2161 The Break-out Meme

Although I'd never heard of the "break-out meme" (the myth that Fahrenheit 911 did better in red states and Brokeback Mountain was doing the same), there's an interesting analysis of it, and the myth seems to only hurt Democrats.

"Remember when Democrats actually believed that Fahrenheit would help push Bush out of office? It didn't work out that way. Moore's film didn't change many minds in part because, as York puts it, it "never reached audiences that had the power to defeat the president at the polls." Despite all the "heartland" hype, it was a blue-state movie. York notes that Mel Gibson's Passion of Christ--a mirror-image "red state" movie that did well where Fahrenheit did badly, badly where Fahrenheit did well--prefigured the 2004 results, in that it attracted an audience roughly roughly three times the size of Farhenheit's (or six times Brokeback's!). kausfiles