Oscars Aftermath : Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa
/Estimated Reading Time : 3 minutes 58 seconds
SOME RANDOM, ENTIRELY INCOHERENT THOUGHTS ON THE OSCARS
Dear gentle reader…the unthinkable has happened. I was wrong about the Oscars. Unlike being wrong about the election or the war, being wrong about the Oscars is no trivial matter. My record for Oscar predictions is unimpeachable…until now. This year I took a major thrashing on my Oscar picks. I have brought great shame upon this esteemed website.
Due to my egregious errors in Oscar picks, I have decided the only honorable thing to do is to step away from Oscar predictions in order to "spend more time with my family". My downfall and Oscar exile is a tragedy for a myriad of reasons, the most glaring being that the family I am "going to spend more time with" absolutely detest me. I feel for them.
Oscar night was a catastrophe for me…but the great question remains...did I win my Oscar pool? Let's not get ridiculous, of course I won my Oscar pool. I was horrendously wrong on many of my Oscar picks this year, but I still was better than the clueless fools I was competing against. So I am sort of like the tallest midget in my Oscar pool.
As for the rest of Sunday night, it was a strange evening. I thought La La Land would go on a big run, but it just never happened. Hacksaw Ridge and Suicide Squad, which were, by a long shot, the two worst movies I saw this year, won Oscars.
As I said in my Oscar post, this year was going to be tough to predict because of the new Academy members…this is not an excuse for my failure, only an explanation. I got Best Actor, Best Screenplay and Best Picture wrong. Calibrating these new members is going to be tough as they had no discernible pattern to their choices. It is too bad I will never predict the Oscars again because I am itching to try and figure these folks out. Alas, it is not meant to be.
AND THE WINNER IS….
And then there was the Best Picture announcement. The whole episode was bizarre, but what I was most alarmed by was not the error in awarding La La Land the award, but in Faye Dunaway's face. What the hell is going on there? Dunaway was once a great beauty, it bums me out that she feels the need to do…whatever she has done to her face…in order to "stay beautiful". I find it so disheartening when people cannot age gracefully. I realize that I am throwing stones from my glass mansion right now, as anyone who knows me knows that I have had numerous plastic surgeries. I've had my nose, cheeks, eyes, chin, calfs, thighs, buttocks, penis and scrotum done. I look like Frankenstein's taut, beautiful teenage son. Enough of my medical history though, what concerned me was what happened to Faye Dunaway's face. Disappointing.
Another odd thing was Warren Beatty. Beatty is one of the all-time greats and is a real Hollywood icon. I admire Beatty as an actor a great deal. But Warren Beatty is turning 80 this month. As my friend Jiminy McCricket III reminded me, Warren Beatty's career started during the Eisenhower administration. I think it is time for Warren Beatty to find something else to do with his time.
ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT AND IDENTITY
Many liberals are ecstatic over Moonlight's win because it is a "gay - Black" film and what that means in the broader context of the culture…but I would caution them to temper their excitement. Moonlight is, in one sense, the upstart, anti-establishment choice. La La Land was the old guard, the establishment choice. Moonlight winning Best Picture is a signal that the establishment is in some very deep shit.
This victory for Moonlight is like the groundhog seeing his shadow…we've got six more weeks (years), at least, of winter for the establishment. And like it or not, even though Trump is president, he is still the symbol of the anti-establishment. The media and Washington elite better understand very quickly what is happening in the collective unconscious. The anti-establishment wave is alive and well in the US, and the world, and will be for some time. It will be useful to keep an eye on the upcoming Dutch election and Geert Wilders, and the French election and Marine Le Pen as well. The Isaiah Wave Theory "Level 4 Rebellion Wave" looks like it isn't reducing to Level 3, but might be swelling to Level 5, and that is bad news for the status quo…just ask La La Land…and my Oscar picks.
In addition, Moonlight is also a symbol of what the left is celebrating at the moment…and also what it isn't. Moonlight is identified as a "Black - gay" film…symbolic of even more of the identity politics that got the democrats into the political wilderness they are currently aimlessly wandering. Moonlight's victory reveals where liberal loyalties lie at this time.
If the Academy (and its new members) wanted to reward a great film based on merit alone and not identity politics, they could have…the best film in the best picture category wasn't La La Land or Moonlight, it was Hell or High Water…and it wasn't even close. And Hell or High Water is a very political and anti-establishment film to boot, just that its politics are of class and not race. It looks like Hollywood liberals are under the same spell as the democrats were in the election, choosing identity over class…a very big error as race divides and class unites.
When seen in combination with the election of Tom Perez to head the DNC, and Nancy Pelosi in the House and the excruciatingly repugnant Chuck Schumer in the Senate…and you have the democrats embracing the establishment and status quo with all their might, and simply put, this is not the time of the establishment. It just isn't. If it were the time of the establishment…La La Land would be Best Picture…and Hillary Clinton the president.
RACE AND THE OSCAR RACE
The new Academy members did what they were supposed to do…nominate and vote for Black actors, artists and films. The Academy brought these folks in, and jettisoned the old (White) guard, in order to counter the ludicrous #OscarsSoWhite nonsense that has no grounding in fact, only feeling.
