My
Oscar "Backlash":
"Stupid White Men" Back At #1,
"Bowling" Breaks New Records
By Michael
Moore
10 April, 2003
Dear friends,
It appears that the Bush
administration will have succeeded in colonizing Iraq sometime in the
next few days. This is a blunder of such magnitude -- and we will pay
for it for years to come. It was not worth the life of one single American
kid in uniform, let alone the thousands of Iraqis who have died, and
my condolences and prayers go out to all of them.
So, where are all those weapons
of mass destruction that were the pretense for this war? Ha! There is
so much to say about all this, but I will save it for later.
What I am most concerned
about right now is that all of you -- the majority of Americans who
did not support this war in the first place -- not go silent or be intimidated
by what will be touted as some great military victory. Now, more than
ever, the voices of peace and truth must be heard. I have received a
lot of mail from people who are feeling a profound sense of despair
and believe that their voices have been drowned out by the drums and
bombs of false patriotism. Some are afraid of retaliation at work or
at school or in their neighborhoods because they have been vocal proponents
of peace. They have been told over and over that it is not "appropriate"
to protest once the country is at war, and that your only duty now is
to "support the troops."
Can I share with you what
it's been like for me since I used my time on the Oscar stage two weeks
ago to speak out against Bush and this war? I hope that, in reading
what I'm about to tell you, you'll feel a bit more emboldened to make
your voice heard in whatever way or forum that is open to you.
When "Bowling for Columbine"
was announced as the Oscar winner for Best Documentary at the Academy
Awards, the audience rose to its feet. It was a great moment, one that
I will always cherish. They were standing and cheering for a film that
says we Americans are a uniquely violent people, using our massive stash
of guns to kill each other and to use them against many countries around
the world. They were applauding a film that shows George W. Bush using
fictitious fears to frighten the public into giving him whatever he
wants. And they were honoring a film that states the following: The
first Gulf War was an attempt to reinstall the dictator of Kuwait; Saddam
Hussein was armed with weapons from the United States; and the American
government is responsible for the deaths of a half-million children
in Iraq over the past decade through its sanctions and bombing. That
was the movie they were cheering, that was the movie they voted for,
and so I decided that is what I should acknowledge in my speech.
And, thus, I said the following
from the Oscar stage:
"On behalf of our producers
Kathleen Glynn and Michael Donovan (from Canada), I would like to thank
the Academy for this award. I have invited the other Documentary nominees
on stage with me. They are here in solidarity because we like non-fiction.
We like non-fiction because we live in fictitious times. We live in
a time where fictitious election results give us a fictitious president.
We are now fighting a war for fictitious reasons. Whether it's the fiction
of duct tape or the fictitious 'Orange Alerts,' we are against this
war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you. And, whenever you've
got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up."
Halfway through my remarks,
some in the audience started to cheer. That immediately set off a group
of people in the balcony who started to boo. Then those supporting my
remarks started to shout down the booers. The L. A. Times reported that
the director of the show started screaming at the orchestra "Music!
Music!" in order to cut me off, so the band dutifully struck up
a tune and my time was up. (For more on why I said what I said, you
can read the op-ed I wrote for the L.A. Times, plus other reaction from
around the country at my website)
The next day -- and in the
two weeks since -- the right-wing pundits and radio shock jocks have
been calling for my head. So, has all this ruckus hurt me? Have they
succeeded in "silencing" me?
Well, take a look at my Oscar
"backlash":
-- On the day after I criticized
Bush and the war at the Academy Awards, attendance at "Bowling
for Columbine" in theaters around the country went up 110% (source:
Daily Variety/BoxOfficeMojo.com). The following weekend, the box office
gross was up a whopping 73% (Variety). It is now the longest-running
consecutive commercial release in America, 26 weeks in a row and still
thriving. The number of theaters showing the film since the Oscars has
INCREASED, and it has now bested the previous box office record for
a documentary by nearly 300%.
-- Yesterday (April 6), "Stupid
White Men" shot back to #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.
This is my book's 50th week on the list, 8 of them at number one, and
this marks its fourth return to the top position, something that virtually
never happens.
-- In the week after the
Oscars, my website was getting 10-20 million hits A DAY (one day we
even got more hits than the White House!). The mail has been overwhelmingly
positive and supportive (and the hate mail has been hilarious!).
-- In the two days following
the Oscars, more people pre-ordered the video for "Bowling for
Columbine" on Amazon.com than the video for the Oscar winner for
Best Picture, "Chicago."
-- In the past week, I have
obtained funding for my next documentary, and I have been offered a
slot back on television to do an updated version of "TV Nation"/
"The Awful Truth."
I tell you all of this because
I want to counteract a message that is told to us all the time -- that,
if you take a chance to speak out politically, you will live to regret
it. It will hurt you in some way, usually financially. You could lose
your job. Others may not hire you. You will lose friends. And on and
on and on.
Take the Dixie Chicks. I'm
sure you've all heard by now that, because their lead singer mentioned
how she was ashamed that Bush was from her home state of Texas, their
record sales have "plummeted" and country stations are boycotting
their music. The truth is that their sales are NOT down. This week,
after all the attacks, their album is still at #1 on the Billboard country
charts and, according to Entertainment Weekly, on the pop charts during
all the brouhaha, they ROSE from #6 to #4. In the New York Times, Frank
Rich reports that he tried to find a ticket to ANY of the Dixie Chicks'
upcoming concerts but he couldn't because they were all sold out. (To
read Rich's column from yesterday's Times, "Bowling for Kennebunkport,"
He does a pretty good job of laying it all out and talks about my next
film and the impact it could potentially have.) Their song, "Travelin'
Soldier" (a beautiful anti-war ballad) was the most requested song
on the internet last week. They have not been hurt at all -- but that
is not what the media would have you believe. Why is that? Because there
is nothing more important now than to keep the voices of dissent --
and those who would dare to ask a question -- SILENT. And what better
way than to try and take a few well-known entertainers down with a pack
of lies so that the average Joe or Jane gets the message loud and clear:
"Wow, if they would do that to the Dixie Chicks or Michael Moore,
what would they do to little ol' me?" In other words, shut the
f--- up.
And that, my friends, is
the real point of this film that I just got an Oscar for -- how those
in charge use FEAR to manipulate the public into doing whatever they
are told.
Well, the good news -- if
there can be any good news this week -- is that not only have neither
I nor others been silenced, we have been joined by millions of Americans
who think the same way we do. Don't let the false patriots intimidate
you by setting the agenda or the terms of the debate. Don't be defeated
by polls that show 70% of the public in favor of the war. Remember that
these Americans being polled are the same Americans whose kids (or neighbor's
kids) have been sent over to Iraq. They are scared for the troops and
they are being cowed into supporting a war they did not want -- and
they want even less to see their friends, family, and neighbors come
home dead. Everyone supports the troops returning home alive and all
of us need to reach out and let their families know that.
Unfortunately, Bush and Co.
are not through yet. This invasion and conquest will encourage them
to do it again elsewhere. The real purpose of this war was to say to
the rest of the world, "Don't Mess with Texas - If You Got What
We Want, We're Coming to Get It!" This is not the time for the
majority of us who believe in a peaceful America to be quiet. Make your
voices heard. Despite what they have pulled off, it is still our country.
Yours,
Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com