I finally got one of the statistics I wanted to see for a long time: the domestic gross for Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" came in at $118 million dollars. While this is impressive for a "documentary" (although I really wish they'd quit calling it that), I think a fair analysis of the numbers are in order for those who insist that the numbers show the majority of Americans to believe Moore's view:
*Assuming a ticket price of $7 a ticket (averages are higher than this, I believe; I haven't been to a movie in a long time), this translates to fewer than 17 million tickets sold.
*Assuming that everyone went to see the movie only once, this translates to just over 6 percent of the population.
*The above number doesn't factor in spouses taking their spouses with opposing views to the movie to try to prove to them that Bush is who Moore says he is. It also doesn't take into account students who were encouraged to watch it as an extra credit assignment, or conservatives who saw it just to find talking points to disprove.
*There were also individuals who went to see it as many times as they could; I know of at least one.
While 6 percent of the population is a sizable faction, it does not represent anywhere close to a majority. And my suspicions, for the reasons stated above, would be that the numbers are more like 2-3 % of the population that actually support Moore's flawed analysis. There's no real way of telling, but the fact remains that Moore's movie does not represent a mandate for this, or any president.
signing off,
Gideon MacLeish