The problem with making nomination snubs or losing about race, is that when you win, it also becomes about race. The thought that many believe but no one will utter aloud is that Moonlight won because it is a Black film, not because it is the best film. That sucks…for cinema and for Moonlight, which deserves a considerably better fate. The same is true of Mahershala Ali and Viola Davis. Which isn't fair to them either as they are two fine actors, but that is the reality of what is being whispered about in private here in Hollywood.
Was Viola Davis better than Michelle Williams? In my opinion…no. Davis did have substantially more screen time than Williams, so that works to her benefit. But then the question becomes, was Mahershala Ali better than Jeff Bridges? Again, no…and by a mile. And in this scenario, Jeff Bridges had considerably more screen time than Ali, which undermines the case for Ali. So did Davis and Ali win because they were Black and Black actors needed to win this year? There is compelling evidence the answer is yes…which sucks for everyone involved, especially both Ali and Davis, who are unquestionably Oscar caliber actors.
By crying racism when Black actors weren't nominated over the previous two years (who was supposed to be nominated those years? Will Smith? When Will Smith is your counter argument, I have bad news…you have lost the argument…badly), the Academy caved to pressure and put in members whose sole purpose was to vote for Black artists. By doing this, the awards then become watered down and less worthy, especially for the Black actors who were chosen this year. By crying foul in previous years when no foul was committed, the game got rigged and now nobody wins. It is a shitty thing, but it is what it is.
WHEN YOU'RE A HAMMER, THE WHOLE WORLD LOOKS LIKE A NAIL
When you're a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail, and so it is with the cries of racism at the Academy Awards (or Grammys for that matter). Even when Moonlight won, it wasn't good enough. The Guardian had an article about how the Best Picture fiasco was a slap in the face to Moonlight, that was on par with having Hattie McDaniel sit in the back of the auditorium when she won for Gone with the Wind. Really? So even when Black artists or films win, it is still a sign of racism. A great example of this was a Washington Post article the day after the Grammy's, where the writer laments the racism of the Grammys. In the piece the writer says that Chance the Rapper, a Black artist, won the Best New Artist award, but even that was a sign of racism because the Recording Academy only voted for him because he put a charm offensive on the members. What the fuck? So no matter what, everything is racist. Hammer…meet nail.
THE NEVER ENDING SHRIEKS OF THE OUTRAGE MACHINE
Another thing to happen since the Oscars is the outcry from the usual suspects about Casey Affleck beating Denzel Washington for Best Actor. There have been many claims of racism and that Denzel was robbed. This is a joke. Denzel is one of the all-time greats…as evidenced by the two Oscars he has already won…but his work in Fences was not nearly as good as Affleck's. It just wasn't. And to claim racism is why Denzel lost is the absolute most asinine thing imaginable. If you are someone who thinks this…you are an imbecile.
People are also horrified that Affleck, who they claim is a sexual predator, won the award. The virtue signaling has been turned up to 11. The same people decrying Affleck's win are the same people who were so stupid to believe that Marlon Brando actually anally raped Maria Shneider on film, during the shooting of Last Tango in Paris. Do these people believe anything? Yes, they do.
This Affleck kerfluffle, just like the Brando uproar, is nothing more than people aching to be outraged, so they search far and wide for reasons. Brando didn't anally rape anyone on film, but logic and reason are the first casualties when the Outrage Machine gets fired up. And so it is with Affleck. Affleck was accused…not convicted…of sexually harassing two women. Not raping them, or assaulting them…harassing. And since he was accused…that makes it so. Maybe it did happen, I don't know, I wasn't there…but when you look at the facts of the case, it is….questionable.
Race rears its head in regards to the Affleck harassment story as well. People claim that Affleck can get away with anything, where a Black actor can't , and they use Nate Parker, star and director of this years Birth of a Nation, as proof. Parker was charged with rape while he was in college. He was acquitted of the charge. So the Outrage Contingent says Parker was screwed over by the Academy because he is Black, and Affleck gets the nomination and win because he is White. The idiocy never ends.
Affleck and Parker's cases are very different, as harassment and rape are two very different things. Affleck has always denied he harassed anyone, while Parker admitted to having sex with the woman, along with his roommate, but said it was consensual. Add to that the fact that the young woman in question in Parker's case committed suicide, and you can see how much more serious the Parker situation was. Also…and this is the biggest difference…Nate Parker is not a good actor. His performance in Birth of a Nation was not anywhere close to Oscar worthy. Also…Nate Parker was an asshole when asked about his personal history doing press for his film. He handled the entire thing horrendously from a public relations stand point. Now…Casey Affleck may very well be a gigantic, sexually harassing asshole…but he can act…considerably better than Nate Parker…and he has proven it over many years of superb work, which include an Oscar nomination years ago.
But none of that matters to the Outrage Gang. All they see is racism and misogyny lurking behind every corner. The Outrage Machine is exhausting, and it is never ending. These dipshits, who believe every single thing and every single accusation, are the worst of the worst. They should be ignored and shunned at every opportunity. Eventually they will cannibalize their own, and the world will be a better place when they vanish from it.
Who am I to rant? I am such an idiot I got three of my Oscar picks wrong. I am not worthy of an opinion, so I should shut my racist, misogynist mouth. The Outrage Machine will be happy to see me go. The public square is all theirs now.
I will now exit the stage and spend the rest of my days with my most unfortunate family. God help them.
©2017