The Cuckold vs the Comedian - The 2022 Oscars Round Up

THE OSCARS NEEDED A KICK IN THE ASS…BUT GOT A SLAP IN THE FACE

Well, the Academy Awards happened last night and I need to apologize to readers for being so wrong on my Oscar prediction post. I ended that post by writing, “In ten years, no one will remember CODA. In five years, no one will remember CODA. In a year, no one will remember CODA. And by Monday morning, no one will remember these Academy Awards.”

Boy was I wrong. CODA didn’t need a year to be totally forgotten as it’s already out of mind just 24 hours after winning Best Picture because these Oscars were rendered unforgettable due to “The Slap”.

As I’m sure everyone knows by now, Will Smith got up and bitch-slapped Chris Rock on-stage at the Oscars after Rock made a joke about Smith’s wife Jada and her bald head. After the slap, Smith sat in his seat and yelled to Rock that he needed to “keep my wife’s name out your fucking mouth”.

Watching it live it first felt like a comedy bit, but then it became clear it wasn’t, which made it easily the most compelling moment at the Oscars in my lifetime.

HOW DO THE OSCARS SUCK? LET ME COUNT THE WAYS

The fact that this was one of the all-time awful Oscar telecasts leading up to, and then after, that bitch-slap, should come as no surprise. As a rule, the Academy Awards generally suck, but this year the Oscars turned up the suck to 11.

Speaking of sucking, the opening for the show was a pre-taped performance from Beyonce at a tennis court in Compton. Beyonce’s status as some sort of entertainment Queen amuses me no end as she is a middling talent at best, and her Oscar opening performance was excessively anemic and the song relentlessly bad.

After Beyonce’s video, the three hosts, Amy Schumer, Regina Hall and Wanda Sykes came out and stumbled through some half-hearted, hackneyed attempts at humor. The comedy throughout all fell flat, which was a recurring theme of the evening.

Equally awful were the live musical numbers, which, good lord, can we stop with the fucking musical numbers. No one wants to see or hear that garbage. It is always awful. Always.

The most alarming thing about the Oscars, besides the bitch-slapping, was the egregious directing of the show. The camera would often cut to audience members responding to things on-stage that viewers at home had not been shown. And there were technical gaffes, like cutting to the Williams sisters during Will Smith’s speech, which resulted in extended periods of time with nothing but an Oscar logo on-screen, which were catastrophic.

Speaking of catastrophes, poor Liza Minnelli was wheeled out near the end of the show with Lady Gaga to give an award. Liza is wheelchair bound and cognitively not all there. I don’t say this to demean her, but she never should’ve been on that stage, it wasn’t fair to her. It was incredibly uncomfortable watching her ramble and babble on in utter confusion in front of millions of viewers. Lady Gaga was very gentle with her and handled the situation gracefully, but neither woman should’ve been put in such an awkward position.

OSCAR THE TERRIBLE

The overall theme of the show seemed to be how can the Academy Awards be as unlikable as possible? With raging mediocrities like CODA winning Best Picture, Will Smith winning Best Actor, and Jane Campion winning Best Director, the core cinephile audience was bound to feel letdown and betrayed. With the hosts and award-recipients reflexively and relentlessly signaling their virtue by pushing some insipid political-cultural agenda that was so vapid as to be embarrassing, wider audiences must have felt like the Academy Awards were actively trying to alienate anyone not all in on woke cultural issues. Not exactly a great strategy to build or maintain an audience.

THE CUCKOLD VS THE COMEDIAN

As for the Will Smith – Chris Rock brouhaha, I have some thoughts.

First off, I completely understand the impulse to crack somebody in the head for no other reason than they deserve it. In Will Smith’s eyes, Chris Rock deserved it. That said, in the real world you can’t just smack somebody because they said something you don’t like. You know why? Because that is a crime called assault. Violence is bad. Condoning it is bad too.

