[Peace-discuss] Fw: The 82nd Annual Academy Awards: Hollywood celebrates itself, undeservedly

Wed Mar 10 13:41:08 CST 2010

There may be something to the claim. Avatar actually had the guts to call the final attack by the villains "Shock and Awe"... and yes, those who created Hurt Locker, far from being neutral (which they claim to be), gave kudos to our brave troops fighting for our freedom and security, blah blah rah rah every chance they got... which was at least two or three times. And NOBODY mentioned anything negative about war/working for peace the entire nite. Amazing and disgusting and pathetic and very very sad.
Also, Sandra Bullock getting best actress was bullocks -- the role was a walk in the park and any actress could have carried it off. Gabourey Sidibe's role was hugely demanding, and she rose to the challenge -- I can't think of another actress who could have carried it off as well (certainly not Sandra Bullock had Precious been white). The Academy just didn't want to award two top Oscars for the year to two black women (Mo'nique got best supporting actress, deservedly). --Jenifer 
--- On Tue, 3/9/10, unionyes <unionyes at ameritech.net> wrote:

From: unionyes <unionyes at ameritech.net>
Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fw: The 82nd Annual Academy Awards: Hollywood celebrates itself, undeservedly
To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;@smtp102.sbc.mail.ac4.yahoo.com
Date: Tuesday, March 9, 2010, 6:59 PM

Avatar
James Cameron’s blockbuster Avatar, 
which we were repeatedly told was the highest grossing film of all time, and 
perhaps the most talked about and high profile of the nominees, lost in all of 
the major categories, but received several technical awards—the only territory 
in which the film could be said to have broken new ground. In any event, it may 
be that the attacks from the right-wing on Avatar for its fairly 
forthright depictions of militarism on a fictional planet (with parallels to 
Iraq and Afghanistan) may have helped cost the film more 
awards.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: David Sladky 
To: undisclosed-recipients: 
Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 5:11 PM
Subject: The 82nd Annual Academy Awards: Hollywood celebrates 
itself, undeservedly

In accepting the awards for Best 
Director and Best Picture, Bigelow, said, “I’d just like to dedicate this to the 
women and men of the military who risk their lives every day in Iraq and 
Afghanistan and around the world. May they come home safe.” She added later, 
“They are there for us, and we are there for them.” At this point 
in history, with vast numbers of Iraqis dead, a country destroyed by US 
brutality and recklessness, such comments are thoroughly 
reprehensible.
The 82nd Annual Academy Awards: Hollywood celebrates itself, 
undeservedly
By Hiram Lee and David Walsh 
9 March 2010
This year’s Academy Awards ceremony has come and 
gone. The broadcast Sunday night from the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles, at three 
hours and 32 minutes, was a long and dull affair in which relatively little of 
real life found its way into the proceedings. It is difficult to think of a 
sustained moment that one could single out for praise. Self-absorption, 
self-congratulation, insincerity and cynicism prevailed.

