And the Oscar Goes To …Saddam Hussein!

The Sierra Times ^ | May 5, 2003 | Michael Levine

[J. Neil Schulman]

And the Oscar Goes To …Saddam Hussein!

By Michael Levine © 2003

The March 23rd broadcast of the 75th Academy Awards is long forgotten, the image of Iraqis pulling a stone head of Saddam Hussein through the streets of Baghdad having put Hollywood’s jeremiads against Operation Iraqi Freedom into what the Marxists fondly call “the dustbin of history.” But what is bound to be the long-lasting residue from Hollywood’s anti-war drum-beating is the clear-cut evidence of just how deeply most of the motion picture industry despises their audience.

When Michael Moore (who made his hatred for Americans crystal clear in his film Bowling for Columbine) standing before the Academy that had just awarded him an Oscar for it -- and a standing ovation to boot -- seized the occasion for a rant against “fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president … sending us to war for fictitious reasons,” he knew his Hollywood audience agreed with him.

The scattered jeers Michael Moore received were not from Academy members who disagreed with the political content of his rant. The only way they could have shown that was by walking out on him, or at least standing up and turning their backs.

Rather, the jeers were from those in the entertainment industry who realized that Moore was letting the cat out of the bag, telling the ticket buyers -- 74% of whom polled in support of the president and the war -- just how little Hollywood shares their core values.

At the 1978 Oscar ceremony, Vanessa Redgrave used the acceptance speech for her best-supporting-actress award to thank Academy voters for not listening to "Zionist hoodlums." Best-screenwriter Paddy Chayevsky used his Oscar acceptance to reply, "I would like to suggest to Miss Redgrave that her winning an Academy Award is not a pivotal moment in history, does not require a proclamation, and a simple 'thank you' would have sufficed."

By contrast at this year’s awards, MPAA President Jack Valenti immediately followed Michael Moore. He didn’t find it necessary to distance the motion-picture industry from Moore’s attack on the President of the United States. Neither did anyone else who came onto the Kodak Theater stage over the next few hours.

Apparently, in 1978, attacking Israel’s national-defense policies at the Oscars was enough for someone in Hollywood to speak up. At the 2003 Oscars, attacking America’s national-defense policies wasn’t.

Best Actor Adrien Brody, who played real-life Holocaust survivor Wladyslaw Szpilman in The Pianist, said during his Oscar acceptance this year, "My experience making this film made me very aware of the sadness and the dehumanization of people in times of war, and the repercussions of war. And whether you believe in God or Allah, may He watch over you, and let's pray for a peaceful and swift resolution."

Somebody should have pointed out to Mr. Brody that World War Two could have ended peacefully and very swiftly had Great Britain and America surrendered, ceding half the world to Adolf Hitler. Possibly it never crossed Mr. Brody’s mind that in praying for a swift resolution to the current war, rather than for a swift victory, he was signaling that he had no preference which side won – Saddam Hussein and his gang of thugs, or the coalition of free nations fighting to liberate the Iraqi people from under the dictator’s thumb.

Or maybe it did cross the movie actor’s mind and he either really doesn’t care who prevails … or he’s praying we don’t. However Adrien Brody meant it, nobody at the Academy Awards jeered his statement calling not for righteousness to prevail but peace.

Then again, nobody jeered him either when he molested his award-presenter, Mrs. Eric Benét, a.k.a. Halle Berry.

It wasn’t always like this. During World War Two, stars like Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable, and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., didn’t protest against the war. They joined the service. The major studios made movies in support of the war with names like Destination Tokyo, Stage Door Canteen and Casablanca.

Today much of Hollywood would not have found Hitler worth fighting. Susan Sarandon, magically transported back to December, 1941, might well have asked as she did in present day about Saddam Hussein, “What has Hitler ever done to us?”

Yes, there have been major box-office draws supporting the president and the war to liberate Iraq, among them megaproducer/director Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise, and Bruce Willis. Fine actors like James Woods and Ron Silver also spoke out. But they were drowned out by the cacophony of protests from most of the rest of Hollywood’s A List.

This same anti-war A List can now be counted on to compete for $20 million paychecks for playing war heros PFC Jessica Lynch and Col. David Perkins in movies Hollywood is bound to make. It’s been said that Hollywood hates war but loves war movies. What hasn’t been said is that many of the stars who play war heros these days would never consider inviting their real life counterparts home to supper. Movie stars don’t break bread with – to use their usual epithets -- “mercenaries” or “baby-killers,” do they?

If the Republicans don’t use Michael Moore’s Oscar acceptance speech in their 2004 TV spots, they will have missed a great opportunity to remind the American people just how much the stars -- who are using their entertainment dollars to finance the left -- hate their guts.

Copyright © 2003 by Michael Levine. All rights reserved. Reprinted on FreeRepublic.com by permission of the author.

Steve Allen called Michael Levine "the Michael Jordan of Entertainment P.R." He’s been a book editor, an L.A. talk radio host, and writes a column for Entertainment Today. His website is at http://www.levinepr.com. His email address is nospam_levinepr2@earthlink.net.

[Happy2BMe]

You beat me by 90 seconds on this post!

hehe....

Let's roll!

[Happy2BMe]

You know what really get me about these maggots in hollywood?

They protest our fighting, belittle our soldiers, spit on their sacrifices, and then MAKE BILLIONS OFF OF MAKING MOVIES ABOUT WHAT THEY (THE SOLDIERS) DID!

1

Saddam For President!! Odai For CIA ChiefAnn . . ann.. ME For Press Secatary!

Caption Hollywood's Finest At Antiwar Demonstrations (Danny Glover Fans Need Not Apply)

Eerie Silence in Hollywood as Anti-War Stars Vanish

[Happy2BMe]

"What hasn’t been said is that many of the stars who play war heros these days would never consider inviting their real life counterparts home to supper. Movie stars don’t break bread with – to use their usual epithets -- “mercenaries” or “baby-killers,” do they?"

I HATE YOU - BUT BUY MY MOVIES!