ABSTRACT
This research is conducted to examine how documentary movie entitled SICKO constructs the irony of American healthcare and the derivation of political discourse in the United States. This movie is also released during the presidential campaign for 2008 which causes controversy in the society because the healthcare issue itself becomes one of the main issues during campaign time. The filmmaker’s tendency also contributes to the controversy itself. Therefore, this reason leads me to conduct this research report.
This is descriptive qualitative research. It uses DVD of SICKO made by Michael Moore and produced by Dog Eat Dog film as the source of data. It contains two kinds of data, the primary and secondary data. The primary data are voiceover, montage, and other documentary elements. The secondary data are several arguments taken from journals and websites. This research is conducted under the framework of American Studies. It involves many theories and approaches because American Studies is interdisciplinary subject and it is crosscut many fields. This research uses documentary theory to recognize the viewpoint of the movie. The researcher also uses the semiotic theory and sociocultural approach in order to examine the questions of the research. It also provides verbal and visual codes analysis to examine the hidden message of the documentary.
The research analyses the construction of the irony of American healthcare and traces the hidden message that is demonstrated by the ironist. The analysis shows that the ironist wants to compel the emotional feeling of the audience through construction strategies. The ironist also employs the irony of American healthcare as the mode of counter discourse and awaking the public consciousness. The myth of American Dream which is camouflaged by rhetoric is being a contradiction with the reality. Hence, it causes irony. The way of the documentary reveals the healthcare issue causes a consequence of healthcare system as irony. The documentary also traces the derivation of political discourse in the United States based on SICKO’s viewpoint. In conclusion this research reveals that the documentary constructs the irony of American healthcare and derivation of political discourse as a medium of convincing the audience and as counterstrike of believed discourse by using communication between verbal and visual code can be good restrictive medium against the authority.
Keywords: construction, documentary, healthcare, montage, voiceover.
