"We were trying to present this film as mainstream, which it's not; it is mainstream to some degree, but it's aimed toward teenage girls. It's one of those high school films, but it presents a more real vision of what high school is."

In other words, it's trying to be a Breakfast Club for the new millennium.

"I hope that people look at it and say, "this is John Hughes" or "this is Heathers". I would love for that to be the case. I like the idea of the films I work on being somewhat subversive because it feeds a little bit into my own reflection of who I am as a media figure. If this sounds self-absorbed, I'm sorry, I'm not. I'm very grounded and I'm somewhat of a radical in my thoughts and beliefs. Yet, I think my work comes more from within society and pop culture than outside of it."

Aside from Saved, Stipe's other production company has one other film currently in progress, a docudrama called Every Day People.

"It's a feature that was written but based on..." He pauses for a second to interject, "I hate [the term] 'based on a true story,' I hate that shit. It's a study of race in the U.S. in 2003. Most of the stories came from interviews with people and their experiences and was then fictionalized from there to create one moving piece."

In discussing this project with Michael, it is obvious he has many well-formed opinions on the state of affairs in the United States today. Segueing into the subjects of race and politics, Stipe offered some very personal views quite candidly,

"I don't really think of this country as being very progressive, we're fairly puritanical in a lot of ways and yet we like to think that we're really liberated and progressive. This country is extremely teenaged in that we're a very young culture and very separatist and that's what we're taught in school. When we're taught geography, you learn all 50 states and you learn the capital cities. Mexico is this brown blob below that we're somewhat attached to and Canada is a grey blob above that we're kind of attached to. Other than the odd river or mountain range, nothing seems to happen up there or down there, so in a way we get full of ourselves like teenagers do. We're very brash and spontaneous; we think we're immortal. We're really fascinating to older cultures like teenagers are and we're repellant and full of ourselves like teenagers are."

The conversation flowed naturally into talks about September 11th. Particularly haunting now, as this country is under heightened alert once again. Our separatist inclinations must be set aside, it seems painstakingly clear.

"[September 11th] came as a massive and mass loss of innocence to the people of this country who hadn't experienced terrorism or loss on that level like in other parts of the world. I think everyone recognized the attack on New York as a part of him or her. I saw Tim Robbins speaking last night at an ACLU function for the "I am not an American" ad campaign. He was talking about the mythological United States that we all imagine, he said he had never seen it so clearly than in the days following the attacks in New York. As a New Yorker, he was astonished with everyone and their openness and wanting to help. And then, of course, that all got turned around, not by those people, but by the administration. A very important and compelling lesson could have been taken from that, not only in this country but worldwide. I think we turned all those [foreign] people who had sympathy [for us] against us in the months that ensued with the actions of this administration, which is really sad. It was such a moment of clarity and immense tragedy, a moment of really recognizing what's important to us and then collectively who we are and what we can be. It was epiphanal."

Stipe paused after making this statement to explain why he felt it was necessary to finally give his opinion on these events and why he chose to use Robbins' words to reflect his thoughts,

"In times of political strife and concern, people turn to me and my bandmates as Americans, almost as delegates of our country, to say 'What is happening?' and 'What is going on?' I felt like I needed a point of view that was not from a political or academic or talking head on a 24 hour news channel [standpoint] but from an emotional artist point of view to give my take on what it was that happened and how this thing turned the entire country into what it has been for the past three years."

He closes with a reverent summation that in these very perilous times seems like an all too ominous mandate for all Americans who question our government.

"It feels to me like the time is now, we're not dummies you know, but there was a period of mourning that I think [needed] to be understood. It was not made easy to have a voice of dissent, it still isn't easy, but I think that enough time has passed since that horrible tragedy that people can now look at what's happened since then to say 'Wait a minute, this is not something that represents my beliefs and I'm very concerned about this.'"

The underlying theme of Stipe's statement seems to be how patriotism became an excuse for propaganda and control, how tragic events were turned into something else. The most important moral of the story being that Americans who question our government are still Americans who love their country and love their fellow man. If only we could make those at the helm of this great country see that truth.