Oscar Wrap

I'm not surprised that Jon Stewart didn't exactly go over that well in the room at last night's Academy Awards. Hollywood famously has no sense of humor about themselves. It's all laughs and giggles when Stewart does his Bush impression, but when the guns are turned on the pretentiousness of another group of ruling elite, the executives and producers seem to have a tin ear. Not surprising: this is a group of people who thought that the intellectually insulting mess of predictable stereotypes and ridiculous coincidences known as Crash was not only a searing statement on race relations in Los Angeles, but the best picture of the year. (my friend at Midnight in the Garden of Goodman and Evil thinks it's because they sent out DVD screeners to everybody, but I think it's because half of Hollywood was either in, or married to someone who was in, or knew somoene who was in that movie. Ensemble pieces always do well because they have a wide base constituency).

It's incredible that after so many years, people don't seem to get what Stewart's show is about. He is not really focused on policy debate or putting one set of issues above another; Stewart is proudly outside the tent, seizing on the bullshit in the media, satirizing not politics but how they are presented. Similarly, last night he seized on much of the bullshit in official Hollywood, which is as conformist as your average megachurch (I don't care if they're on the "right" side, it's too much of an unthinking fealty), pricking it's overblown sense of self-importance. The line of the night came after yet another montage on the movies' treatment of social issues, leaving Stewart to quip, "And none of them were ever a problem again." It's one thing to make a movie about change and quite another to be the change you want to see. Sure, many of the films this year (Good Night and Good Luck and Capote stand out) tackled important issues while still remaining well-told human stories. I appreciate Digby's statement about the movie business being courageous to speak through their art, but the business has always taken more credit than they probably deserve. Wasn't the Halle Berry "Jackie Robinson" moment like 4 years ago? Isn't that a little late to be self-congratulatory about letting a black woman win Best Actress? Don't only 7% of all movies have a woman director? To an extent, George Clooney's speech about being out of touch being a good thing is laudatory, but it also smacks of a serious regard for oneself. Why would you expect less from an industry that chooses its stars based on looks?

I find myself less and less interested in talking about politics here in Los Angeles with anyone who agrees with me. Maybe that's why I frequently seek out those who don't. People here don't really like to have their assumptions challenged, in their careers or their politics.