It's hard to find a reason to rave over Oscars rant

03/25/2003

By JACQUIELYNN FLOYD / The Dallas Morning News

Here in America, you have the right to be rude, but you don't have to.

You have the right to vent extremist, polarizing views at inappropriate venues, to offend people who aren't there to debate politics, to make a self-aggrandizing parade of your contempt for anybody who doesn't agree with you. It's your guaranteed constitutional liberty to do it.

But you certainly don't have to.

OK, we didn't watch the Academy Awards. We watched the hockey game, because
you have to have priorities and because, frankly, I'd rather watch somebody change a tire than sit through one of those TV awards shows. It's predictably impossible, though, to avoid the big buzz, the morning-after recap.

Usually, of course, it's about whose speech ran too long, or whose dress wouldn't stay up or what Cher wore on her head. This time it was
about documentary filmmaker Michael Moore. He made good on widespread
anticipation that he would use the occasion to vent his spleen against the war in
Iraq, U.S. foreign policy in general and the incumbent president in particular.

And, boy, he did not disappoint.

Mike and I saw a fairly fractious hockey game, but it is teatime at the garden club compared with the fireworks over on ABC when Mr. Moore took the microphone. He blasted George W. Bush and the war in Iraq and even trotted out a worn but cherished grievance over the legitimacy of the last presidential election. Backstage, he thundered on, sharing his view that "Bush and his oil buddies" are sacrificing American lives to wrest control of Iraq's vast petroleum reserves.

You know, I think it's fine for anybody, celebrities included, to broadcast their views. Actor Chris Cooper, in accepting the Best Supporting Actor award, said, "In view of all the trouble in this world, I wish us all peace," an eloquent and heartfelt statement that no doubt resonated with many viewers, even those divided over the use of military force.

As I said when Dixie Chick Natalie Maines caused a brief stir by telling a London audience she's ashamed that Mr. Bush is from Texas (a remark for which she later apologized), I don't much care whether celebrities insult the president.

People who have been in politics long enough to reach the White House have to get used to such remarks. But for Mr. Moore (whose work I have in the past admired) to use his moment on national television to trivialize the war objectives strikes me as unconscionably cruel to the grieving American and British families of soldiers who have been killed or hurt or captured, and to the anxious families of soldiers facing similar risks. It's doubtful that his remarks changed any opinions – rudeness rarely does – so what was the purpose?

Public protest and peaceful dissent have historically been important and valuable means of bringing about social change in our nation.

Anyone who doubts it need only recall the sober, dignified and deeply moving demonstrations of the civil-rights era.

Shouting, name-calling and making unfounded, hyperbolic claims are also legally protected forms of "free speech," but there's a world of difference.

I received a message last week from a reader, a diehard fan of the rock band Bon Jovi.

The band staged a concert at American Airlines Center on Wednesday, and she was there. A few people in the audience, she said, held up posters referring to family members or friends in the Middle East with the U.S. military.

"Jon [Bon Jovi] made the one 'political' comment of the evening," my correspondent reported. "He pointed to the fans holding the posters and simply said, 'I wish them a safe and speedy journey home.' "

The fan said she couldn't tell whether the band was pro- or anti-war, and she didn't care:

"There are entertainers out there who manage to handle the situation with class and dignity," she wrote. "What the fans really care about probably isn't the entertainer's own political views."

Alas, I couldn't name a Bon Jovi song if you offered me a million bucks. But, based on this account, I just became a fan.