Michael Moore

Michael Moore, born in 1954, American filmmaker and writer. Moore’s documentaries and books about political issues have been both controversial and critically acclaimed, often incorporating dark humor to appeal to a broader audience.

Moore was born in Davison, a suburb of Flint, Michigan. Politically active as a teenager, he was elected to the Flint school board at the age of 18. He briefly attended the University of Michigan but left to pursue social and political causes.

Moore started a weekly alternative newspaper in the mid-1970s called the Flint Voice (later the Michigan Voice) and also hosted a radio show. In 1986 Moore was hired to edit the liberal magazine Mother Jones but was fired after a few months over differences with the magazine’s publisher.

Moore moved back to Flint, where he became disturbed by massive layoffs in the city’s automobile factories, especially at General Motors Corporation. Although he never worked for the company, many of his relatives had in the past. Angered by the company’s decision to lay off thousands of United States employees and move their jobs to foreign countries with cheaper labor, Moore decided to make a film about the high unemployment and resulting social problems in Flint.

That movie, Roger & Me (1989), chronicled Moore’s many fruitless attempts to confront General Motors executive Roger Smith and persuade him to visit Flint. The film earned numerous awards and became the highest grossing documentary film up to that time.

Moore followed up Roger & Me by writing and directing a comedy, Canadian Bacon (1995), starring Alan Alda and John Candy. Influenced by the 1991 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the film is the story of an American president who attempts to boost his sagging popularity ratings by declaring Canada a military threat to the United States.

In 2004 Moore released the controversial documentary Fahrenheit 9/11. The documentary attempts to show that the administration of president George W. Bush used the September 11 terrorist attacks to justify the invasion of Iraq (see U.S.-Iraq War). The movie, which set documentary box-office records with receipts of more than $200 million worldwide, won the top prize (the Palme d’Or) at the Cannes Film Festival. It was the first documentary to win the prize in nearly 50 years.

Other documentary films by Moore include The Big One (1997), about the abuses of large U.S. corporations and the struggles of working Americans; Bowling for Columbine (2002), an examination of the culture of guns and violence in the United States that won the Academy Award for best documentary; and Sicko (2007), an indictment of the American healthcare system.

Moore has also worked in television. He produced and starred in his own series, TV Nation (1994-1995), which continued his approach of attacking corporate misdeeds, often with humorous confrontations. The controversial show won an Emmy Award in 1995 but was canceled that same year. Moore later hosted a similar show, The Awful Truth (1999-2000).

Moore is the author of the books Downsize This! (1997), about corporate greed; Stupid White Men (2002), which lampoons business executives and politicians; Dude, Where’s My Country? (2003), which criticizes the Bush administration; and Will They Ever Trust Us Again? (2004), a collection of letters from American soldiers who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq.