Hollywood and politics
I watched the Oscars on Sunday. Chris Rock brought an immediacy to the proceedings that may have had an unintended consequence for the Academy. He made the movies largely seem irrelevant. Rock’s assignment to the role of host this year became a matter of perfect timing after the voters, for the second straight year, shut out all men and women of color from the 20 acting nominations. There was no other story line entering this year’s pageant. Well, okay, there was Leonardo DiCaprio, and Rocky, but beyond that, it was just a party with a bunch of white people.Movies, generally-speaking, are not imaginative today. The studios give us nothing but sequels and re-makes-- "re-imaginings," they like to say. It’s a result of the corporate mentality at work-- only products that worked once before, and that minimize risk. ("Look at this line graph that shows how successful a remake of 'Man From U.N.C.L.E' would be.") Art becomes incidental. Specificity is a money loser. The independent spirits have bolted for television, where (mostly) cable executives are begging for fresh ideas. (Original content translates to original ideas.) The cinema is losing out to the fiction that's playing on television, and really losing out to non-fiction that's playing out on television.
Social and political unrest in the country is on the grow again, at last, and the stories and characters getting play from movie financiers are not part of it. That was the subtle jab behind each one of Rock’s jokes Sunday. When we actually get a movie that overlaps the headlines and is capable of electrifying, it gets too limited a distribution and virtually no notice. Straight Outta Compton is an example. 2013’s Fruitvale Station is a better one. The first collaborative effort between Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan (prior to this year's Creed) is so far out of Hollywood’s mainstream that you don't even hear the people boycotting the Oscars make reference to it. The industry still attempts to bowl us over with escapism, and there’s certainly an enormous audience for that (mostly a white one-- "escapism" being a bit of a white privilege), but then when you put on your big annual party, and you want it to seem relevant, none of the voters have seen it, and you got nothing.
The most jarring juxtaposition between Hollywood and the real world on the ABC telecast was the moment immediately following Rock’s bracing, singularly-focused monologue. Charlize Theron and another white lady came out in their extravagant gowns. Even before they opened their mouths to speak, the picture on the screen-- and the music-- had transported us back to traditional Hollywood, the glamour and elegance, an unintentional reminder of how difficult it must be for people who live lives such as this to know what’s going on anywhere else. Rock's basically done for the evening. Now back to the usual dinner. On Howard Stern yesterday, Tina Fey referred to her experience in attendance Sunday as "some real Hollywood bullshit."
Stand-up comics-- the great ones (and Rock is the best one living)-- speak truth. And Hollywood specializes in fantasy. There’s a reason that movie producers have struggled to know what to do with Pryor, Carlin, Rock. What they do best is exactly the opposite of acting. And it's little wonder that there’s a faction in the Academy that thinks their biggest event is better served by hosts such as Neil Patrick Harris, whom Rock name-checked, Hugh Jackman, James Franco, and/or Anne Hathaway. Let's give 'em a show, reinforce the idea that our business is obsessed with dress-up, and guys and gals, lets limit the hard stuff to Best Documentary- Feature. An evening with Rock front and center is bound to be another event all-together, and this year, the Academy was incredibly fortunate they had him to add substance to what is normally a very hollow proceeding. Good night, Brooklyn!
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Donald Trump is Ronald Reagan on steroids. It’s the celebrity, the long-crafted image, the paternalism, but mostly, it’s the childish optimism. Trump pushes people’s fear buttons, no doubt-- the enemy is landing at the gate-- as it was for Reagan with his anti-Communism, Southern Strategy, and “law and order” Nixon-ism. But the more important similarity is this “Make America Great Again” hook of Trump's-- pessimism playing the role of freedom's most dangerous opponent, doubt as weakness. The facts don’t matter, nor the details. Optimism can be the solution itself. Just believe.
People will be remembered for what they say and what they represent, not what they do-- that's Reagan too. Blur that distinction between appearance and reality. Reagan developed it first on the big screen. Trump on the smaller one. “I’m very rich... I know smart people”-- that’s not radically different from what Reagan gave us in movie-speak, a simpler world, one that fits in this square up here. They each came from their own bizarre professional world, unhinged as they are from reality. “The Gipper's" world was one in which mogul Jack Warner, when asked about his handsome actor’s presidential aspirations, once replied, presumably tongue-in-cheek, “Nope. Jimmy Stewart as president. Reagan as the best friend.”
This is Reagan’s Republican Party today. (Actually, the Democratic Party too.) You know this. They genuflect upon his visage, and Trump, despite what you've read recently, is not out of that new mainstream in the slightest. In fact, he has essentially reanimated the old man. "The City on the Hill" now just has a big wall around it and people wearing tacky red baseball-style caps with cheap lettering.
The only important difference between the two men may be surface. With Reagan, there was no calculation. He was thought by those close to him to be incapable of it. But Trump is clearly engaged in it. What has been “off the record” for Trump to this point is still an unknown, but until we get a full glimpse of it, either through third-party leak, major misstep, or both, the show is one we've actually seen. If you'll allow, call it a “double feature.”
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Let's check the logic on this. Obama has a Supreme Court position to fill, and the longer he waits, the harder it is to make the case that it's his call to make. So their argument goes: choose a moderate as your nominee, one perhaps that rather recently was confirmed overwhelmingly, because then it will be harder for the Republicans to politicize it.
I'd love to get this team of experts into a game of three-card Monte. Theirs is a fantastic glimpse into how a small mind works. You do that and you end up with what? A moderate. How about this instead? It is largely agreed upon by everybody that's answered a poll on this that it's both the current president's choice to make, and Republican lawmakers stepped into the manure pile by saying so loudly and publicly that they would oppose Obama's court nominee regardless of who it is. So instead, if you're the president, why wouldn't you name the most bleeding-heart liberal justice you can think of as your choice? Because then, when the Republicans inevitably oppose him or her, you can easily make the public case that their objection is only political. This is like the other team kicking the ball around, giving you two extra outs, and then you fail to score. We know this bunch rarely puts their heart into anything, but frequently their brains also go home to get a fresh set of clothes (Ben Carson reference).
Or maybe it's that they wouldn't be all that motivated to put a true liberal on the court even if they had a clear path to it. Could be that. Why don't their supporters ever tell Republicans they have to compromise?
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Hillary's vulnerability in the General Election is striking. She has only won two states so far outside of the South-- Massachusetts 50% to 49%, and Iowa (kind of) by about 1% (who knows how the hell they count). Down went New Hampshire, Vermont, Colorado, Minnesota, even Oklahoma. Does she really think she's going to beat Trump in Texas, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee? Could she even win Arkansas?
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Take the online pledge to to write-in Bernie Sanders in November, or to support the Green Party candidate. #BernieorBust
50,000 others have already done it, and that was before it hit Huffington Post.
posted by CM @ 9:04 PM
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