Reflexivity and "Bowling for Columbine"

Jay Ruby states that reflexivity is to not only be self aware, but to be sufficiently self aware to know what aspects of self are necessary to reveal so that an audience is able to understand both the process employed and the resultant product and to know that the revelation itself is perposive, intentional and not merely narcissistic or accidentally revealing.

At the beginning of Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" (2002), he shows us a series of American people doing their job as Moore narrates "the farmer did his chores, the milkman made his deliveries, the president bombed another country whose name we couldn't pronounce." Moore uses humour in the juxtaposition of the farmer and milkman's mundane jobs and the destructive nature of the President's actions to  make a statement about America's tolerance to violence and how it has become mundane.

Later we are shown an advert from the 50’s – 60’s for replica toy guns and how they “feel like real and sound like real”. We are then shown home footage of Moore as a child with his “first gun”, while he narrates about how he couldn’t wait to go outside and “shoot up the neighbourhood.” This is meant to show parallels to Harris and Klebold, the perpetrators of the notorious Columbine High school massacre, and how they were “children with guns”, commenting on how even children are brought up with guns, whether they are real or not. Moore paints himself to be the “average American” while also pointing out the flaws in his own culture. 

Ruby says that one can find sustained reflexive elements in comedies in the form of satire and parodies, which Moore uses throughout his documentary to comment on the state of America when it comes to gun control and violence.