And here is another point to consider, and that is that Smith was wise to slap Rock and not punch him, because punching someone can have catastrophic medical and legal results even if not intended. You can kill somebody with a single punch, it happens far more frequently than you’d think.  

I have to say I do find it curious that Smith was so emotionally overwhelmed and out of control that he hit someone on national television, but was conscious enough to hit with an open hand and not a fist.

Another curious thing is that video evidence shows Will Smith laughing uproariously at the same joke that ultimately inspired him to commit assault on national television.

KING CUCK

Adding to the oddity is that Will Smith is a public cuckold, as his wife Jada has stated that she, in fact, repeatedly had sex with her son Jaden’s friend August Alsina, during their marriage. Classy. Apparently and conveniently, Jada then convinced Will to make their marriage “open”. Host Regina Hall actually made a joke about Will and Jada’s “open relationship” early in the show but for some reason that didn’t send Will into an uncontrollable rage at all.

The truth is that Will Smith has always been, and will always be, an incorrigible douche-bag and mealy-mouth twat. He’s no man defending his wife from slander, he’s a hyper-sensitive cuck lashing out at his own emasculation.

Smith is as full of shit as anyone in Hollywood, which is really saying something, and his antics at the Oscars would’ve gotten any other actors expelled from the ceremony. Imagine if Mel Gibson had done that. He would’ve been expelled and arrested.

My hope is that now that Smith has revealed himself to be an asshole, and he has finally gotten his Oscar, that he can please go away forever, but of course he won’t.

Will Smith is a shitty actor, shitty rapper, shitty father, shitty husband, shitty person. His wife Jada is a deplorable human being, his kids are blights on the earth. The Smiths are a collection of the most malignant, noxious narcissists imaginable.  

HYPOCRITES AND THE FORKED TONGUE OF A MAN-CHILD

Smith’s speech after the assault sickened me too. The hypocrites in the audience clapped for this clown after he assaulted somebody in public and said that God called him to be a vessel for peace and love. Will Smith should’ve been grabbed by security and escorted off of the premises, not cheered as he wept during his insipid Oscar speech.

Look, as I said, I understand the impulse to beat the hell out of somebody, hell, I’d like to beat the hell out of Will Smith for making such awful movies and such putrid music, but I wouldn’t do that because I’m a grown man who understands the dangers of violence and its consequences. Will Smith is a 53-year-old, grown man too, he should know better. He’s not a child, he’s not some teenager or twenty-something under the sway of an over-abundance of testosterone and weak impulse control. He’s a grown man. If a grown man is going to hit somebody, it better be a life and death situation, not a hurt feelings situation.

The reality is that Will Smith isn’t a man at all. He’s never been a man and he’ll never be a man. A real man wouldn’t get his panties in a bunch over a joke and sucker-punch somebody he knew wouldn’t hit him back. It was a despicable and disgusting thing to do.

BETWEEN CHRIS ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

As bad as all this is for Will Smith, it’s much worse for Chris Rock.

Rock made a living walking around with big balls on the comedy stage, and now he’s been castrated on live television. After the slapping, when Will is yelling to “keep my wife’s name out your mouth”, Rock responded, “I will”. So weak, so terribly, terribly weak.

I get that Rock was shocked and that’s why he didn’t defend himself or retaliate, but with the verbal lashing he was receiving, it’s unconscionable that Rock didn’t just double-down and start trash talking Jada and talking about how Will is a cuck. He should’ve said that Will hit his cheek almost as hard as August Alsina hit Jada’s ass…or something along those lines. You have to respond, and if Will gets up again, good…then you know he’s coming and you defend yourself. Chris Rock grew up in Brooklyn, I’m sure he has a lot of experience in defending himself.

Rock was once the best comedian on the planet, but for two decades now he’s been a shadow of his former self. And it is difficult to imagine him bouncing back from this incident without a massive verbal counter attack in public.

