"Sicko" wins hearts & minds - in Texas!
An amazing story about how "Sicko" is winning the hearts and minds of Americans in the strongest of corporate America's strongholds - Dallas, Texas.
Long time readers of this site no doubt know that I live in Texas. As everyone knows there’s no more conservative state in the Union than here. And I don’t just live in Texas; I live in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. Dallas isn’t some pocket of hippy-dippy behavior. This isn’t Austin. Dallas is the sort of place where guys in cowboy hats still drive around in giant SUV’s with “W” stickers on the back windshield, global warming and Iraq be damned. It’s probably the only spot left in America where you stand a good chance of getting the crap kicked out of you for badmouthing the president.So when I went to see Sicko for a second time this afternoon, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the audience. I wasn’t watching it downtown, where the city’s few elitist liberals congregate and drink expensive lattes. I went to a random mall in the mid-cities, where folks were likely to be just folks. As I sat down, right behind me entered an obligatory, cowboy hat wearing redneck in his 50s. He announced his presence by shouting across the theater in a thick Texas drawl to his already seated wife “you owe me fer seein this!”
Sicko started; the stereotypical Texas guy sat down behind me and never stopped talking. He talked through the entire movie… and I listened. The first ten to twenty minutes of the film he spent badmouthing Moore to his wife and snorting in disgust whenever MM went into one of his trademark monologues. But as the movie wore on his protestations became quieter, less enthusiastic. Somewhere along the way, maybe at the half way point, right before my ears, Sicko changed this man’s mind. By the forty-five minute mark, he, along with the rest of the audience were breaking into spontaneous applause. He stopped pooh-poohing the movie and started shouting out “hell yeah!” at the screen. It was as if the whole world had been flipped upside down. This is Texas, where people support the president and voting democratic is something only done by the terrorists. Michael Moore should be public enemy number one.
By the time the movie was over, public enemy number one had become George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and John F. Kennedy all rolled together. When the credits rolled the audience filed out and into the bathrooms. At the urinals, my redneck friend couldn’t stop talking about the film, and I kept listening. He struck up a conversation with a random black man in his 40s standing next to him, and soon everyone was peeing and talking about just how fucked everything is.
I kept my distance, as we all finished and exited at the same time. Outside the restroom doors… the theater was in chaos. The entire Sicko audience had somehow formed an impromptu town hall meeting in front of the ladies room. I’ve never seen anything like it. This is Texas goddammit, not France or some liberal college campus. But here these people were, complete strangers from every walk of life talking excitedly about the movie. It was as if they simply couldn’t go home without doing something drastic about what they’d just seen. My redneck compadre and his new friend found their wives at the center of the group, while I lingered in the background waiting for my spouse to emerge.
The talk gradually centered around a core of 10 or 12 strangers in a cluster while the rest of us stood around them listening intently to this thing that seemed to be happening out of nowhere. The black gentleman engaged by my redneck in the restroom shouted for everyone’s attention. The conversation stopped instantly as all eyes in this group of 30 or 40 people were now on him. “If we just see this and do nothing about it,” he said, “then what’s the point? Something has to change.” There was silence, then the redneck’s wife started calling for email addresses. Suddenly everyone was scribbling down everyone else’s email, promising to get together and do something… though no one seemed to know quite what. It was as if I’d just stepped into the world’s most bizarre protest rally, except instead of hippies the group was comprised of men and women of every age, skin color, income, and walk of life coming together on something that had shaken them deeply, and to the core.
In all my thirty years on this earth, I have never ever seen any movie have this kind of unifying effect on people. It was like I was standing there, at the birth of a new political movement. Even after 9/11, there was never a reaction like this, at least not in Texas. If Sicko truly has this sort of power, then Michael Moore has done something beyond amazing. If it can change people, affect people like this in the conservative hotbed of Texas, then Sicko isn’t just a great movie, seeing it may be one of the most important things you do all year.
If this is the kind of reaction it's getting in Texas, we have to start gathering our friends and families - even our neighbors - and organize field trips to see Sicko!
It's about time Americans got sick and tired of our bloodsucking Deathcare System!
thanks sis for this post..hope to see it asap when it launches in OZ. Texans are played on by the "loyalty" to one of their own and Bushites use it for anti-Texan agenda. I hope in the spirit of Texas they will lynch him as the outlaw.
"Let there be Light!"
