Going Against the Grain
Sometimes society has to be challenged within
On 23 March, 2003, upon winning the Oscar for Best Documentary Film for Bowling For Columbine, director/producer Michael Moore delivered the following acceptance speech to a stunned crowd and millions watching the live televised event:
“On behalf of our producers Kathleen Glynn and Michael Donovan from Canada, I'd like to thank the Academy for this. I've invited my fellow documentary nominees on the stage with us, and we would like to -- they are here -- they are here in solidarity with me because we like non-fiction. We like non-fiction and we live in fictitious times. We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elects a fictitious President. We -- We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons. Whether it's the fictition of duct tape or the fictitious [sic] of orange alerts, we are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you. And any time you've got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up. Thank you very much.”
Delivering this speech just three days after the onslaught of the invasion and during a time in which then-President George W. Bush had a very high public approval rating, Moore’s acceptance speech was met with tremendous disapproval. The scatterings of applause and shouts of encouragement from the Hollywood audience were overpowered by the boos, while a large portion of the audience sat in shock as the producers prematurely played the interlude music in an attempt to cut his speech short. The kick-back from the general public and the tremendous amount of criticism Moore received in the aftermath of the Oscars that year was immense: probably the heaviest amount of criticism any Oscars-acceptance-speech-maker has ever received. Yet Moore never floundered, never lost his ground. Just three days after practically being booed off the stage, when asked by Entertainment Weekly’s Gillian Flynn if he had considered an alternate version of his speech, Moore responded by stating:
“The other road I would have gone down is: ‘We've taught the children of Columbine an important lesson this week -- that violence is an acceptable method to resolve a conflict.’ . . . I said what my conscience told me to say and it related in an appropriate way to the message of my film. How wrong would it have been if I'd stood up there and thanked my agent and my lawyer and the designer who gave me the tuxedo? And how could I live with myself?”
Just over a year later, upon the release of Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore was applauded as a hero. And, in spite of the huge amount of controversy surrounding the film, millions flocked to the box office as Moore received a multitude of rave reviews from critics and the public alike, as well as another Oscar nomination. Millions, it seemed, had realized that Moore’s speech the previous year was not so far off the beaten path. Today, Michael Moore is regarded as a highly respected figure in the field of documentary film. But hindsight is a wonderful thing. Hasn’t the human race always balked at those who went against the grain, and who went against general public opinion? Christopher Columbus was thought to be crazy. Galileo was called a heretic. Rosa Parks was imprisoned, Mahatma Ghandi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinated. Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison, 18 of them performing hard labor. Christ was crucified, and Muhammad fled to Medina in order to escape persecution. Throughout history, mankind has always sought to destroy those individuals who have fought conformity or brought about new ideas or concepts of justice. But why? Perhaps because new ideas threaten the comfort and convenience to which we have grown accustomed. In the 1800’s in the United States, not only was it more economically comfortable to advocate for slavery, but it was simply easier to accept blacks as sub-human than it was to speak out against the masses and jump on the bandwagon of abolition. Fear often plays a great role in the dormant complacence of conformity. In Nazi Germany, thousands of professors at universities across the country were imprisoned for their denouncement of Hitler. Siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl were beheaded for producing and distributing an anti-Nazi publication entitled Die Weiße Rose. Meanwhile, millions turned their heads in denial or kept their mouths shut for fear of being forced to join the Jews being carted away on cattle cars before their very eyes. Just a few short years later, in the United States, hundreds of artists, novelists, and humanitarians were placed on trial for accusations of supporting communism, including Arthur Miller, Orson Welles, Elizabeth Hawes, Leonard Bernstein, and Paul Robeson. Yet the masses in the US at the time were so petrified by “The Red Scare” that few stopped to question the absurdity of these accusations. In today’s society, particularly here in the West, complacency is such an easy place to fall into because of the fast-passed laziness of our lives. Everyone is too tuned out to be tuned in. Everyone has an iPod, a iPhone, a PSP, and a Blackberry. We have the fastest rate of communication than ever before. The speed and accessibility of information is unprecedented. Yet how many people use this technology to think outside of the box and take action? We’re all too busy with the daily grind to earn the next pay check to pay off the credit card bills which finance the gadgets that control our lives. As the late George Carlin once stated: “Nobody questions things in this country any more. Nobody questions anything. Everybody's too fat and happy. Everybody's got a cell phone that'll make pancakes or rub their balls, you know. We're way too fucking prosperous for our own good. Way too fucking prosperous. Americans have been bought off and silenced by toys and gizmos. And no one learns to question things.”
Still, in every society, a few remain who dare to go against the grain. In 1852, the Bábí Táhirih was executed in Iran for appearing publicly in front of men without her veil while speaking at the Conference of Badasht, advocating for a radical break with Islamic Sharia law. The last thing she said before her death was: “You can kill me as soon as you like, but you cannot stop the emancipation of women.”
Indeed, Táhirih’s final words offer a prolific message to revolutionaries everywhere. The evolution of thought and subsequent action can be stifled, but it cannot be extinguished. It can be slowed, but it cannot be stopped. It can be trampled, but it cannot be destroyed. Comfort, convenience, greed, and intimidation can only suppress revolution temporarily. For there will always be the brave few who have the courage to go against the grain, without fear or apprehension. Those select few will always pave the way for others to follow. As Mahatma Gandhi once stated: “When I despair, I remember that, all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and, for a time, they can seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Think of it: always.”
1st August 2009