Rock’s already shaken confidence must be shattered, but if he wants to make lemonade out of these lemons, he needs to put a scathing set together where he skewers himself for his cowardice, but then lambastes Will, Jada and the rest of the Smith’s for their heinousness. Call Will a cuck, Jada a whore, Jaden a dandy and Willow a tramp…do whatever you can to stick the knife in and twist it. It’s the only way he can ever hope to get his mojo…and his balls…back.

And if it works, then you get a $20 million deal with Netflix for the comedy special and you get your balls and street credibility back.

‘A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE’

As for Will Smith’s impact on the Oscars, it's uncomfortable to mention this but after years of complaints about #OscarsSoWhite, this year it was a very diverse show with a black producer, two of three hosts being black women, three of four acting winners being minorities, a female Best Director winner for the third time ever, and yet Will Smith committed black-on-black crime on national television and reduced the once prestigious Oscars to little more than the Source awards with higher production value. Not good a look for anyone involved.

On the bright side, I did win my Oscar pool getting a respectable 19 out of 23 categories correct. On the down side, I had to watch the Oscars, which was a truly dreadful experience.

The big takeaway from this year’s Academy Awards is that the Oscars are over, not just for this year, but really forever. They are now utterly meaningless. And as much as it breaks my heart to say it, I fear cinema is fast becoming irrelevant as well.

JUMPING SHARKS

In conclusion, I saw today that someone on Twitter wrote, “Will Smith committed a violent crime, took no responsibility, and then blamed it on his feelings. Perfect encapsulation of our times.”

Someone else said to me this morning, “it doesn’t just feel like the Oscars jumped the shark last night, it feels like civilization and the species itself jumped the shark last night too.”

I wholly concur with both assessments.

©2022

The Academy Awards New Diversity and Inclusion Rules do not do Enough to Purge Hollywood of the Evil of Straight White Men

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 13 seconds

If Hollywood wants to become a true woke utopia, it should follow my guidelines to rid itself of the plague of white men.

The Academy Awards have set stringent new diversity guidelines to which all films must adhere by 2024 if they want to be considered for the prestigious Best Picture award.

The new guidelines require films to meet on screen representation standards where at least one of the lead actors or a significant supporting actor must be either Asian, Hispanic, black, Indigenous, Native American, Middle Eastern, North African, native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander.

Cinephiles can sleep well knowing that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s movies will still be eligible for Best Picture.

If a film doesn’t meet the actor requirement then it can still pass the test by having representation from those same minority groups along with women, LGBTQ and people with cognitive or physical disabilities or who are deaf or hard of hearing represented in acceptable numbers behind the scenes on the crew, in apprenticeships or internships or in executive positions.

The bottom line is basically if you are a straight white guy in Hollywood you’ve just been served notice that your skill and talents are only needed for as long as it takes to train your female or minority replacement.

As someone who has long felt that hiring people based on their talent and skill was a devout evil, I for one welcome our new diversity and inclusion overlords and want to let them know that as a straight white male I could be useful in sniffing out other straight white men in Hollywood trying to scheme their way into being considered a worthy minority.

La La Land being La La Land I’m sure there are a plethora of desperados already strategizing on how to circumvent these new rules that will make Rachel Dolezal and Jessica Krug look like pikers.

As of right now the Academy is saying that the new standards will be enforced by “spot checks” on set….but I am deeply concerned that those “spot checks” won’t be strenuous enough to rid the movie industry of the damned straight white male menace that plagues it.

I have a few proposals to help strengthen inclusion enforcement and assure diversity compliance.

1. I think Academy Gestapo, oops, I mean enforcement officers, should be armed with a standard color chart where they can hold up the color card next to a person and see if their skin color matches the “right” (aka non-white) tone to be allowed to work on a movie. If someone is too light skinned they can immediately be escorted off of the set and counselors can be brought in to soothe the traumatized left in the white male devil’s wake.

2. In order to ensure that no white men ever slip through the cracks, I also propose a partnership between the DNA testing company 23 and Me and the Academy Awards. Everyone working on every movie must be forced to give a DNA test in order to prove their ethnic or racial heritage.

