WEST CHESTER, Penna. – The message of Michael Moore’s Sicko, that the health-care-system deck in this country is stacked against poor people, is belied by the ethically questionable campaign of the film’s distributor, the Weinstein Company, to deny access to “their” film and its empowering message to anyone who can’t afford the price of admission.
The money counters at Weinstein, which controls the distribution of Mr. Moore’s important film, have threatened an unhealthy array of lawsuits against indigent persons who cannot afford to go to the movies and, therefore, had to resort to downloading Sicko over the Internet through the auspices of such free-health-care advocates as Pirate Bay, http://thepiratebay.org.
This reviewer’s frail and sickly mother, whose husband died from cancer last month after his health care provider had refused to pay for potentially life-saving medications because they were experimental, was rushed to a hospital earlier this week when she went into cardiac arrest caused by her reading a threatening letter from a Weinstein Company attorney. Her crime? Wanting to see a movie that could potentially save her life.
This shameful episode, unfortunately, is not the only one of its kind. Across the United States reports are surfacing about persons being hounded by Weinstein’s attorneys for downloading Sicko because they (the plaintiffs) could not afford the price of a ticket to see the movie and, in many cases, the cost of a baby sitter, private nursing care for an invalid relative or loved one, or ambulance transportation to the theater.
In Omaha, Nebraska, an elderly couple whose son downloaded Sicko for them might have to sell their modest house in order to cover his legal expenses.
Apparently, such misery does not weigh heavily on the sickos at the Weinstein Company. Indeed, a company source bragged to this reviewer at The Fountain at the Four Seasons restaurant in Philadelphia recently that Weinstein had hired several firms to flood the Internet with bogus versions of the film.
“In one of our ‘doctored’ versions of Sicko,” laughed the Weinstein source, “a physician prescribes cucumber enemas as a low-cost way of treating colon cancer. That’s priceless. If the cancer doesn’t get those poor bastards, they’ll shit themselves to death.”
How ironic that while Michael Moore is promoting his movie by urging young people to “stick it to the man,” the movie’s distributor is bragging about sticking it up the asses of poor people.
To his credit, however, Mr. Moore said recently, “I don’t agree with the copyright laws, and I don’t have a problem with people downloading the movie and sharing it with people, as long as they’re not doing it to make a profit off my labor. I would oppose that, but, you know, I do quite well, and I made these movies because I want things to change. So, the more people get to see them, the better.”
News You Can Use: Michael Moore’s last documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11, which was widely available online in a pirated version prior to its June 2004 opening, earned $119 million at the domestic box office.
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