree with them. Mike goes out of his way to track down cases which defy conventional notions of why America is a gun-toting nation, and why gun crime is so much higher than elsewhere, even places with high gun ownership and "gun culture". His opinion, again, is not that "guns are bad", but that this is both a cause and a symptom of other notions arising in the USA, notably an overly aggressive foreign policy dating back to the end of WWII. One can disagree with the notion, and I'm sure you do, but it's not a stereotype.
So no, "stereotype" means exactly what I thought it meant. It doesn't mean "an opinion I disagree with", or "an opinion put out by someone I don't like". If Mike had made a movie that said everything gun control advocates have said for decades, and only that, he would be guilty of stereotyping. He didn't. Agree with it or not, he examined plenty of existing stereotypes, and pretty much rejected them all, putting forth instead his own idea on the causes of gun violence. I can't see how this movie qualifies as "one big stereotype". Maybe you could give an example of it?
Jester
Edit: One question. If you haven't seen Roger and Me, and Mike has only three movies to his name so far (Roger and Me, The Big One, Bowling for Columbine), how many movies of his have you seen? You refer to it in the plural, so I can only presume you've seen The Big One. Is this the case? Or is "Bowling" the only movie of his you've seen? Perhaps you're more familiar with TV Nation, or The Awful Truth (not movies, but I suppose they still count for something)?
Yes. But haven't you noticed that it is we, your closest english-speaking neighbours, who might be most inclined to follow US politics in detail? That, and he is widely praised and apparently widely agreed with in Europe and Australia, although I'm unaware of how he does in the non-english speaking world. In England, his books regularly top bestseller lists. In France, they've gone as far as to put "Roger and Me" and "Bowling for Columbine" on their curriculum. This is not just restricted to Canada.
From dictionary.com:
ster·e·o·type
n.
1. A conventional, formulaic, and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image.
2. One that is regarded as embodying or conforming to a set image or type.
3. Printing. A metal printing plate cast from a matrix molded from a raised printing surface, such as type.
Presumably, we're either talking about no. 1 or no. 2, or some combination of them.
So, let's see. Conventional? I've heard a lot of criticisms of Mike Moore, but conventional would be stretching the truth more than a little. Quite the opposite (radical, fringe, out to lunch) tends to be the criticism. Formulaic? To what formula, or whose? I don't recall hearing Mike's hypothesis about violence abroad reflecting violence at home before. If I have, I certainly haven't heard it often enough to constitute a "formula". There are plenty of formulaic notions on this topic, such as "guns cause violence", or "guns don't kill people". Bowling for Columbine certainly rejects the first one, citing Canada as a nation with plenty of guns, but no gun violence. Other formulae, such as "our history makes us need guns" and so forth are also rejected.
Oversimplified conception, opinion, or image? Not really. Simpler than the most detailed examinations of the issues, of course, but easily beyond par for the course. But, of course, all opinions one disagrees with are "oversimplified". That's probably part of why we disagree with them. Mike goes out of his way to track down cases which defy conventional notions of why America is a gun-toting nation, and why gun crime is so much higher than elsewhere, even places with high gun ownership and "gun culture". His opinion, again, is not that "guns are bad", but that this is both a cause and a symptom of other notions arising in the USA, notably an overly aggressive foreign policy dating back to the end of WWII. One can disagree with the notion, and I'm sure you do, but it's not a stereotype.
So no, "stereotype" means exactly what I thought it meant. It doesn't mean "an opinion I disagree with", or "an opinion put out by someone I don't like". If Mike had made a movie that said everything gun control advocates have said for decades, and only that, he would be guilty of stereotyping. He didn't. Agree with it or not, he examined plenty of existing stereotypes, and pretty much rejected them all, putting forth instead his own idea on the causes of gun violence. I can't see how this movie qualifies as "one big stereotype". Maybe you could give an example of it?
Jester
Edit: One question. If you haven't seen Roger and Me, and Mike has only three movies to his name so far (Roger and Me, The Big One, Bowling for Columbine), how many movies of his have you seen? You refer to it in the plural, so I can only presume you've seen The Big One. Is this the case? Or is "Bowling" the only movie of his you've seen? Perhaps you're more familiar with TV Nation, or The Awful Truth (not movies, but I suppose they still count for something)?