And let’s be clear, we want pure minorities…none of this “my mother is black and Latina and my father is Asian and white” business because that still means the curse of whiteness is coursing through their veins. Any drop of white blood in a person should be unacceptable in Hollywood.

It will also be L.A. law that everyone must carry their DNA papers with them at all times. Failure to have your papers will result in immediate expulsion from the movie industry.

The 23 and Me results could actually become a fun part of Oscar night where an envelop is opened on stage revealing the film with the most diversity, which is then declared Best Picture. I think we can all agree this is how Best Picture should always be determined, not by the antiquated measure of artistic quality and worth.

3. One troubling diversity and inclusion loophole is that some deplorable straight white male could claim to be gay, thus qualifying as a minority. Let it be known throughout Hollywood that just using unorthodox pronouns like They/Them or Ze/Zir will not be enough to prove minority status!

I am sure there is some enterprising young man or selfless older male studio executive out here in Tinsel Town who’d be willing to advance his standing in the Academy by doing special intimacy examinations, preferably on camera, to see if these white men are “gay enough” to be allowed to work.

Obviously the Academy should hire me as a turncoat consultant, but if they don’t I’m already getting deviously entrepreneurial by hoarding hearing aids that I can rent out on the white market for $200/a day to other straight white men so that they can claim to be “hard of hearing” just to keep their grueling gigs as gaffers.

My sincere wish is that Hollywood succeeds in curing itself of its straight white male pandemic. Straight white men, be they Martin Scorsese, Daniel Day-Lewis or regular working Joes, have stained cinema with their straight white maleness for long enough.

Somewhere there is a deaf, transgender Indigenous actor signing the phrase, “Alright Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close up!” Let’s hope these new diversity and inclusion rules make They/Them into the biggest star in the universe and the dream of a woke Hollywood utopia relentlessly churning out cinematic mediocrity into a reality.

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

The Tedious Woke Outrage Over Oscar Nominations

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 27 seconds

The Oscar Nominations came out on Monday morning and the usual woke suspects were outraged by the lack of minorities and women in key categories.

You can set your watch by the emotionalist bitching and moaning of the identity politics crowd come awards season and so I fully expected to be confronted by a cavalcade of absurd hot takes from the woke media bemoaning the racism and misogyny of the Academy Awards when I awoke this morning. I was not disappointed.

The first headline I saw declared “Oscars Nominations Lack Diversity”, and other articles decried black actress Lupita Nyongo’s lack of a nomination as “horrifying”, and deemed the absence of recognition for female directors, among them Greta Gerwig and Lulu Wang, as well as minority actors Jamie Foxx, Eddie Murphy, Jennifer Lopez and Awkwafina as being a result of “snubs”.

As is evidenced by this current Academy Award furor, outrage is the nectar of the gods for the woke contingent, and they fuel themselves and their self-righteousness on its intoxicating nature. Proof of this was found last year when every acting category at the Oscars was won by an actor of color, which should have made the woke happy…but instead the main storyline surrounding the event was that Green Book, a movie deemed “racist” because it depicted racism in America through the perspective of a white character, had won Best Picture.

I must admit that there is nothing so delightful as the vacuous and self-righteous over-reaction of the woke to entertainment award nominations and wins. Ever since the #OscarsSoWhite movement came to the forefront in 2016, you can always count on the identity politics adherents come awards season to make an emotional mountain out of the lack of diversity and inclusion molehill.

In regards to the current woke hysteria, here are some facts to remember. Contrary to the headline mentioned above, the 2020 Oscars did not shut out all diversity. Black actress Cynthia Erivo and Latino actor Antonio Banderas are nominated in the main acting categories, and Korean director Bong Joon Ho and his terrific film Parasite, is nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.

As for the female directors and minority actors left out of nominations…who exactly is deserving and who should they replace on the current list? This is why I find the woke media outrage over the Oscar nominations so disingenuous as they say all of these minority and female artists should be nominated but never mention what white/male artist isn’t deserving of their nomination. 