I have to correct this guy. I am from Dallas. He says he is from DFW which could be anywhere in a 40 mile radius. Some of the suburbs are fundy central.
First of all the only people you see wearing cowboy hats are hispanics. People would look at you funny if you were in western drag and not at some theme party. This isnt Ft Worth.
Second, W stickers vanished in 2004. I havent seen one in about 2 years. No W stickers, no Bush/Cheney etc. I live in the central city and my grocery store is close to the HP/UP/SMU/LH area. A republican stronghold. Every other car in its parking lot used to have those silly W stickers. Not a one sports one today.
Third, Bush barely carried the city proper in 04. We elected a lesbian latina sherriff and just had an openly gay male run for mayor. My black female congress woman is one of the most liberal in congress. When has oh so liberal New York had a female mayor? At least they elected a black in the 90's like we did.
Fourth, Austin is an overated college town.
I get sick of my city being portrayed as some backward red neck
utopia. The past couple of years you see IMPEACH grafettied everywhere. People scream at the TV in cafes if Bush appears and they boo him. Nobody wants his damn library.
While a conservative state, Bush has been done here for quite sometime. His poodle Perry would have been booted from office if the idiot Dems could have found a decent candidate. 60% of the state voted against him
but BoB2007's comment is even better!
We might actually be looking at real change in America within the next five years.
Let's hope it's not too late to stave off Armageddon!
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"Money" has no value - people do.
Dallas-Texas isn't the most conservative state in the Union.
That honor belongs to Utah, always red for about five decades.
Even more, Utah County is one of the most staunchly conservative counties in the entire country.
I lived in Provo when the furor over Michael Moore being offered the speaking fee to speak at Utah Valley State College in autumn 2004.
The Divided State documentary trailer will tell you what the furor is about.
I got so sick of the debating that I planned to move to Arizona the next year, which I did.
Although I grew up a Mormon, I became more of a rebel as a politically apathetic youth, then independent and now libertarian (not affiliated with either of the major parties). I admit to rooting for Kerry/Edwards and had put the bumper sticker above license plate on the back of the vehicle to provoke the drivers in an ironic, humorous way of subtle attitude.
Despite the sticker, I voted for Libertarian presidential candidate Michael Badnarik as a principle since Kerry was obviously a "flip-flopper".
Contested Ohio election was such an important issue I donate a small amount to allied Green/Libertarian party's effort to request a vote recount. I somehow did my duty as a vigilant patriot.
Alas, time stood on the side of Bush, Cheney and the Neocon Zionist-Elite cabal.
The world know better about the disastrous Bush America policy. This regressive policy led to the unprecedented election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad which frankly astonished me when the official news came out on the Net. I remember the paraphrased quote "Thanks a lot, Bush" from the amazed spy in a barely concealed tone of sarcasm.
Fast forward two years later. Sicko is now out in theaters but not as big as a blockbuster previous film which I find interesting but only op-ed propaganda that doesn't even tell the story about the side of Israel post-9/11. That Sicko motivated the viewers (some 'once' ignorant in prejudice) to do something to send the letters to their representatives (however might fall on deaf ears of mostly corrupt sell-outs at Congress) expressing the concern as the American citizenry should in heeding Thomas Jefferson's immortal wisdom "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance".
I haven't seen the movie yet -- will wait for video -- but I trust that informed citizens who saw the movie and are moved by its non-pandering message will make informed decisions about voting for the candidates in the future to make sure that the candidates who intentionally ignore the citizens' concern should get the boot they deserve, like some Democrats for failure to hold Bush/Cheney accountable with impeachment option after 2006 election.
May Paul and Gravel receive the nominations for president. Only the informed Citizenry must speak loud to demand that these two candidates are given the good chance to prove themselves in repairing the damaged Republic left by not only Bush/Cheney but also the preceding administrations going back to LBJ immediately after JFK assassination.
Abolish the Fed and IRS, repeal unjust tyrannical laws and weld shut the loopholes of flawed laws that the financial & corporate exploit, prosecute the genuine traitors and weed out the corruption in New York & Washington and the national debt & trade deficit will gradually dissolve in time with responsible fiscal management. Health care for every legit American citizen should be one of the priorities, but I'm not sure about the feasibility of universal health care that include insurance for all.
First solve the fiscal problems left by the corrupt & moneyed NY/DC elites and universal health care will be possible without stretching America's finances too thin without hiking up more taxes to cover the expenses.
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My blog Last Throes of US Empire