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© St. Petersburg Times, published March 28, 2003
What else did Academy Award voters expect from Michael Moore when they marked ballots in favor of Bowling for Columbine in the best documentary feature race?
This is a guy who has made a career of showboating for causes he believes in, especially when it flies in the face of authority.
Most of the time it's symbolic, like presenting a corporation with an oversized check for a few cents to pay the weekly wage of one foreign sweatshop worker.
Sometimes the showboating makes a difference, like escorting two Columbine shooting survivors to Kmart to ask for a refund for bullets sold at that store that were still lodged in their bodies. Kmart got the hint and announced it wouldn't sell bullets anymore.
Moore's vitriolic remarks about President Bush at Sunday night's Academy Awards ceremony didn't hide behind symbolism. Moore doesn't like Republicans -- see his bestselling book Stupid White Men for proof -- and he doesn't trust anyone with an abundance of power and money. How did they gain those qualities, he inquires, and how far will they go to keep them?
Even if war wasn't raging in Iraq, Moore would have challenged Bush's administration on the violence issue, the focus of Bowling for Columbine. The movie was produced in peacetime and still mocked the development of military weapons at a Lockheed factory not far from the Colorado high school devastated when two students went on a shooting spree. He tosses in hard-to-trace "facts" such as the number of U.S. bombs dropped on Kosovo on the day of the Columbine massacre.
Moore sees the connections, even the conspiracies, between governments, corporations, the NRA and, yes, even Hollywood (at least Charlton Heston and Dick Clark). So, he wonders, why don't we all?
That confidence, or arrogance, depending on your level of agreement with him, is what makes Moore a hero in some quarters. Certainly the Oscars audience thought "hero" at first, giving him a standing ovation for his unabashed cinematic politics as he walked to the stage to claim his prize. Then many audience members turned on Moore, booing when the same brashness conveyed a message they didn't want to hear. Not in that festive setting, at least.
What happened to Hollywood's favorite alibi for pushing the envelope: freedom of expression by artists?
But there is another, more important question to consider:
What if Michael Moore is right?
First of all, we won't know for a long time. The right and wrong of the invasion of Iraq can't be determined until we know if we're fighting for Iraq's freedom and our security, or if this whole affair is really about oil reserves. If the 2000 presidential election truly was stolen, that will probably never be proven conclusively.
The only thing Moore said Sunday night that can be immediately verified is that the pope and a Dixie Chick don't like what Bush is doing.
But that's the way Moore operates. He tackles subjects for which evidence can't be easily traced or can be camouflaged by bureaucracy. He rails against the establishment in generalities, exaggerations and loosely played truths, hoping to prod his targets into mistakes that blow their cover and reveal something to prove him correct.
Yes, Moore stretches facts, stages events and leaves out crucial contradictory information. Making people aware of the possibility that everything isn't as it seems is more important than veracity. He wants us to think, while everyone in power doesn't.
Moore's remarks were essentially the ones he delivered at Saturday night's Independent Spirit Awards ceremony, where Bowling for Columbine also picked up the best documentary prize. That ceremony celebrated low-budget art house films and was televised on the Bravo network, not ABC, so few people noticed.
At the Spirit Awards, Moore's words were greeted with light applause and a few boos from the crowd that cheered Elvis Costello opening the show with an acoustic version of (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?
Without a 45-second time limit, Moore concluded his acceptance speech with:
"Watching TV this week with all these generals who are consultants for CNN and Fox and NBC, it's the most amazing thing to have the Army telling us what the truth is. I would like the U.S. military to withdraw from the American media, just remove the troops. This is absolutely insane.
"The lesson for the children of Columbine this week is that violence is an accepted means by which to resolve a conflict. That's the lesson for the kids, and it's a sad, sick and immoral lesson."
During both acceptance speeches, Moore didn't say anything negative about U.S. troops serving in the Iraq war. He just wants the war stopped, although he would be doubly pleased if that became a step in Bush's political demise. Many people thought the same way about Nixon and Vietnam, after they stopped trusting the rhetoric and learned the truth.
As Americans, we can't afford to give up our right to question, protest and, if necessary, cause change, even if that brings unpopular exercising of freedom of speech in inconvenient places, like the Oscars.
Moore may be right. He may be crazy. But it just may be a lunatic we're looking for.