Greta Gerwig (Little Women), Lulu Wang (The Farewell), Marielle Heller (A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood), and Lorena Scafaria (Hustlers) are often named as female directors who should be nominated…but this seems more like a list of female directors who have made a movie this year, and not a list of female directors who have made a good movie this year. No one but a cinematic cretin and philistine would consider these films, except for Little Women, even remotely serious Oscar contenders. And while critics love Greta Gerwig, Little Women is an umpteenth remake of Louisa May Alcott’s iconic story…not exactly breaking new cinematic ground.

As for the acting categories, does anyone really want to hang their hat on Oscar racism on Jennifer Lopez and Awkwafina not being nominated?

And if the Oscars are racist now for “snubbing” Jamie Foxx and Eddie Murphy with no nominations, were they racist when they actually gave a Best Actor award to Jamie Foxx in 2004 for Ray, or nominated Eddie Murphy in 2006 for Dreamgirls?

This is why I find the woke media outrage over the Oscar nominations so vapid as it is nothing but emotionalist idiocy that is allergic to context.  

For instance, you wouldn’t know it by listening to the woke media, but if you take a look at the Oscar acting categories since the year 2000, you will find that black artists have won awards at a higher percentage than their population in the U.S. and the Anglosphere (nations with English as a primary language – U.S., U.K., Ireland, Canada, Australia). Since the turn of the century black artists have won the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor award 15% of the time and the Best Supporting Actress award 30% of the time, which is higher than both the percentage of the black population in the U.S., 13%, and in the Anglosphere, roughly 9%.

The perception that black artists are under represented in Oscar acting wins is false, at least since the year 2000, but that sort of fact does not ignite the fury that the woke so crave and is therefore ignored.

Another ignored fact is that while there is a paucity of Best Director nominations for female directors, the category is truly a cornucopia for ethnic diversity. In the last 7 years the best Director award has gone to Mexican artists 5 times, an Asian artist once and a white American once.

Look, the Academy Awards are little more than a self-serving orgy of narcissism that never fails to fail. Anyone who takes them seriously is asking to be irritated or aggravated in one way or another. For example, I am sure that I will throw something at my television when 1917 wins Best Picture this year. But with that said, the woke turning the Oscars into little more than the diversity and inclusion Olympics will do nothing but further reduce the quality and artistry of cinema, and that is a cultural crime of epic proportions.

A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

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

Oscars and Grammys Racism : Perception or Reality?

Estimated Reading Time : 5 minutes 17 seconds

It is understandable, with the ugly history of discrimination against them, that Black artists would feel awards shows disregard them solely because of their race…but is that perception accurate?

On Sunday February 9th, 2017, Adele won the Grammy for Best Album over Beyonce, and ever since there have been cries of racism in the media against the Recording Academy. The next morning both the New York Times and the Washington Post had articles decrying the award's racism and making claims of #GrammysSoWhite.  

The New York Times opined, "The Grammys’ race problem is so pernicious that some white winners have chosen contrition over exuberance". 

The Washington Post wrote of the Grammys dispute, "Somehow, lots of listeners are fine with shrugging this off. Some balk at taking a nice Sunday evening television show and making it about race. (Counterpoint: It would be irresponsible not to.)" 

This Grammy controversy, combined with the #OscarsSoWhite uproar last year over the absence of Black actors nominated for Oscars, certainly gives the impression that both the music and film industries have serious racial issues. But do the Grammys and Oscars actually have a "pernicious" race problem? A closer look at the relationship between the Grammys, Oscars and race, is warranted to find out whether these charges are factual and substantial, or emotional and scurrilous.

A good place to start the investigation is to see if Black artists are under-represented in awards in relation to their population percentage. According to the U.S. Census, African-Americans make up 12.6% of the U.S. population. A review of the amount of Grammy and Oscar nominations and wins for Black artists over the last thirty years (1988 – 2017) will indicate whether they are under-represented or not. 

