Tag: Academy Awards

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Hollywood’s Last Laugh is None

This morning’s MSNBC commentary by Andy Denhart gets right to what’s wrong with Hollywood. Andy pretty much described satirist Jon Stewart’s Oscar officiation as a flop. I agree, but not for lack of being funny. The audience had no tolerance for laughing at itself. Jon made fun of the stars, but they weren’t laughing at themselves.

Writes Andy, in one example: “An admitted and unashamed progressive himself, Stewart later made fun of the film industry’s perceived liberalness, telling viewers the Oscars are a chance to ‘see all your favorite stars without having to donate any money to the Democratic party’. Our favorite stars barely chuckled”. Self-deprecation wasn’t the humor of the evening. 

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See, Now It’s a Lifestyle Debate

I warned that a Brokeback Mountain loss would lead to a lifestyle accusation. Arthur Spiegelman writes for Reuters: “The victory for Crash suggested Oscar voters were more comfortable with a tale that exploited the seamy underbelly of racial conflict in contemporary Los Angeles than with a heartbreaking tale of love between two married men…

“No overtly gay love story has ever won a best picture award and, as of Monday morning, none has. The big question going into the Oscars was whether Hollywood, often in the forefront of social issues, would break another taboo”.