Boycott the Oscars

By Nikki Finke, LA Weekly. Posted March 21, 2003.

As they said during the Vietnam era, "What if they gave a war and nobody came?" So think of the significance, with this insoluble invasion of Iraq coinciding with the insipid Oscars, if they gave the biggest awards show in the world and nobodies came.

By Wednesday, neither ABC nor the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nor the rest of Hollywood made plans to even delay this Sunday's broadcast of the always-narcoleptic ceremony -- not with commercial time selling out a month in advance, the average price for a 30-second spot approaching $1.4 million, and mega-more dollars generated globally for all the studios with Oscar winners. Instead, the powers that be rolled up the red carpet so everyone creeps in the way of the Kodak Theater. This decision not only cancels all that live-arrivals hoopla covered by 500 media outlets and consumed by the world, but it also effectively muzzles any impromptu soapbox speeches by the anti-war celebrities.

What a wake-up call! Just one more reason why star activists should boycott this 75th Oscars. Kick the infotainment conglomerates and the companies who advertise with them where it will hurt the most: in the wallet. Big Media -- because its moguls promote the war agenda of the Bush administration (whose FCC just happens to be deciding the fate of further media consolidation) while its on-air talking heads ridicule those actors who oppose the hawks. Corporate America -- because Oscar sponsors like American Express, Anheuser-Busch, Charles Schwab, General Motors, J.C. Penney, MasterCard and PepsiCo exercise too much power over the kind of content going out to the public.

Imagine an Academy Awards stripped of all glitz and glibness, that is nameless and faceless, that is muted and mute. Moviemakers could make their biggest statement by shocking everyone and not showing up, or stopping by and not saying anything at all.

Think of the world tuning in to the sight of silence: a night of peace amid war.

Think of all the fleeing viewers and lost moola.

It could give new meaning to the battle phrase "shock and awe."

The Weekly has learned that, already, several prominent past Oscar winners are secretly organizing a symbolic protest for that segment when the show gathers all of the living honorees of the acting awards onstage to commemorate its diamond anniversary. A few have already told friends they're planning individually not to participate; several others are trying for a mass walkout. The Academy and producer Gil Cates are clueless.

As for the actors: damned if they do, damned if they don't. Showing up in borrowed Tom Ford threads and Harry Winston gems while U.S. bombs rain down on Baghdad will only reinforce the world's image of the Ugly American. Even dressing down will be deemed hypocritical. Besides, once the fighting starts, all will be decried as unpatriotic Americans, morale blowers for the troops, traitors to the country, by the Limbaugh-Hannity-O'Reilly-Elder-Prager-
Coulter-Ingraham-Savage-Scarborough cabal of conservatives who control the airwaves. The time is right for the moviemakers to grab back the microphones and simply lay them down Oscar night.

The 4-month-old Hollywood anti-war group, Artists United To Win Without War, isn't proposing an Oscars boycott. But it's vowing to keep its activism going.

The Weekly has learned that Artists United will be distributing its own lapel pin -- a peace symbol inside a circle -- to be worn at the Academy Awards. Dustin Hoffman, Ben Affleck and Julianne Moore are among those already committed to wear it.

"All of us support the soldiers so much we want them to come home," says one of the spokesmen, actor Mike Farrell (M*A*S*H). "We continue to believe the war is wrongly imposed, inappropriate and unnecessary. Having said that, we understand the duty of people in uniform is to obey their commander in chief. So we support the troops -- in spite of the fact we believe the commander in chief to be wrong."

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