What stood out 
most glaringly about the ceremony was the extent to which the realities of life 
faced by millions of people were absent, both in the films honored (with few 
exceptions) and the program itself. The world and the country are gripped by the 
greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, bringing with it high 
levels of unemployment and social misery, the Obama administration is 
prosecuting two neo-colonial wars and threatening more, the US seethes with 
social frustration and discontent, and yet none of this found the slightest 
expression in last night’s broadcast.
What does it say about the present 
state of the commercial film industry that an event bringing together its 
leading figures should find itself so thoroughly divorced from reality, 
including widespread popular moods in the US?
The opening number, starring 
Neil Patrick Harris, followed by the comic patter of co-hosts Steve Martin and 
Alec Baldwin, set the tone for the evening. Even the tepid “topical” humor of 
recent years was eliminated. Not a single reference was made to an event or 
individual outside Hollywood’s inner circles.
Is it accidental that political 
jokes at the Oscars entirely disappeared now that Barack Obama sits in the White 
House?
For the super-wealthy liberal milieu, the election of an 
African-American (or a woman, or…) is the apotheosis of their politics. They 
have reached the limits of their vision. This was reflected in the awards 
ceremony—the lack of genuine humor, sarcasm, let alone anger. No matter that the 
Obama administration is one of the most right-wing in modern American 
history.
A Serious Man
Of the films nominated for Academy Awards, the 
more intelligent works—A Serious Man, A Single Man and Up 
In The Air—went entirely unrecognized while the most confused, banal, and 
in some cases downright filthy (Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious 
Basterds, praised by presenter John Travolta for its “rewriting” of 
history), fared quite well. On this occasion, it seems, the Academy voters put 
aside whatever critical faculties and taste were available to them when it came 
time to cast their ballots.
In the acting categories, Sandra Bullock won Best 
Actress for her performance as Leigh Anne Tuohy in The Blind Side. 
Christoph Waltz won Best Supporting Actor for his performance as a brutal Nazi 
officer in Inglorious Basterds. It was pleasing to see the talented 
Jeff Bridges acknowledged for his role as “Bad” Blake in Crazy Heart, 
but, on the whole, the more sensitive and engaging performers nominated—from 
Maggie Gyllenhaal and Anna Kendrick to Colin Firth and Carey Mulligan—were 
passed over.
Precious
Mo’Nique was awarded the Best Supporting Actress 
trophy for her performance as Mary in the film Precious. The abusive 
mother of a struggling teenage girl in Harlem in the late 1980s, the Mary 
character was made into something horrific by the filmmakers.
As the WSWS 
review noted, “Mary is not a human being. She is a monster. Rather than 
explaining the social relations that produce such extreme forms of backwardness 
as hers, Precious obscures the causes and sensationalizes the results.” 
The film becomes a form of titillating (and alarming) the more privileged and 
complacent with fantasy views of oppressed working class life. It is troubling 
that the Academy would point to this grotesque portrait as one of the best 
performances of the year. Precious also won the award for Best Adapted 
Screenplay.
Avatar
James Cameron’s blockbuster Avatar, 
which we were repeatedly told was the highest grossing film of all time, and 
perhaps the most talked about and high profile of the nominees, lost in all of 
the major categories, but received several technical awards—the only territory 
in which the film could be said to have broken new ground. In any event, it may 
be that the attacks from the right-wing on Avatar for its fairly 
forthright depictions of militarism on a fictional planet (with parallels to 
Iraq and Afghanistan) may have helped cost the film more awards.
In what 
amounted to an abandonment of any critical attitude towards the war in Iraq, the 
academy bestowed the awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original 
Screenplay and Best Editing on The Hurt Locker. Telling the story of a 
US Army bomb squad serving in Iraq, the film is said to be an “apolitical” or 
“neutral” movie about the war. In fact, The Hurt Locker manages to 
glorify, or at least sanitize, the role of US troops in the region. Whether the 
filmmakers are entirely conscious of it or not, their work is meant to obscure 
the character of the conflict in the Middle East and make the public forget 
about Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, Haditha and every other horror that has been 
committed by the American military.
Those who created The Hurt 
Locker absurdly contend it is possible to tell a truthful story about the 
troops while ignoring the character of the war they are fighting, one that 
screenwriter Mark Boal admitted at the awards ceremony was “unpopular.” The war 
in Iraq is unpopular because its launching has been exposed as based on 
shameless lies, its conduct continues to be justified by lies, and much of the 
public, although the media does all it can to cover this up, suspects that oil 
and other such matters lie at the heart of the ongoing illegal occupation.
The Hurt Locker
Rather than point to this important reality, 
director Kathryn Bigelow, Boal and company have created an abstract portrait of 
courage and “sacrifice,” which could be done in the case of any military force, 
including Hitler’s Wehrmacht, a portrait whose net effect is to encourage 
dangerous illusions in the US armed forces and their mission.
In accepting 
the awards for Best Director and Best Picture, Bigelow, said, “I’d just like to 
dedicate this to the women and men of the military who risk their lives every 
day in Iraq and Afghanistan and around the world. May they come home safe.” She 
added later, “They are there for us, and we are there for them.” At this point 
in history, with vast numbers of Iraqis dead, a country destroyed by US 
brutality and recklessness, such comments are thoroughly reprehensible.
Much 
was made over the fact that Bigelow was the first woman to win a best directing 
award. On hand to present the trophy was singer Barbara Streisand, one of 
Hollywood’s leading millionaire liberals, who proudly declared, “The time has 
come.” That such a comment could be made and wild applause ring out, simply 
because Bigelow is woman, tells us what we need to know about the 
self-satisfaction and ignorance that hold far too much sway in this wealthy and 
insulated milieu.
That a female director has entered what was previously an 
“all-boy’s club” is considered a great victory, perhaps the greatest possible 
victory; that the woman in question has directed a film which might be taken for 
a pro-war work is beside the point to such people.
The awards ceremony 
underwent a number of changes this year, in the hopes of attracting a larger 
audience, particularly among younger viewers. In addition to expanding the Best 
Picture category to include 10 nominees (in a year in which it would be 
difficult to come up with 5 films truly deserving of recognition) so that more 
“popular” studio films would stand alongside smaller, “independent” works as 
contenders for the top prize, producers made a number of cuts to traditional 
Oscar night features now deemed too time-consuming or uninteresting to a 
youthful audience.
The Academy did a disservice to its viewers this year, and 
its younger viewers in particular, in eliminating the honorary Oscars and 
lifetime achievement awards from its broadcast. These awards, honoring veteran 
artists and performers in the cinema, were handed out at an earlier ceremony 
that was not televised.
Receiving honorary Oscars this year were actress 
Lauren Bacall, star of such remarkable films as To Have and Have Not, The 
Big Sleep, and Written on the Wind; and Gordon Willis, the 
cinematographer behind such films as The Godfather, Annie 
Hall, Manhattan, and All The President’s Men. Both Bacall 
and Willis, it should be noted, gave us far more substantial works than those 
being celebrated on the stage during Sunday night’s broadcast. In a healthier 
cultural climate, the Academy would have considered it a duty to encourage 
younger viewers to seek out the best works of an earlier period.
Even the 
traditional memorial segment, honoring those in the industry who died this past 
year, seemed rushed and perfunctory.
For now, Hollywood carries on as it has 
for some time, in a dismal state. A breath of fresh air is sorely needed. We 
have no doubt that important changes will occur. The social eruption that the 
present economic crisis is preparing will produce vast changes in artistic and 
cultural life. New moods will be introduced and new artists will emerge. Some of 
those currently at work will be reinvigorated. Many of those now celebrated will 
become irrelevant. This is all long overdue.

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