Anyone who says Moore was being equally cheered and booed at the end of his rant could not have been watching the show. He was being booed by 90% of the people making any noise at all.
Sam, you cannot seriously be telling us that Michael Moore’s speech is going to cost lives. Christ Jesus, man, please don’t get into this “any criticism of the war kills our soldiers” mode.
Yes, other people did mention the war. Some made partisan comments, and personally I thought they were classless, too. But none were within fifty thousand miles of Moore’s level of vulgarity.
"2. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, entertainers should NOT spew political opinions, most of them don’t even use their given names, they lie for a living, and we’re supposed to take cues from THEM about how to think? Bluster."
I don’t see anything wrong with entertainers having and voicing an opinion, after all, they’re just people too.
Besides, the criteria “lie for a living” doesn’t prevent politicians from spewing political opinions either. Quite the contrary
The tv-people commenting on the oscars over here, noted that boo-ing in a large auditorium like this tend to be heard more than applause. Any audio-technicians in here?
Anyways, the visuals did show that 90% of the audience neither boo-ed nor applauded.
I suspect the fact that Moore got any booing at all, before an audience of 90% limousine liberals, bodes ill for the level of support for his position.
No, I don’t think Michael Moore by himself will cause anyone to be killed. But remarks in public like this, in aggregate, can. Especially in this case, since the only thing preventing this war from ending is the Iraqis belief that they can turn public opinion and get the Americans to withdraw. So from that standpoint, the anti-war protests, Moore’s speech, and other signs that there are cracks in the will of the coalition will tend to keep Iraqis fighting. And the longer they fight, the more people will die.
If the entire world came together today and said, “Okay, let’s end this war. We support it until it’s over, and we’re collectively agreeing that Saddam doesn’t get off the hook”, then Iraq would stop fighting sooner.
Of course, that’s not going to happen, and people have a right to protest. But they should realize the effect it has on the will to fight of the enemy.
As for the Oscars… The shocking thing to me wasn’t just the booing, but over that you could hear people yelling things like, “Get off the stage!”, or “Sit down!”, or “shut up!”. It takes a lot more conviction to start yelling words at someone on stage than to just join a chorus of booes. A lot of people REALLY didn’t like what Moore was saying.
And I think this is one of those Rorchach tests of your own political opinion. It seems that those who are opposed to Moore heard mostly boos, and those who agree with him heard mostly claps. I don’t know how that’s possible, but there you have it. I heard it, and it sounded like a solid wall of boos, with a smattering of claps intermixed. It was nowhere near 50-50.
And I think my characterization of his being ‘booed off stage’ is correct. He was only about 10 seconds into that speech before the music was cued, and he had to speed up and yell to get all of it out. Had to be the shortest alotted time for a speech in Oscar history.
So Sam, what you’re saying is basically “the right to express your beliefs is the greatest thing on earth except during war-time when it might risk the lives of soldiers”?
For my part, I as well heard mostly boo’s. There might have been more boos than yays. Not a matter of life and death really in my book!
“He was only about 10 seconds into that speech before the music was cued, and he had to speed up and yell to get all of it out”
Sheesh what world do you live on? He spoke for way for than ten seconds including the initial thanking part. The music started because of the 45 seconds not the boos. He wasn’t booed off the stage.
I thought his comments were overly shrill and inappropriate for the occasion but the idea that this was some kind of grand Hollywood rejection against the anti-war position is completely silly. There were just a few people booing loudly.
Geez, I would have thought it bigger news if Moore hadn’t taken a swipe at our semi-elected president, and frankly, I can’t imagine him feeling that the audience befiore him was anything other than a crowd of the sort of stuffed shirts that he has spent his entire career railing against. Count me among those who feel his little rant livened up an otherwise dull and pointless ceremony, although Adrian Brody was certainly much more subtle and clever in his criticism of the war.
In the end, I thought the bigger news was the wild ovation that Roman Polanski received when he got the nod for best director, given the continuing controversy over his having skipped out of the country on that statutory rape charge.
When was the last time anyone was booed at the Oscars? If Vanessa Redgrave was, in fact, booed, that was twenty-five years ago, and for the same kind of thing. You have to be way out of line to get booed at the Oscars, no matter by how small a percentage of the audience. That’s what it comes down to.
First because I think it’s just great when anybody absolutely goes for broke. I admire the guy because he went for it, no holds barred, spoke his peace. Agree or not, the guy had the right to say what he said and he did so without hesitation.
Kinda like when Norm Macdonald hosted an award show (grammys?) and just went up there and, well, he was himself. Offensive? yep, but genuine.
Second because I was watching the “independent spirit” awards a couple of hours earlier wherein he gave the same speech and recieved much applause. Tough crowd at the oscars, that Dixie chicks and the pope line absolutely killed the indie crowd.
In the end, what does it really matter what this guy said? I know It may help me in a game of trivial pursuit in the future. It will enrich my experience of this time in history because the landscape of my memory now has one more feature, and that’s kinda nice. I don’t think the comments will have any bearing on the war proceedings or sway public opinion too far.
So you weren’t kidding. Well, my complements to your imagination. I think the last thing on the Iraqi’s minds is who won the oscar for best documentary.
Look, American opinion is useless until it tips the scales at 51% (and even then, I wonder). Otherwise GW and his cronies couldn’t give flying f*ck what people say. I think Saddam knows this too. The same people were speaking out before the war are the one’s who are speaking out now. The only way that public opinion is really going to be swayed is by the Iraqi’s inflicting heavy casualties and drawing the conflict out. The opinions of entertainers and anti-war protestors is not going to inspire them to do this in comparison to defending their own homeland from the imperialist invaders.
Sam, that’s a total falsehood. Moore was given the full time allotment, which is exactly 45 seconds. He spent at least twenty or thirty seconds talking about the other people on stage and thanking his co-producers before he even got around to mentioning the war. If you don’t believe me, watch the tape and use a stopwatch.
More likely they wanted to see what J-Lo WASN’T wearing, and maybe get a sneak peek of her BEING hot ‘n’ heavy with Ben.[sub]cause they don’t have broadband Internet access to find the videos themselves[/sub]
