For Moore, world would be better if women ran it
At least, that’s what he finds in his new movie, ‘Where to Invade Next.’
Michael Moore makes hay in his new documentary, Where to Invade Next, looking at smarter ways of living elsewhere in the world that, if co-opted, could make America better.
By the end of the film, which had its world premiere Thursday at the Toronto International Film Festival, Moore makes one thing very apparent: When women are in power, everything runs better.
It’s not quite the same as the well-worn mantra “Happy wife, happy life,” though the 61-yearold filmmaker acknowledges that a woman running a household — even just half of it — makes for smoother sailing.
“Imagine if you’re in a home and there’s a family and only the dad is running the house and calling the shots. It’s not going to be a very well-run house. I don’t mean just a mess, but the thinking isn’t going to be quite right.”
He could be talking about a household or the House of Representatives. Moore points out that of the 100 senators in Congress, only 20 are female.
“We have all these women around — like (more than half ) of the population,” Moore says. “It just makes common sense: Why wouldn’t you want that involvement from a gender that has so many good things going for it?
“If you were a Martian and you landed here and you saw that the best gender — oh, we can’t say best, but it’s a very good gender — wasn’t running anything, it’d be weird.”
In Where to Invade Next, Tunisian journalist Amel Smaoui describes the female role in the revolution that transformed her country in the 2000s. Moore was especially wowed by Iceland, the first country to have a political party founded by women and a place where gender parity exists in government and banking. (The only bank that didn’t fail during the Icelandic financial crisis in 2008? The one run by women.)
“We saw it in action,” Moore says. “It was like, ‘Wow, there’s a huge difference here.’ ”
Moore also includes the actions of Bree Newsome, who took it upon herself to remove the Confederate flag from the South Carolina Statehouse in June. “She just learned how to do that a week before. She was not a professional climber,” he says.
He sees a lot of women who could change America, and one of them is Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. “I wish she was running for president,” he says.
But many women making a difference are just everyday people, he says.
“Of the 11 people who have a producer title on my movie, eight of them are women,” Moore says. “It’s not just on a political level but I see it personally that this can only be a good thing.”