Posted on 03/03/2018 5:05:33 AM PST by Kaslin
Last year, the 89th Academy Awards was to be an affirmation of American institutions, a night of speeches and sermons culminating in the selection of the Best Picture. President Trump, and his associated rapscallions and usurpers, would give way once again to those who knew best.
Millions would watch as their moral betters projected superior political sensibilities to salve a national wound. Their glamour and insight would be attractive alternatives to the crudities and chaos that had descended since Trump’s election.
All they had to do is what they had done for 88 years: correctly stuff the envelope and read the result.
It was fitting that the task fell to Warren Beatty. He is so vain, he probably thought the award was about him. He hesitated. In the great battle between improvisation and script, his face tightened. Faye Dunaway snatched the envelope. Bonnie to his Clyde, caught again in an ambush.
With the utterance of the words “La La Land” – you can’t make this stuff up – the once glorious Hollywood establishment proved hapless. Not merely by its inability to compete with anything on Netflix, but by the failure to complete the evening’s dramatic arc by delivering the climatic line on cue. The very thing, in other words, that filmmaking is supposed to do well.
It was a major screw up, coming as it did at the precise moment when establishments had suffered in the common man’s estimation for their failure to accomplish the ordinary.
It was ironic, too. The Oscars were sponsored by the New York Times’ unprecedented marketing campaign that employed the catchy slogan, “The Truth Is Hard to Find.”
Picking up on the sponsor’s theme, Beatty’s words immediately before they bestowed the Best Picture award upon the wrong movie were: “Our goal in politics is the same as our goal in art, and that’s to get to the truth.” Except when the truth is not in the envelope where you expect it to be.
With that, Hollywood hung itself on the gallows it had prepared for Trump. And, in the process, accidentally vindicated Trump voters.
Trump was elected because the great institutions, whether government or religious or financial, and even the licensed professionals Pricewaterhouse Coopers employs to tally Oscar votes, have grown ossified and sclerotic when it comes to doing what they are supposed to do.
People were essentially saying that the Washington establishment is fired, and we’re sending a New York real estate mogul to fix it. There was a similar sentiment on the Democratic side which, absent shenanigans by Hillary Clinton and the DNC, may have sent Bernie Sanders into the general election.
Voters saw Trump as a stubborn project manager, in Hollywood parlance a Goldwyn, a Mayer, a Zanuck. Someone who would look up from his plate of eggs at the complaining director and say, “The kid stays in the picture.” Someone whose insolence could be broken only by finding his favorite horse’s head severed and in his bed.
Someone who would put the right card in the right envelope.
Not that Hollywood will learn the lesson. This year’s awards will once again be hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, whom the Washington Post has ordained “America’s Conscience.” Yes, that guy.
Those in attendance will speak truth to power by talking about guns, hypocritically garnering applause while safely ensconced behind their wealth and armed bodyguards. They will refuse to consider that the Parkland shooting is fundamentally about the failure of institutions. You know, the very problem that got Trump elected in the first place.
The FBI missed dire warnings about the Parkland shooter like a star struck accountant tweeting his association with celebrity backstage. Instead of creating strict policies and protocols to deal with threats of mass killing in the wake of 9-11, which was their job, the last two FBI directors have conjured a whole lot of ridiculousness about Russian interference.
It’s not only the FBI. Police officers on the scene did not enter the building to stop the carnage. Their Sheriff immediately went on TV to blame guns, without addressing the institutional failures of his own department.
There are credible reports that this shooter may have escaped criminal prosecution in the past by an invention of the Obama Administration called The Promise Program, a complete abdication of Broward County authorities at the behest of the federal government to burnish crime statistics.
If so, that is the greatest failure of American institutions yet. Nikolas Cruz had a gun because laws on the books were purposely not being enforced. You’re telling me the remedy here is more laws?
At last year’s Academy Awards, an accountant’s mistake rendered farcical Hollywood’s gigantic pose that it courageously embraces the truth, while the deplorables – all 62 million (and counting) of them – reside in a deliberate falsehood.
The people who voted for Trump see the same facts as the reigning cultural elite but favor different policies, as happens in democracies. It is childish to the point of rude to commandeer the resources of popular culture to say political opponents are stupid or blind or both.
That’s not going to stop them this year, unfortunately. Those in attendance will be accepting adulation as the best actors of our time even though it was learned this year that parts have been distributed in Hollywood based on a willingness to play along with systematic abuse.
Meaning, by principles of subtraction, that better actors may still be slinging hash in Ohio because they refused to play along, on principle. Which, you would think, should stop self-righteous preening, at least for this year. Don’t count on it.
I blew cheerios through my nose at;
"Voters saw Trump as a stubborn project manager, in Hollywood parlance a Goldwyn, a Mayer, a Zanuck. Someone who would look up from his plate of eggs at the complaining director and say, “The kid stays in the picture.” Someone whose insolence could be broken only by finding his favorite horse’s head severed and in his bed."
I was more outraged that a fairly decent movie (La La Land), which had a traditional heterosexual love story, good music, and very good choreography lost out to a political piece of garbage (Moonlight) because it had black LGBT characters and themes.
Moonlight became the first film with an all-black cast, the first LGBT film...
Won’t be watching, that’s for sure
A three hour Democratic Party commercial. Not going to watch.
I won’t be watching - especially since Kimmel will be the host again. I sometimes wish a meteor would hit the place.
Good find! Well-written article.
“Someone who would look up from his plate of eggs at the complaining director and say, ‘The kid stays in the picture.’”
Reminds of of that wonderful day, very early in the campaign, when a reporter asked him if he thought he should stop using the un-PC phrase, “anchor babies”. Trump thought for a couple seconds and said, “No. I think I’ll keep saying ‘anchor babies’.” Period. I was with him since the escalator, but that cemented it.
Not having seen one movie last year, I’ll make a point of not watching as well.
Worth repeating.
The incident that endeared Trump to me was when, after he had given the personal cell phone number of a cowardly politician, someone thought they could “punish” Trump by publicizing his personal cell phone number. And Trump responded by recording a message on his voicemail thanking people for their interest in his campaign, and directing them to his campaign website.
That was when I knew that Trump is the kind of quick and adept thinker we need. He is awesome!
Perhaps we could leak the co-ordinates to the NORKs ?
Oh, yeah; I remember that. I think it was Cruz’ number, but am not sure.
Yes, a Dem Party commercial celebrating another year of Dem theater commercials...
If Trump is doing what they want in Gun Control, then they can’t read any stupid jokes about him. The writers are pulling all-nighters, that’s for sure.
It would be best if they write these good things and then 20 minutes before the show he would reverse his position on everything.
I want our enemy to be spun into a dizzying lather.
Re: With that, Hollywood hung itself on the gallows it had prepared for Trump. And, in the process, accidentally vindicated Trump voters.
An allusion to the book of Esther in the Bible and the Jewish holiday of Purim a couple days ago. Love it!
Uncle Haman
Lets hope for a sequel
I never heard of Moonlight. My favorite movie of 2017 was Wind River.
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