The four most prestigious categories for the Grammys are Best Album, Record of the year, Song of the Year and Best New Artist. Over the last thirty years in the Best Album category, 37% (56) of nominees were Black artists and they won 23% of the awards. 

In the Record of the Year category, Black artists scored 36% (54) of the nominations and won 20% (6) of the awards. 

In the Song of the Year category, Black artists have 28% (42) of the nominations and prevailed for 23% (7) of the awards. 

And the in the Best New Artist category, there have been Black nominees 32.6% (49) of the time, who triumphed for 40% (12) of the Best New Artist awards. 

It is obvious upon review of the data that over the last 30 years Black artists are, in fact, substantially over-represented at the Grammys in relation to their percentage of the U.S. population.

In regards to this years supposed racial controversy, Beyonce has won a total of 22 Grammys (one in the big four categories) throughout her stellar career, which is 8th most all-time. Of the top four popular music Grammy winners in history, three are Black artists, Stevie Wonder, Quincy Jones and Beyonce, with Alyson Krause being the only White artist on that list. It seems to me, that if the Grammys have a “pernicious” race problem, they sure have a funny way of showing it. 

The statistics regarding the Academy Awards for Black artists over the last 30 years (1988 – 2017) are quite illuminating as well. In the Best Actor category, Black actors have received 10.6%(16) of the nominations and won 10% (3) of the awards.

The Best Supporting Actor award has had 8% (12) of its nominees be Black actors and they have taken home the golden statue 10% (3) of the time.

Black actresses have been nominated for 9.3% (14) of the Best Supporting Actress awards and have won 16.6% (5) of the time.

Lastly, the Best Actress category has had Black nominees 4% (6) of the time and only Halle Berry has won the award, which amounts to 3.3% of the awards.

At first glance it would seem that, unlike the Grammys, the Oscars definitely have a race problem as in all but one category, Best Supporting Actress wins (16.6%), do Black artists equal or surpass their U.S. population percentage. But looking more deeply at the numbers reveals that this alleged race issue is more illusion than reality.

If you expand the parameters of the debate beyond the borders of the U.S., and I think it is fair to do so since Hollywood draws the overwhelming majority of their acting talent from the U.S, U.K., Canada, Ireland and Australia, also known as the Anglosphere - all the major countries that speak English as their first language, then the supposed inequality among nominations and wins for Black actors all but disappears.  If you combine the populations of the Anglosphere nations, their Black citizens make up 9% of that general population.

According to the 9% Black population percentage in the Anglosphere, Black actors are over-represented in Best Actor nominations (10.6%) and wins (10%), Best Supporting Actress nominations (9.3%) and wins (16.6%), and in wins for Best Supporting Actor (10%). It does still show slight under-representation in the Best Supporting Actor nominations (8%) and massive under-representation in the Best Actress category in both wins (3.3%) and nominations (4%).

In addition, if the Black actors nominated this year win, then the data is even more compelling against the Oscars alleged race problem. If Denzel Washington wins Best Actor, and as expected, Marshehala Ali wins Best Supporting Actor, then the Black actor win rate over the last thirty years in those two categories becomes 13.3%, which is not only higher than the Black population percentage of the Anglosphere (9%), but also of the U.S. (12.6%). If the heavy favorite Viola Davis wins Best Supporting Actress, the win rate for Black actresses in that category will swell to 20%, more than double the Anglosphere’s Black population percentage (9%) and considerably more than the U.S. percentage (12.6%). If Ruth Negga wins Best Actress, which would be a huge upset, then the win rate for Black Actresses in that category would grow to a still lackluster 6.6%.

