Fahrenheit 9/11: The Temperature Where Morality Burns

Abstract

Michael Moore's 2004 film Fahrenheit 9/11 is a visual and narrative tour de force that critiques everything from the controversial conditions under which George W. Bush assumed the US presidency to President Bush's handling of his so-called “war on terror.” With its tagline “The temperature where freedom burns,” Moore stresses the dubious ethical nature of the Bush administration's post-9/11 policies, especially as they redefine the US relationship between freedom and censorship. In so doing, he challenges the Bush administration's constructions of US morality as ultimately elitist and self-serving, substituting his own populist, class-based moral America(n) in its place.