Angela Bell has a couple of interesting items related to Michael Moore's performance at the Oscars.

However, in the interest of balance, see All Americans are now war criminals, an article on Moore's Oscar speech by someone who who reasons thus: "As expected, Moore was booed by the predominantly Jewish Hollywood assemblage of cinema celebrities." It seems there must be something in the sound of a boo that identifies a booer's religion. I'll have to listen carefully in future and try to learn the difference. Perhaps someone could invent a boo meter, along the lines of a speech analyser.

She also links to this article:

So who was booing Michael Moore? The people in the balconies. At the Oscars, the orchestra level is reserved for the glitterati and the upper tiers for the riff-raff. So only "normal" people were booing Moore. Which leaves unanswered the question, why didn't the stars boo him? Why simply sit there, the equivalent of voting "present" on a resolution in Congress? Clearly, the answer is that they wanted to cheer. Just not as much as they want that seventh house in Maui.
AS OUTRAGEOUS as Moore's behavior might seem, it isn't so bad: He was just playing to his audience. The people who pay to see Moore's movies and buy his books would have been upset with him if he hadn't caused a scene. For him not to have made a spectacle of himself would have been like Halle Berry showing up to the Awards in a trench coat--in show business you have to display your assets.

posted by James Russell | 2:50 PM