Tight-lipped stars choose not to gamble their careers

PERHAPS the most surprising moment during Sunday’s drab Oscar ceremony was not Michael Moore’s dramatic denunciation of President Bush and his ‘fictitious’ war on Iraq, but the audience’s reaction to it.

The entire front row, comprising Hollywood's biggest stars, simply sat on their hands and signalled neither support nor opposition to his political outburst. They acted as if they hadn't heard what he'd said, and this from a bastion of American liberalism.

The passive reaction reveals more about Hollywood and it's priorities than it would perhaps like revealed: over the past few weeks, celebrities the super-citizens of the Western World have learnt that they cannot afford to express anti-war views, even if they hold them.