The #OscarsSoWhite argument also makes claims of racial inequality against Black artists in casting, but those charges ring just as hollow when you look at the data. According to the Screen Actors Guild, Black actors make up 12% of their members, just below the African-American population percentage (12.6%). A study by the Annenberg Center shows that from 2007 to 2013 (the last year of the study) Black actors were cast in films at a rate of 12.6%, identical to their U.S. population rate. A Screen Actors Guild study from 2008 (most recent year available), reports that Black actors are cast in 14.8% of all film and television roles, including 13.2% of lead roles and 16% of supporting roles.

What these studies and the historical data prove is that Black artists are not under-represented at the Grammys and Oscars, or on film and tv, but in many cases over-represented in relation to their population percentage. So why does the perception of racism in these entertainment fields persist? I believe the biggest reason is a failure to put aside emotional arguments and to put the statistical data into the proper demographic context.

A case in point was when The Economist magazine did a study last year and found that Black actors were cast in 9% of “top roles” in films since 2000. The Economist used this evidence to conclude that Black actors are under-represented due to the 9% “top role” number being below the 12.6% U.S. population percentage of African-Americans. What The Economist failed to take into account was the broader population of the Anglosphere, which would put this 9% “top role” number right in line with the Black population percentage in major English speaking countries.

Another example of this sort of analytical blindness was on display this week in The Guardian where a writer was horrified to learn that Black artists had only won 10 Best Album Grammys since 1959. When you put the fact of “only” 10 Black artists winning Best Album over 58 years into demographic context, you discover that means that Black artists won 17.2% of the Best Album awards over that time, which is considerably more than their percentage of the population in the U.S.

Simply put, Black artists are thriving in show business. As an example, the Forbes 2014 list of the ten most powerful people in entertainment had Beyonce in the number one spot and African-Americans in seven of the top ten positions.

These knee-jerk cries of racism after awards snubs are emotionally-driven, and undermine more substantial claims of discrimination in regards to significant topics like police brutality, incarceration rates, economic opportunity and healthcare quality. These scurrilous accusations of award show prejudice make a mockery of the struggle against the scourge of racial inequality and injustice. There’s no accounting for taste, but to chalk up awards losses by Black artists to racial animus is a cheap way to avoid artistic responsibility and ignore demographic reality.

Previously published on Sunday, February 26, 2017 at RT.

©2017

Beasts of No Nation : A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!!****

MY RATING : SEE IT!!

Beasts of No Nation is the story of a young boy who struggles to survive in his West African homeland as civil war ravages the country. The film is shot, written and directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, and is based upon Uzodinma Iweala's novel of the same name. The film stars Abraham Atta as the young boy Agu, and Idris Elba as "Commandant", a leader of a group of rebel fighters.

Beasts of No Nation is unquestionably one of the best films of the year. It is a devastating portrait of the making, and life, of a child soldier in a vicious and brutal war. Director Fukunaga masterfully gives the viewer the palpable sense of fear that thrives amidst the chaos and disorder of a country coming apart at the seams. It is out of this fertile intense fear that ruthless child soldiers are born, and atrocities committed. Fukunaga deftly shows Agu's transformation from a frightened little boy wretched from his loving family and alone in the world, to being a young man thrown in with a 'new warrior family', who frightens his world.

Beasts of No Nation has drawn comparisons to Apocalypse Now, and rightfully so. While it is not as great as that iconic classic, it certainly illustrates the same maniacal senselessness of fighting in a war with no meaning, no purpose and no end. At its mythic core, the film is really about a world absent of the feminine energy, or Anima. When Agu's mother must leave the war zone, Agu is left behind to emotionally fend for himself as a boy among the men. He knows this is the beginning of his perilous hero's journey from boyhood to manhood. When a boy evolves he needs both the Anima (feminine) and the Animus (masculine) to shape and form him during this delicate developmental period. Without the symmetrical push-pull tension of feminine vs. masculine, no psychological balance and harmony can be created. Not to mix animal metaphors, but when the Mama bear is not there to protect and nurture her cubs, then they must run with the ruthless wolves. With the wolves of men, no quarter is asked and none is given. Men can teach a boy how to be a man, but they cannot teach him how to be human. Beasts of No Nation shows what happens when the fragile Yin and Yang of masculine/feminine is knocked out of balance. As the film teaches us, when the Anima vanishes and the Animus is left to reign alone, violence, sadism, madness and rape prosper.

