BOYCOTT!:

It's time to turn off, tune out and drop President Bush a message (Gerald Stone, March 21 2003, Sydney Morning Herald)

Earlier this week, in a letter to the Herald, I offered one long-shot possibility of getting directly through to the White House: a viewer boycott of the Oscars.

Perhaps the idea wasn't as far-fetched as some critics tried to make out.

The US, for all its military might, has a political system that makes it very vulnerable to protest campaigns which target any of its major industries. The entertainment industry is certainly among the most influential of those.

The Academy Awards broadcast is traditionally the most widely watched of all American television shows. If there was clear evidence of a drop in ratings attributable to anti-war sentiment, it would send a symbolic message to the bosses of the big studios, networks and pop music companies.

They would begin to realise that an unpopular war has the potential to threaten billions of dollars in overseas profits, and they would make sure that message was passed on quickly to the politicians who represent them. [...]

Only within the US entertainment industry do Australians really count. The amount of money earned here from American-made television programs, movies and CDs happens to be very significant on a per capita basis, placing us among the top overseas consumers.

A symbolic switch-off of such product surely seems an easy enough gesture to make for any motivated anti-war protester, and the economic impact locally would be minimal.

Could such a campaign work? The major US TV networks and studios are prone to panic over any issue that looks like impacting on profits.

A celebrity who makes some impromptu pro-abortion comment risks being fired on the spot for offending advertisers. So, too, the industry is vulnerable to a president who enrages millions of foreign consumers by declaring a war with no clear explanation.

The Hollywood moguls would soon enough let their displeasure be known to the West Wing.

Have we really reached the stage where Australians, as much as they admire Americans, need to contemplate a symbolic boycott to express their grave concerns about US foreign policy?

Sadly, there appear to be few other options in a situation where Washington claims to act as the ultimate guardian of free nations everywhere, yet leaves millions of free-world citizens virtually disenfranchised because they have no voice in US politics.

We strongly support this idea and urge everyone to boycott the Oscars, though for the exact opposite reason--to express displeasure at the anti-American views of the bulk of the Hollywood glitterati. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 20, 2003 9:13 AM