My wife and I have now seen F911. We saw it separately, and I didn't discuss it with her at all until after she saw it. I didn't want to influence her thought on it.
Now that she has seen it, it was particularly noteworthy that we were both stunned by the same thing: The Beginning!!!
Most of the movie, I knew the facts, but it was good to see them all laid out together. And it made for very good visceral polemic. But without any prompting from me, my wife told me after seeing the movie that the
most upsetting moment of the movie was the beginning. And I agreed.
Specifically, we are referring to the Black Caucus' inability to get a single senator to sign onto their resolution. My wife used the same word that I did: "Ashamed" ... We are both ashamed that happened. I watched the film sitting directly in front a black couple as well - which didn't help. I had shame and rage at once.
What's worse is that neither of us ever knew this happened! I'm a news junkie, who spent 4 months from election day onward in 2000 practically watching the news 24/7. It's been pretty much the same way since 9/11 - and particularly the last year since the runup to the democratic primaries and this blog. And I never once knew about that.
My wife also mentioned that she didn't know about the large-scale protests against Bush when he was inaugurated. And I didn't either.
Even worse, for my wife -- at the time she was an editor for the No. 1 news radio station in a large city. She never saw those things come across the wires. What does that tell you????
I'm not going to get into all my other thoughts about the film here, since it's been hashed over so many times. But I just had to share this, particularly after my wife had the same exact reaction I did.