Exasperated GM Chief Pans Satiric Film as ‘Sick Humor’

General Motors Corp. Chairman Roger B. Smith successfully evaded filmmaker Michael Moore while the director was making his satirical documentary, “Roger & Me.”

But Smith found himself answering more questions about the film than he probably cared to Wednesday after a Los Angeles news conference at which he introduced GM’s Impact electric car.

An apparently exasperated Smith admitted that he had not seen the popular movie, which purports to chronicle the economic damage done to Moore’s hometown of Flint, Mich., as a result of GM’s decision to close auto plants there. Much of the film is built around the filmmaker’s unsuccessful attempts to interview Smith.

Smith said he has read some reviews of the film, adding, “I’m not much for sick humor, and I don’t like things that take advantage of poor people’s problems.”

He denied that he intentionally tried to duck Moore, as the film suggests. “I’ve never stayed at the Waldorf (Astoria Hotel in New York); I don’t belong to the Grosse Pointe Yacht Club (just outside Detroit). Obviously, he had to know that he wasn’t going to find me in any of those places, but that apparently was part of his humor,” Smith said.

He added: “I don’t know that he ever asked anybody for an appointment.”

Would Smith accept Moore’s standing invitation to attend a screening? “I have more important things to do,” he said.