Starting A Ruckus
Was The Right Thing To Do
By Michael Moore
30 March, 2003
A word of advice to future
Oscar winners: Don't begin Oscar day by going to church.
That is where I found myself
this past Sunday morning, at the Church of the Good Shepherd on Santa
Monica Boulevard, at Mass with my sister and my dad. My
problem with the Catholic
Mass is that sometimes I find my mind wandering after I hear something
the priest says, and I start thinking all these crazy thoughts like
how it is wrong to kill people and that you are not allowed to use violence
upon another human being unless it is in true self-defense.
I had not planned on winning
an Academy Award for "Bowling for Columbine" (no documentary
that was a big box-office success had won since "Woodstock"),
and so I had no speech prepared. I'm not much of a speech-preparer anyway.
Besides, I had already received awards in the days leading up to the
Oscars and used the same acceptance remarks. I spoke of the need for
nonfiction films when we live in such fictitious times. We have a fictitious
president who was elected with fictitious election results. He is now
conducting a war for a fictitious reason (the claim that Saddam Hussein
has stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction when in fact we are there
to get the world's second-largest supply of oil).
The majority of Americans,
according to polls, want stronger environmental laws, support Roe vs.
Wade and did not want to go into this war without the backing of the
United Nations. That is where the country is at. It's liberal, it's
for peace and it is only tacitly in support of its leader because that
is what you are supposed to do when you are at war and you want your
kids to come back from Iraq alive.
In the commercial break before
the "best documentary" Oscar was to be announced, I suddenly
thought that maybe this community of film people was also part of the
American majority and just might have voted for my film, which, in part,
takes on the Bush administration for manipulating the public with fear
so it can conduct its acts of aggression against the Third World. I
leaned over to my fellow nominees and told them that, should I win,
I was going to say something about President George W. Bush and the
war, and would they like to join me up on the stage? They all agreed.
Moments later, Diane Lane
opened the envelope and announced the winner: "Bowling for Columbine."
The entire main floor rose to its feet for a standing ovation. I was
immeasurably moved and humbled as I motioned for the other nominees
to join my wife (the film's producer) and me up on the stage.
I then said what I had been
saying all week at those other awards ceremonies. I guess a few other
people had heard me say those things too because before I had finished
my first sentence about the fictitious president, a couple of men (some
reported it was "stagehands" just to the left of me) near
a microphone started some loud yelling. Then a group in the upper balcony
joined in. What was so confusing to me, as I continued my remarks, was
that I could hear this noise but, looking out on the main floor, I didn't
see a single person booing.
But then the majority in
the balcony - who were in support of my remarks - started booing the
booers.
It all turned into one humongous
cacophony of yells. And all I'm thinking is: Hey, I put on a tux for
this?
Was it appropriate? To me,
the inappropriate thing would have been to say nothing at all or to
thank my agent, my lawyer and the designer who dressed me - Sears Roebuck.
I made a movie about the American desire to use violence both at home
and around the world. My remarks were in keeping with exactly what my
film was about.
And, as I walked up to the
stage, I was still thinking about the lessons that morning at Mass.
About how silence, when you observe wrongs being committed, is the same
as committing those wrongs yourself. And so I followed my conscience
and my heart.
On the way back home to Flint,
Mich., the day after the Oscars, two flight attendants told me how they
had gotten stuck overnight in Flint with no flight - and wound up earning
only $30 for the day because they are paid by the hour.
They said they were telling
me this in the hope that I would tell others. Because they, and the
millions like them, have no voice. They don't get to be commentators
on cable news like the bevy of retired generals we've been watching
all week. They don't get to make movies or talk to a billion people
on Oscar night. They are the American majority who are being asked to
send their sons and daughters over to Iraq to possibly die so Bush's
buddies can have the oil.
Who will speak for them if
I don't? That's what I try to do, every day of my life, and March 23
- though it was one of the greatest days of my life and an honor I will
long cherish - was no different.
Except I made the mistake
of beginning it in a church.
Michael Moore won an Academy
Award for "Bowling for Columbine." This article is from the
Los Angeles Times.