Anti-War Protesting, Hollywood-style

Hollywood Swinger: Swinging Between Protests and Pretense
By Wendy Campbell

I've always wanted to crash some real Oscar parties in Hollywood. Wouldn't you know the year I finally get around to pursuing this personal fantastic mission, Dubya just has to go and louse up my plans with insisting on having this crazy war that he has been hellbent on, regardless of what everyone else in the world thinks, except for his small cabal of greedy elite warmongers who will personally profit from this immoral war.

Don't get me going…

I got into a political discussion with a woman in the check-in line, and when I said, "Notice how they haven't found any weapons of mass destruction yet and if the Iraqis had them, don't you think they would have used some of them by now? What do you suppose they are waiting for… Christmas?" Another woman in front of me turned around and asked me to keep my voice down. I guess some people are uncomfortable thinking about this.

As my plane hit the ground, these Kinks' lyrics floated through my head "Oh I wish my life was a non-stop Hollywood movie show… because celluloid heroes never die".

At any rate, as I got closer to the Holiday Inn Walk of Fame, the literally atmosphere was abuzz with several helicopters hovering over the protests down the street and all the activities around setting up for the Academy Awards at the Kodak Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard at Highland.

On Sunday, March 23, the day of the Awards Ceremony, I literally ran over to the Kodak Theatre to take advantage of the press pass I had wrangled, but would expire at exactly 11:00 am. Even an English reporter from Conde Naste couldn't get a better pass! So I got a few shots of local commentaries and starlets on the red carpet. So that was sorta fun.

I had given up on the idea of crashing the Oscar parties, especially the Vanity Fair one, because the security would be insurmountable, that is IF they were even going to have one. Rumors were flying that it, and many others, were cancelled. Some also said that the restaurant that usually hosted it, Morton's, was now defunct. When I called, no one answered. The plan had been to protest the war with the others, and then try to crash the parties. But with all the streets blocked off, and the security mostly likely an insurmountable challenge, I decided to just stay with the protesters 'til I dropped which ended up to be about 11pm and was really therapeutic and fun.

I met alot of really nice people. My sign said "End Zionism and ALL Racism NOW!" on one side and on the other side it said "Zionism and US Imperialism KILLS!" Other signs that were a bit more humorous were "A Texan Village Is Missing Its Idiot" and "Cure Mad Cowboy Disease!" One woman dangled a baby doll dripping in "reel" blood. A group of well-dressed young people in tuxes and gowns were drenched in "reel" blood as well. A couple of women were self-styled Statues of Liberty, battered, tattered and bloody. You got to hand it to Hollywood protesters! They even protest with style!

One guy had a speaker box with a bullhorn that he pulled out now and then and said in a perfect cop-like voice "People of America, you are now free to move about. You have been liberated from the tyranny of Dictator Bush." or something like that. It was very funny at the time.

Aside from the thousands of anti-war protesters and an almost equally huge police presence, there were little pockets of pathetically misguided "patriots" who with their big American flags stood on a couple street corners shouting out inane slogans like "Support Our Troops!" DUH! Yeah, like bring them home NOW!

It was pretty amazing to see the huge crowds of protesters lining Sunset Boulevard for blocks and directly facing them was an equally long, long line of policemen with their menacing batons ready to strike.

It really was like the two sides of a war, the heavily armed, uniformed, almost faceless police state against the colorful, unarmed, masses of people of all races, ages, sex and colorful attire. It really struck me. It's like our massively armed American army against the underarmed people of the Middle East. Creepy.

The protesters were really jammed on the block around Orange and Sunset, and thus a phalanx of police faced off as if prepared to advance and crack down on the people. Which is exactly what they did as the time approached for when the permit would be up. The captain told the policepeople to put the sheilds down over their helmets. It got really tense, and then pop! Next thing I see is they are arresting a young black woman who was sitting on the sidewalk. I saw several others get arrested at a distance, but after I got a shot of the police arresting the young black woman I moved out of the area. Later I saw on TV footage of policemen aggressively moving in and attacking people but the narrative of the reporter was saying just the opposite of what I was seeing! "Protesters aggressively attacked the police". Unbelievable how they could have the nerve to say that while showing something completely different from what they were saying!!!!!

After a bit to eat at a little Persian restaurant, I re-joined my colleagues who had taken over another block. The police didn't bother us there for some reason. We got lots of honks of support, a few birds, but overall, we felt great getting our message out and flashing our signs to the long black limos that had to stop at the light.

By the way, I am so proud of Michael Moore! He fought the urge to take the easy path, and instead used his time in the limelight while accepting his award for "Bowling for Columbine" to say "We are against this war. Shame on you, Mr. Bush!" The magazine "The Hollywood Reporter", an obviously very Zionist magazine as they had a huge ad for the ADL for one thing, had this to say about that: "As if to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Vanessa Redgrave's ill-advised comments about "Zionist hoodlums", Moore let loose with invective more appropriate for a Westwood rally." I had been annoyed that in his film "Bowling for Columbine" , a film about American military and violence and our support of it in areas around the world, he neglected to mention the elephant in the room, which is of course, ISRAEL. But I suppose if he had, he would not have been able to make it all the way to the podium in Zionist-dominated Hollywood to say what he said. Obviously, people got his point anyway, about Zionism and it's connection to American violence.

At any rate, I was also glad to see that "Divine Intervention" (http://www.avatarfilms.com) by Palestinian director Elia Suleiman, which was snubbed by the Academy since "Palestine is not a country" (uh-huh), is now playing around the county including in Los Angeles. I handed out flyers at the protest about the film and the Academy's racist attitude towards it. Maybe it will make it as an Oscar nominee next year! I hope so! And maybe next year there will be no war and I will be able to crash an Oscar party finally! Hope springs eternal! P.S. E-mail elacey [at] oscars.org to let them know they should accept "Divine Inspiration" as a nominee next year!