The Hollywood Blacklist, Part 639

In USA Today, Oscars producer Gil Cates insists that any winner can say whatever he or she wants upon ascending the podium.

However, according to this report from the Scotsman, there's a new blacklist in town and it's aimed at preventing a Vanessa Redgrave sort of moment. That means no Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn, etc. as presenters. Forget about politics for a minute and ponder this question: Who is less trustworthy as a source of information: a Hollywood producer or a U.K. newspaper?

In any case, there may be no stopping the King of the Stupid White Guys, Michael Moore, who's favored to take home the best documentary Oscar. Maybe this time, Charlton Heston will bust his chops.

Comments

[MGibson]

A week or so ago, I was asked to sign the U.N.'s "No Busch" (excuse me) -- the U.N.'s "No War" worldwide petition.

OK, I said, I'll go along with the "No battleships, No bazookas, No bombs in Iraque"

I told them, I'd gladly put my name on the list if, whoever originated that petition, would also dig up some historical news reports (printed or otherwise) and distribute the similar outrage between 1992 and 1999, when Susan Saranwrap, Sheryl Eatcrow, Martin Shame, Sean Pencilhead, and the like, got lots of face time on TV -- in front of thousands of worldwide marchers holding signs, exclaiming:

"No battleships, No bazookas, No bombs in Iraque"
"No battleships, No bazookas, No bombs in the Balkans"
"No battleships, No bazookas, No bombs in Somalia"
"No battleships, No bazookas, No bombs in Afghanistan"
"No battleships, No bazookas, No bombs on African Aspirin Makers"

I'm sure they got that face time in 1998.

Didn't they?

I'm sure those signs were enthusiastically displayed, by the millions, between 1992 and 1999. And I'm sure there were legions of protesters marching in the streets during those years -- in Italy, in London, in Washington, San Francisco, New York, and especially in France, n'est pas?

Weren't they?

Please tell me they were.

(Please don't tell me there was a deafening silence instead.)

[Steve]

Michael Moore is an idiot unworthy of mention (so why are you mentioning him? I don't know! shut up! No, YOU shut up!)

Anyway, allow me to reiterate that the Hollywood-type anti-war stance is NOT about war, it's about the President and the 2000 election. They can GET OVER IT. They had no problem with "peacekeeping" and regime change in Bosnia under Clinton (only a year or so, right?). The Left continues to be politics over principle and no coherent message. Until they come up with one, it will be more of the same and they will continue to lose.

[Dan]

Saddam Hussein could personally come out and give out the Oscars himself; I wouldn't give a rat's ass. Let Sarandon rant, it'll help kill her career that much faster and lessen the chance of there ever being an "Anywhere but Here II".

Who actually watches that show anymore anyway? Three hours of boredom just to find out that some piece of shit like "Titanic" or "Dances with Wolves" took top prize? I can just read about it at the IMDB news the next day.

[Another Dan]

MGibson:

Outstanding! Not only were they silent, but the like of Ms. Eatcrow entertained the troops in the Balkans and gushed afterwords about how uplifting the experience was. However, in the end, it is delightful to see Hollywood eat its young. Never a group to let principle stand in the way of dollars, these management elite are backing away from this ragtag group of actors like they are plutonium rods.

[Brian]

"If Moore does not win an Oscar, insiders claim Hollywood will be reverting back to the witch hunting 1950s..."

If "The Hours" doesn't win Best Picture, does that mean that Hollywood is becoming anti-woman?

I haven't seen it, but I seriously doubt that "Bowling for Columbine" is such an unassailable work of documentary filmaking that its failure to win an Oscar could ONLY signify that Micheal Moore has been blacklisted.

These people crack me up...

[fyodor]

Yeah yeah yeah, well there are conservatives who were totally against bombing Serbia to try to stop the attempted genocide in Kosovo who are totally in favor of our upcoming invasion of Iraq, so it obviously works both ways. I don't have all the answers, but if your logic begins and ends with a reaction against the apparent hypocrisy of one partisan side of the spectrum, you're just as foolish as they are. (BTW, while leftists obviously didn't protest en masse against the Serbian bombing, my impression was that the Left was split on the issue, and some, like Chomsky, did speak vehemently against it.)

[fyodor]

As far as Moore goes, yeesh. Having lots of leftist friends, I had to endure over and over hearing how marvelous that boring screed is. Now I don't mind being subjected to POV's with which I disagree (since I disagree with most everyone on the planet about SOMETHING, that would be hard to avoid), but that hodgepodge of celluloid makes no coherent argument and rarely showed me anything interesting. Terry Nichols's brother was a fascinating nut, but otherwise it was a mishmash of pointless lament, unsubstantiated claims and self serving chest thumping. Oh well....

