This Divided State
This Divided State
| 19 August 2005 (USA)
This Divided State Trailers

This Divided State follows the controversy surrounding Utah Valley State College's invitation to liberal filmmaker Michael Moore to speak on campus. Though UVSC is located in one of the most conservative counties in the United States, vehement opposition to Moore's visit was much greater than anticipated. Equally surprising, however, was the overwhelming support for Moore, vocalized by students and community members previously considered "apathetic." Debate between Moore supporters and Moore protestors raged openly in the media and public forums. Death threats, hate mail, bribes, and lawsuits were all candidly captured on film.

Reviews
Mildred Hubble

Sean Hannity, who was worshiped by the people of Utah was a everything he made out not to be, un-American, selfish and horrible. I can't understand how someone can remain a hero after publicly humiliating those who oppose his views. His speech was bias and hardly provided any insight or balanced argument. In fact his speech had no argument at all and instead relied on down talking and humiliating liberals within the audience. If any dared to talk they were booed and he made no attempt to stop this. I was disgusted by the lack of insight he provided and his disrespectful attitude. The fact that he was praised and worshiped and made out to be a god like figure angered me and showed me the narrow sightedness of the American society. Sean Hannity, you are a disrespectful and un-American man and you should be ashamed.

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Peter Jones

I thought the film was alright; I didn't see the extreme pro-Moore, anti-religion bias that some of the commenters have found. There was certainly more sympathy for the Moore supporters, and Kay Anderson is obviously made into a convenient villain, and it's obvious who the filmmaker thinks are the good guys and the bad guys here, but the bias wasn't completely over the top (or completely unwarranted).To the bigger point, I think if the goal of the event, as the UVSC President said, was to generate "civil dialogue" it failed, and was doomed to fail from the start. Moore and Hannity are, by nature, antithetical to civil dialogue. If the Student Government wanted to inspire civil dialogue they should have brought in lecturers who actually are, you know, civil. Who specialize in discourse rather than demagoguery. And if they had, there wouldn't have been nearly the backlash from the community.I don't think that the citizenry of Orem and Provo and the rest of Utah (where I lived for many years) is opposed to liberalism per se (despite Kay Anderson's repeated assertions that "this is a very conservative community"); what it resists is incivility. And the sneering, condescending tone of these self-promoting idealogues is, at heart, a promotion of contention, a call to division.In the end, I think Greenstreet shot himself in the foot a little by his obvious sympathy for Moore (but perhaps that was forced upon him by his collaboration with the Center for American Progress). You catch glimpses of the (IMO) more significant theme of civility being able to bridge the gaps of ideology, particularly in the relationship between Jim Bassi and Joe Vogel, and I think perhaps it was initially the point of the whole movie, but I don't think it was brought home nearly forcefully enough.And as a small point, why were all the stock "campus" shots of BYU rather than UVSC? Maybe it was an economic issue and shots of BYU campus were already in the can or something, but every time there was a montage of students walking around, it was at BYU, which irked me a bit.

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invent

I was one of the few non-liberals who showed up to see Steve's video. It was quite an experience... in propaganda film-making and boredom.I was hoping the film might be an actual documentary of Michael Moore's visit to my local school, UVSC, but it turned out to be another liberal, slash-and-burn effort to slam conservatives and the local religious community. It sure seems self-serving for a filmmaker to make a documentary that only reflects his preconceptions on issues.What's more surprising is to see all the '10' votes his homeys have posted here. Did they even see the video? Golly gee Batman, this must rank with All The President's Men! Their ratings are as obvious as the bias in this film. Yeah, like stacking the votes at IMDb will help a lame movie. Maybe my vote will help balance this out.

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faiakes

The American heartland of tolerance proves to be tolerant only to its own beliefs.What should have been just another election time political talk turned to be an insight into the democratic values of USA.The producers take their time to build up our knowledge of the students and the community involved, and it is a good thing. This moves the focus away from Moore and into the events that transpired before (and after) his arrival. Good time is spent on the students themselves and their views, as well as the major figure representing the conservative residents. Both sides get a fair balance.What comes out of the film is how shockingly low are the democratic values many US citizens hold. In a country which prides itself about being an example of democracy, a leader of the "Free World" there is just as much intolerance as anywhere else. The part where the conservative personality gives a talk is unpleasant to watch for any supporter of democracy.This documentary should strike the average US American as a wake up call about how complacent democratic citizens can be when it comes to their political ideas. Everyone likes to thing they are upstanding democratic citizens, until M.Moore comes to town! The true test of democracy is being willing to listen to points of view opposite to your own and not outright dismiss them as wrong or even evil. This little film painfully depicts that (at least) the Utah community failed this test miserably.On the other hand I'm sure that many Utah citizens didn't have a problem with M.Moore coming to town. Unfortunately either the film fails to represent them or I am mistaken and the film is right in giving the impression that most of Utah agreed with the extreme undemocratic views expressed from their prominent(?) citizen.Is this the nature of politics? To be divisive? Would M.Moore speaking in a New York University have made such a show? Unlikely. Then I guess it must have been something about this Utah community. That could have been an area that the documentary could have explored. In doing so it would have be digging deeper into the heart of politics (and rational thought at that). Stil, even with its more narrow scope this little gem does very well. Very well indeed.

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