Static Zombie

I saw this another way... I believe that Michael Moore brought the fellow nominees onstage with their full knowledge about what he was going to do once onstage. He did the exact same thing at another recent awards ceremony, and was widely expected to do the same again last night.

Did you notice that none of the people standing behind him appeared shocked or surprised at what he said?

He was the one wild card that the producers of the show couldn't blacklist or prevent from speaking if he won the award.

I don't believe the Oscars were the right venue for his speech, but I also don't believe the US is right in attacking Iraq without UN support.

I agree with you, Chris. It was my understanding that the other nominees were fully with him,
as that's the way it appeared on stage.

I might also add that the event organizers said up front that the 45 second allotment of
time was the winner's to do with as they pleased. They had no wish to censor them because
it was their belief that they earned that time. They know that feelings run deep (in all directions)
in Hollywood over this retarded war, and that people are going to speak out. Moore is clearly
very well informed about the issue, and it would have shocked me if he had that great opportunity
and said nothing.

As for Moore's lack of class, that's clearly in the eye of the beholder. He got a very warm
reception for the same speech at the Independent Spirit Awards. I thought the booers showed
the least class - they got to hide in anonymity (no one on camera was shown booing), while
Moore stood up in front of the world to speak out. That showed me great courage.

I happen to think Michael Moore is a jackass who only thinks he knows what he's talking about, but I have to credit Nate's point. The winner's time is his own, none of the others seemed unduly shocked, and the ones the time for comment did not belong to was the members of the audience.

That said, I'd have been just as swift to boot his crotch as Pete had I been up there and felt at all misled.

I imagine that some members of the audience may have felt genuine anger about Moore's remarks, but I couldn't help wondering whether some might have been motivated by the possible PR repercussions of letting his comments go unbooed by "liberal Hollywood." They almost HAD to do it, just so that the story the next day wasn't that Hollywood agrees with Moore.

The classier thing to do -- and far more devastating, I think -- would have been to deliver merely a polite smattering of applause.

My comments are predicated on the impression that the other documentary nominees had no idea what Moore was going to say. They presumably went onstage thinking Moore was going to stand in solidarity with the oft-neglected documentary community, which was indeed how he began. Then he made a left turn at Albequerque and implicated his colleagues in his grandstanding editorialism.

It looked to me like he blindsided his colleagues. If I'm a losing nominee and the winner urges me on stage, I'd expect it's because the winner is going to graciously acknowledge me and the other nominees, not rope me into a political controversy. I'm expecting "We're all winners," not "Shame on you Mr. Bush."

You want cowardice? How about fooling a dozen people into literally standing behind you while you spout inflammatory rhetoric about a heated issue, rather than speaking your piece alone on an empty stage.

Classless.

But Peter, I really don't believe any one of the people who went up there were fooled into anything.
A) They all know Michael Moore and his opinions. The entire world knows where he stands. Certainly other documentarians
do.
B) Everyone knew he would say something if he won. He did before (nearly exactly the same words), and it was entirely
probable that he would again. He did. No shock there.
C) As previously stated, none of the other nominees revealed the slightest bit of anger or emotion when he spoke as he did.

Based on these statements, and a complete lack of anything to the contrary (except the direction the speech started),
I see no reason to believe that they were blindsided. It makes a neat little piece for your webpage, but I don't think it
has any merit.

There's no reason to believe they WEREN'T blindsided. When he invited them up on stage, he didn't have time to fill them in on what he was going to say. Given his past, they might have assumed he'd make some inflammatory remarks, but that he'd present them as HIS opinions, not THEIR opinions. That's an important distinction.

Why do you say this arrangement had to be set up right then and there? There was ample time
to set this up before the show. And Michael Moore was clearly a front runner. And even if it
was, how hard would it have been to say, "I'm going to repeat my speech from the
Independent Spirit Awards. Would you like to come up with me and stand in solidarity?" I think
you're assuming too much. And for a third time, someone surely would have said something,
then or later, if he didn't speak for the people on stage. I've heard or seen nothing like that
anywhere.

Objection, your honor-- assumes facts not in evidence.

My response is based solely on what we saw, with no extra assumptions. Your response has assumptions tumbling out your poop chute.

We saw Michael Moore get up.
We saw him urge his co-nominees to join him on stage.
We did not see him tell them what he was going to say.

I've seen now evidence that the other nominees knew he was going to present his speech as being their collective opinion rather than his individual opinion. Until I do, I stand by my conclusions.

Peter, you're certainly making assumptions that the arrangement/comments were not discussed beforehand. There's no evidence to suggest that they were or were not. How can you reach any hardfast conclusions either way, other than going with your gut feeling?
I assumed from the get-go that he got all the nominees together ahead of time and told them the deal. Of course, that's what I want to believe because I think Michael Moore is a remarkable man and I love his style and wit.
You assume that he pulled a bait-and-switch on his fellow nominees; that's what you want to believe because you think he's a jerk.
You say you're basing your response based on what you saw. Well, what I saw was a group of people standing behind their spokesperson. I've seen no evidence that they were blind-sided. I've seen no evidence that Michael Moore didn't deliver their collective opinion.

Well put, Stephen. Peter is begging the question. :)

I guess the only evidence that they weren't blindsided is the fact that nobody observed anyone kicking Michael Moore in the crotch, as threatened. But that only proves that the other nominees were either more restrained than Moore (not hard to imagine), or that they're afraid he'd kick their asses (more difficult to imagine, unless he sat on them).

Have there been no interviews with the other nominees in which they're asked to respond to Moore's speech? Surely we can dig them up on the web if they exist.

Here, this should help clear things up some.

From TV Guide Online, March 25, 2003, News & Gossip “Insider” section:

Did Michael Moore's fellow documentarians realize the full extent of what he'd say on stage?
Responds Moore: "I told them during the commercial break, 'You know, if you want to come with me, I would love for you to come with me, but come only if you want to be in solidarity with me, because I'm going to speak out against this war and President Bush.' They were thrilled, and I was thrilled to have them share the stage with me." Gail Dolgin and Vincente Franco — who co-directed Daughter From Danang — confirm this. "We didn't know word-for-word what he'd say," Dolgin says, "but we're very supportive of Michael. It was dramatic, but the war is the really tragic drama. I thought the booing he got was in bad taste. It was shocking and disrespectful that it broke down like a sports event, with the boos and cheers."

On the other hand, the Sydney Morning Herald of the same date reported this:

Moore, who shouted "Shame on you, Mr Bush" before being drowned out by cheers and jeers, told the audience that he was speaking on behalf of all of the nominees in his category. But at least one of those who went on stage, Jacques Cluzaud, said he had no clear idea what Moore was going to do, and was so distraught by Moore's speech that he left the event immediately afterwards.

And Cluzaud is French!

So, are we clear now? Some of them knew, but the French guys apparently didn't get the picture. And then, rather than kick Moore in the jewels as Peter suggested -- big surprise -- they surrendered. This makes more sense every minute.