ARTSETC.
Michael Moore’s fictitious pulpit
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by Mac VerStandig
Wednesday, March 26, 2003
Roughly halfway through yesterday’s Central Command briefing, Gen. Tommy Franks departed from matters of military forces and launched into a short criticism of “Bringing Down The House,” the latest Steve Martin film. Gen. Franks attacked the movie as lacking decent cinematography, being devoid of a quality soundtrack and having no coherent moral message. Gen. Franks suggested that the film could be made better with a few cruise missiles and apache helicopters.
No, not really.
But reality produced an equally absurd situation Sunday evening when filmmaker Michael Moore chose to dedicate his Academy Award acceptance speech to criticizing Operation Iraqi Freedom:
“We like non-fiction and we live in fictitious times. We live in a time where we have fictitious election results that elect a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons, whether it’s the fictition (sic) of duct tape or the fictition of orange alert. We are against this war Mr. Bush! Shame on you Mr. Bush! Shame on you! And any time you’ve got the Pope and Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up.”
Just as Gen. Franks is yielded a strong international pulpit for the understood purpose of discussing war, Mr. Moore was yielded a strong international pulpit for the understood purpose of discussing entertainment.
When it comes to evaluating cinema, Gen. Franks’ opinion is no more valued than that of the average citizen. And so, when it comes to international affairs, Mr. Moore’s opinion should receive equally hollow attention.
And as for those bleeding-heart liberals who will shamefully cry out in the name of freedom of speech, a gentle reminder is in order: that freedom is a guarantee of being able to express one’s opinion, not a guarantee of an audience. Mr. Moore failed to show any comprehension of this constitutional check on the speech of lunatics like himself and grossly abused his pulpit accordingly.
Mr. Moore, however, did not produce the only political message of the evening. The mere ceremony was, in and of itself, a message. As many cried for the show to be canceled or delayed in recognition of the war, the Oscars went on in defiance.
This was the proper decision.
Events were cancelled in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001 for two reasons. First, competitions — whether they were football games or awards shows — seemed far too petty and insignificant while people were still mourning. Second, an actual security risk was thought to exist as America adjusted to the new threat at home.
Neither of these situations existed Sunday evening. Rather, troops are overseas fighting for a way of life that celebrates such petty yet amusing television programs as a form of escapist entertainment. In fact, these Oscars would not have ever been broadcast had they been Iraqi.
You see, these Academy Awards celebrated the art of director Roman Polanski, an American fugitive of justice. In Iraq, state-censored television would not permit the honoring of a convict’s work.
When Mr. Polanski won Best Director honors for his film, “The Pianist,” a standing ovation ensued.
This was truly an “Only in America” moment; practically nowhere else would someone wanted for statutory rape receive such an honor. And although this was a very vocal exercise of that freedom of expression that our soldiers are fighting for today, it was not necessarily a tasteful one.
The award was bestowed upon Mr. Polanski despite his film’s not winning Best Picture honors. This would indicate that the Academy was perhaps giving credit to the director not just for “The Pianist” but also for the totality of his career that includes films like “Tess” and “Chinatown.”
However, Martin Scorsese, someone with an equally storied directing history (“Raging Bull,” “Goodfellas,” “The Last Temptation of Christ”) was also nominated in the category. Mr. Scorsese has, to the public’s knowledge, never slept with a thirteen-year-old girl. Mr. Scorsese is not a convict. If the Academy were interested in bestowing lifetime achievement honors via the directing award, Mr. Scorsese would have been a far more wise and tasteful choice.
But the Academy instead chose to show a total disregard for personal histories by bestowing the high honor upon the exiled Mr. Polanski. Ironically, this move just serves to show how unwelcome personal politics, like those of Mr. Moore, are on Oscar night.
Mac VerStandig (Uwisconsin2006@aol.com) is a former syndicated film critic and a freshman majoring in rhetoric.
