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Javier Bardem took the stage at the Oscars with a red badge with large letters hanging on his lapel. “No to war.” The same one he wore 23 years ago at the now legendary Goya gala that opposed another war, that one in Iraq. Before announcing the Oscar for Best International Film, he waited for the accompanying music to end and said: “No to war. Free Palestine.” The public applauded the actor’s bravery, unconsciously making clear the cultural abyss between Hollywood and Spain. An apolitical gala, except for a few things. The Academy had already warned that this gala would be exempt from political proclamations, but there were a couple of exceptions. One was a devastating Conan O’Brien, who He congratulated the British because they do stop their pedophilespointing to the Epstein files and the recent arrest of Prince Andrew. Jimmy Kimmel dedicated a little dig at ‘Melania’not nominated for Best Documentary. Javier Bardem, however, had no problems naming wars, countries and leaders. Why the pin. On the red carpet, Bardem explained to the press that the “No to War” pin was the same one he wore in the Goya of 2003 while protesting against what he described as what he has later described as the “illegal war in Iraq”. This time he wore the badge to protest against the US and Israeli attacks on Iran. “We are here 23 years later, again with another illegal war created by Trump and Netanyahu, causing a lot of damage and killing many innocent people,” declared. In addition to that badge, he wore the Handala, a figure of a child with his back turned that the cartoonist Naji al-Ali created in 1969 and which has become a symbol of Palestinian resistance. Legal ironies. A detail completed the portrait of wars and conflicts against which Bardem protested: the Palestinian actor Motaz Malhees, one of the protagonists of ‘The Voice of Hind Rajab’, nominated for Best International Film, could not attend the ceremony because the new regulations of the Trump administration prevented him from traveling to the United States with his Palestinian Authority passport. The film chronicles the attempts to rescue a five-year-old Gazan girl killed by an Israeli bombing. No to war: Origins. We recommend the podcast still in progress ‘Delusions of Spain‘ dedicated to the 2003 Goya gala, to understand all the implications of the protests of that year. The invasion of Iraq was imminent and Aznar had publicly shown his support for Bush. Willy Toledo, Alberto San Juan and the Animalario theater group took over TVE to protest against the government itself: there was no official plan but the vast majority of guests and candidates put on the stickers. Bardem himself was the first to start the protests that night with a “Never again” against the Prestige disaster, which was taking place in those same days. Different industries. The gap that separates the political culture of Spanish cinema from that of American cinema is neither new nor accidental. In Spain, the sector has a documented tradition of public positioning: the white hands of the president of the Academy José Luis Borau against ETA in 1998, the violet tide of recent years, the speeches on historical memory, Bardem himself in 2003. The industry understands that the gala is a loudspeaker and that using it makes sense, even if it has costs. Susan Sarandon, upon receiving the international Goya during her visit to Spain, declared that she was “very surprised” by the atmosphere of political protest that was breathed there, in contrast to what he described as “censorship” in the United States. Because Hollywood works differently. Explicit political activism from the stage is usually the exception, not the norm. Bardem has verbalized it with little contemplation: at the 2025 Emmyswearing a Palestinian kufiya, said he “would not work” with any company that supported Israel, joining protests from other Hollywood actors. He added that not getting jobs was “absolutely irrelevant” compared to what is happening in Gaza. National protest. It is curious that this has happened in a year like this, the triumph of a highly politicized film like ‘One Battle After Another’. However, although there were different proclamations in favor of peace and well-intentioned desires to improve the world (starting with those of the film’s own director, Paul Thomas Anderson), no one expressed the demands as forcefully as Bardem. That thus demonstrated that “I am Spanish, Spanish, Spanish” goes beyond winning at tennis from time to time. In Xataka | Two Oscars with the same serial number: how the biggest and most confusing silent fraud of the Academy was created