The 2003 Oscars: Where Michael Moore Dared ...(was booed denouncing Iraq war)

[Echo In Light]

Michael Moore was booed when he denounced the Iraq war at the 2003 Oscars. This year, Kathryn Bigelow played it safe
by Margaret Carpentier

At this year's Oscars, Kathryn Bigelow won best director and her film, Hurt Locker, won best picture despite criticisms from veterans that it failed to take into account much of the daily life of the men and women serving in Iraq or Afghanistan and criticisms that the film itself was as pro-war as it was pro-soldier. Although Bigelow dedicated her award to the men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, she didn't touch on the lies that sent them there to risk their lives in pursuit of a political coup.

Back in 2003, Michael Moore strode upon the Oscar stage to accept his award for Bowling For Columbine with his fellow nominees and one intention: to make his voice heard by the Oscar audience about the injustices he saw in America. At the Oscars on 23 March 2003, Bush hadn't landed on an aircraft carrier to declare "mission accomplished" even as soldiers were still fighting and dying in Iraq; America with her "coalition of the willing" had only just begun the invasion of Iraq on 20 March. Despite the prevailing sense of national patriotism and efforts by the administration to encourage the media to report their "intelligence", there were already whispers - since proven correct - that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, he had no access to nuclear materials or technology and his administration had no contact with al-Qaida. None of that mattered to a country at war, apparently.

But it mattered to Moore, and his fellow nominees. As he took the stage to a standing ovation from the audience for a film that documented and condemned America's violence-soaked gun culture, he did so with one purpose: to make himself heard. Instead of thanking a long list of people few in the television audience knew, he spoke to them as much as the audience he could see.

"I've invited my fellow documentary nominees on the stage with us and we would like to ... they are here in solidarity with me because we like non-fiction. We like non-fiction, as we live in fictitious times. We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons. Whether it's the fiction of duct tape or fiction of orange alerts we are against this war, Mr Bush. Shame on you, Mr Bush, shame on you. And any time you got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up. Thank you very much."

As Moore declared the results of the 2000 elections "fictitious", a few members of the audience yelled in assent, but they were quickly shut down by the assembled members of the Hollywood elite booing Moore - many of whom had just sat down from applauding his award. Ironically, Moore's industry colleagues thought he deserved an award for a movie that attacked America's obsession with guns but then booed his stance on the president's orders to turn our beloved guns against a country that our "fictitious" administration knew only a long, sustained campaign of misinformation would lead people to support.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/09-2

[MrCoffee]

1. Didn't he give the same speech at the Golden Globes and SAG awards

where it was warmly received?

[Echo In Light]

2. I'm unsure - maybe I saw him on IFC's Spirit Awards give a similar speech???

Either way, I get a kick outta this:

"As Moore declared the results of the 2000 elections "fictitious", a few members of the audience yelled in assent, but they were quickly shut down by the assembled members of the Hollywood elite booing Moore - many of whom had just sat down from applauding his award."

[arcadian]

3. Fuck the Hollywood elite. Seriously fuck them.

Rich spoiled brat pretentious fucks.

[slampoet]

4. Moore was warmly received at the Oscars also. There were jerks booing directly into the mics.....

that made it sound like there was a negative reaction, but if you listen back to the broadcast IN STEREO OR SURROUND SOUND, you can hear that it is really was just a handful of male voices booing Moore from the extreme left and right positions in the auditorium. Apparently someone had these people ready to sit next to the microphones or these were people who were working onstaff behind the scenes who were booing from offstage.

This article is DEAD WRONG about who was doing the booing and I challenge them to cough up the tape they are referring to. I have a copy of that broadcast in both stereo and surround sound and on the 5.1 surround sound once you cancel out the front two speakers and only depend on the rear and center speaker you hear CONSIDERABLY less booing.

Since the Oscars don't allow people to distribute copies of the Oscars I bet that this hack reporter is going by their memory or even just media coverage. I question if they have ever seen the tape at all. Even on a MONO version of this you can tell that nearly all the voices booing are male.


The exact same tactic was used on the speech Bush gave on the pile of rubble with the bullhorn after 9-11. You can hear a shill in the audience off screen to the left trying to LEAD THE CHANTING of U-S-A and you can hear the chant leader had to repeat U-S-A several times before everyone else joins in.

Also you can hear a person in the front row of Bush's "Mission Accomplished speech on the aircraft carrier trying to lead people and get them to applaud on cue. There are also several people in the front rows who are there to lead standing ovations, you can see the the standing ovations are started by the same people almost every time.

[MrCoffee]

5. My recollection is similar to that

It wasn't a chorus of boos, and weren't the boos sort of shouted down? This article makes it out that he was practically pelted with rotten eggs.

"Boos" begins to look really dumb when used as I have.

[slampoet]

6. Yes, there seemed to be a counter reaction of the elites booing the poeple who were heckling Moore.

[leveymg]

14. That was what I saw (and heard) as well. I remarked about it the time to

my spouse that there were far fewer boos than applause, but the cameras and sound were being manipulated to make it seem the other way around.

Thanks for reminding us about this. As for Hurt Locker getting Best Picture and Best Director awards, I strongly suspect that choice is made by 9 studio execs sitting in a room somewhere, and the auditors adjust the vote to suit. The whole thing is really an industry PR event, anyway.

[zbdent]

7. It wasn't the audience booing Moore at the Oscars ...

it was the "liberal media" afraid to question Bush, that decided to portray Moore as a nutjob ... now there's a bunch of people who, although they won't admit that they attacked Moore then, now say they were against it all the time ...

[NICO9000]

8. I was at a small Oscar watching party that night

The host was a RW idiot. When my wife and I cheered Mike, he got all pissed off and said "he doesn't speak for me!". I got into with him and it was tense for the rest of the night. We should have just got up and left in hindsight. Remember, the war had just started a few days before and a lot of our fellow Amerikkkuns were brainwashed and scared of the brown people. Our side, on the other hand, were traitors.

Haven't seen "The Hurt Locker" and probably won't. I just don't have any interest in the story. Besides, I'm a comic book geek who saw "Avatar" twice (not that I don't like serious stuff too - just don't care about this particular movie. Good for Kathryn Bigelow though for winning. Wonder if the movie will now get a "Slumdog Millionaire" box office boost since it hasn't made that much money thus far.

[RaleighNCDUer]

9. The theater I P/T at didn't even carry Hurt Locker - but Avatar has

been playing to good houses for three months straight.

Since it won I expect we will get it in the next couple weeks, where it will play for a week or two. Maybe.

Don't know what demographic it's aimed at - the few libs around here won't see it as it is about the war, while the conservatives are leery about it because it doesn't (apparently) cheer for the war.

And THAT is why it hasn't been bringing in the bucks.

[Echo In Light]

12. Unfortunately many are also drawn by that safe, middle of the road approach re "news" & facts

[K8-EEE]

10. I was there, standing, applauding nobody where I sat was booing

I was in the cheap seats but still.....when I saw the footage after it didn't at all seem like how I had just seen it. I did not hear the boos in the balcony.

[slampoet]

11. Thank you confirming the information i went over in my above post (#4)

I've always wanted to hear about this from someone who was there at those events.

[Echo In Light]

13. Bump