Writer/Director Cary Joji Fukunaga was also cinematographer on the film and he paints with a powerful and intricate touch. His camera movements and use of color are exquisite and give the film a distinct visual style. To be fair, I read a bit about a charge of "photographic plagiarism" on Fukunaga's part involving stealing a still photographers approach to shooting child soldiers under the influence of drugs. If the charge, which I take to be a very serious one, is true, it is a damning one. There is a thin line between paying homage to another visual artist, and downright theft, but when that line is crossed it is a deplorable act. Fukunaga is obviously an enormous storytelling and visual talent, I certainly hope he chooses to fall back on his own ideas and not borrow or out right steal from any other artists in the future.

As for the acting, Abraham Atta is an absolute powerhouse as Agu. He makes the transition from being a typical little boy who pesters his brother and is afraid to be away from his mother, to being a cold blooded killer, seamlessly and effortlessly. There is not a single false note from him in the entire film. He is a genuinely grounded, charming and dynamic screen presence. Atta is a Ghanaian born actor, and I really hope he is able to continue to work and grow as an actor in the years to come as he is a natural.

Idris Elba gives a staggering performance as "Commandant". Elba is one of the best actors working in film and television today. He can do drama and comedy, he can play the leading man or the villain. In Beasts of No Nation he plays a complex and charismatic leader of a rag-tag band of soldiers fighting government troops in a civil war. Elba's Commandante has an undeniable magnetism that lures both the viewer and Agu under his spell. Commandante is both bully and best friend, a father figure and a foe to Agu and the viewer alike. Without an appealing and forceful actor like Elba playing the role of Commandante, the narrative of the film would fall apart, as Agu's transformation would not be unbelievable for the audience if they themselves don't simultaneously fall under the Commandante's hypnotic allure right along with Agu. 

The rest of the cast are all Ghanaian born actors who do tremendous work. The entire cast is spot-on in their work and completely committed, bringing a chilling sense of realism to the picture. Emmanuel Nii Adom Quaye as the mute child warrior Stryka is particularly fantastic. His character never says a word but conveys more than words ever could. Quaye carries a world and war weariness on his face that says more than any dialogue. Just a look from Quaye's Stryka can break your heart, or stop it, depending on his intentions. Quaye, like Atta, is a vibrant screen presence and an actor of undeniable intrigue. 

There has been a lot of talk about Beasts of No Nation and Elba, in particular, being snubbed by the Academy Awards because the film is a "black' film and Elba a black actor. I have written previously my thoughts on the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, so I won't go into great detail here. I will say this, Beasts of No Nation deserves to be nominated for Best Picture, Elba, and maybe even Quaye for Best Supporting Actor and Abraham Atta for Best Actor. The fact that they weren't nominated has nothing to do with race, it has to do with the film industry. Beasts of No Nation was distributed by Netflix, which made the film available immediately on it's online service. Netflix also skirted some distribution agreements with theaters and therefore only released the film into theatres in very limited areas for a short time. The Academy views Beasts of No Nation as a tv movie since it went online at the same time it went into theaters. This is why it was overlooked by the Academy.

Regardless of all that, the film deserves to be seen and admired. Fukunaga deserved a Best  Director nomination as well, but was overlooked right along with the film, Elba, Quaye and Atta. Race was not why that occurred. Right or wrong, the business is why it occurred.

In conclusion, Beasts of No Nation is a spectacular film. I saw it as a SAG dvd screener and desperately wish I could have seen it on the big screen. It is a visually dazzling, dramatically compelling and emotionally potent film. The acting, directing, writing and cinematography are all top notch and nearly flawless. I highly recommend you take the time and watch Beasts of No Nation, as it is most definitely worth your time and attention. 

©2016