[Dan]

Yeah yeah yeah, well there are conservatives who were totally against bombing Serbia to try to stop the attempted genocide in Kosovo who are totally in favor of our upcoming invasion of Iraq, so it obviously works both ways.

That's because stopping genocide in Serbia, or just about anywhere else on the planet, isn't the job of the United States government. Protecting the interests of the United States is. Conservatives have framed the need for war on Hussein in terms of American needs; the "stopping the slaughter" angle is just thrown in as an additional reason.

In other words, conservatives opposed the war in Serbia because Serbia was absolutely no threat to us at all, economically, militarily, or terrorism-wise. They favor war with Iraq because Iraq IS a threat to us -- economically at the very least (due to the threat to oil supplies), but also militarily and terror-wise in many peoples' opinions. There's no inconsistency here.

Liberals claimed to favor the war in Bosnia because it would put a stop to the slaughter there. They are apparently uninterested in ending the slaughter in Iraq; I think it's fair to ask why.

[Kevin Carson]

M. Gibson:

This "I'll bet you didn't complain when Clinton bombed Serbia" bit must be some organization's talking point, like the wave of "demonstrated true leadership" letters to the editor. It started popping up everywhere just a month or so ago.

For the record, there were some complaints on the Left--just not on the NPR liberal pseudo-left. Mother Jones may have defended the Balkans intervention as a "progressive" war, but I've still got a copy of Alternative Press Review from that time with a picture of Slick Willie on the cover, complete with "war criminal" tatooed on his forehead.

And there were plenty on the right who opposed war in both cases: the Buchanan paleo wing of the GOP, Lew Rockwell, antiwar.com.... But maybe they don't qualify as "conservatives" unless they write for the Standard or FrontPage.

And how about the Freepers who were rightly yelling about Waco and Ruby Ridge a few years back, but have now joined the "If you don't have nothin' to hide, you don't need to worry" crowd?

Michael Moore permanently alienated me when he started in on the gun thing. That made it pretty clear he wasn't a left-wing populist like, say, Cockburn, but only a tampon-brained liberal in the same class as Hillary, Rosie and Barbra.

[Dan]

It started popping up everywhere just a month or so ago.

Yeah, right about the time when the people who'd demanded war in Bosnia took to the streets and the airwaves to demand there NOT be war in Iraq. So far as I can tell, their motto is "hey, we don't see any white victims here -- let's give peace a chance".

This isn't some organization's "talking point". The volume of the ranting from the pro-Bosnia-war/anti-Iraq-war crowd is just being paralleled by an increase in the volume of people pointing out their moral hypocrisy.

[Mark Borok]

The difference between this upcoming war and the ones preceding it (including the war in Afghanistan) is that those wars were in response to specific actions. They also happened relatively swiftly. The anti-war movement has only gained momentum recently, after the administration has been kicking around the war idea for about a year. I think it's a safe bet that, if Clinton had spent a year rattling his saber on Bosnia and in the absense of an ongoing genocide, there would have eventually been protests in that case as well.

-- MB

[MGibson]

TO "budgirl": I had my tongue in my cheek when I wrote "Busch". As Whoopie would have it: "Some people are upset about this war because it seems we're being led by a Bush, a Dick and a Colin."

(In case you haven't noticed, my political philosophy lives neither on the Left nor on the Right.)

TO "Kevin Carson": If numbers matter to you any, you may have noticed the LACK of the MILLIONS of protesters and their waving signs during the time of the previous admin.

My jab at the hypocrisy was about the degree of complaining -- especially when most of THOSE wars were fought for purposes of misdirection; for covering up something else.

No wonder the world despises us so.

[budgirl]

To MGibson, about your first post,

No Busch? Your'e against cheap beer?

[Jim N]

I don't get it with Moore. I thought his show, TV Nation (that was the name right?) was kind of funny, but then I rented Roger & Me and barely laughed at all. Mostly I just found it depressing.

[Gary Gunnels]

I actually liked Bowling for Columbine. Admittedly it was crass (just like everything else he does), and I don't agree with Moore's gun-control stance, but I thought it was a fairly, hmm, funny piece of work. Its nice to see people squirm IMHO, and that's what Moore is best at. Now, on the other hand, I will readily admit that Moore is a hypocritical jackass. But then again, we all are. 🙂