Well, the Academy Awards have, again, come and gone. I didn\u2019t watch them this year. I had things to think about and pictures to organize last night. I had to get my folders caught up. I lost time last month because of the Olympics.<\/p>\n
I also didn\u2019t watch because of my uneasiness about the whole affair. This year\u2019s Oscars, however fun they were, didn\u2019t appeal to me. There is something really off- no, broken- about Hollywood, despite it\u2019s appearance of wealth and success. Or perhaps because of it.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve already expounded at length about the problems in this country that are being overlooked by the coastal elites. There\u2019s no need to detail the obvious, but a list would help the memory: dangerous levels of racial violence; the isolation and complete estrangement of the country\u2019s largest demographic; never- before seen levels of financial inequality; a general feeling that the entire young generation has been \u201clost\u201d by a lack of jobs and opportunity; record high levels of corporate and government debt; a flailing and ineffective president who seems to have no understanding of how to conduct himself on the world stage, or even domestically; and a government that is universally feared and distrusted.<\/p>\n
With all of this in mind, which of the Best Picture nominees reflects on these problems? Let me look\u2026 ah; none of them. <\/p>\n
There seems to be a couple of movies that touch, tangentially, on these all important issues, perhaps as an afterthought. Scorcese\u2019s Wolf of Wall Street <\/em>comes to mind. I\u2019m sure that his paean to the unbelievable greed of his Wall Street backers includes a rueful moment or two of reflection about how they have ruined the futures of millions of their neighbors. Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps there is something to see in Nebraska<\/em>, though given Hollywood\u2019s track record of late, I would doubt it.<\/p>\n In a way, it seems fitting that 12 Years a Slave<\/em> won Best Picture. I can imagine how the after parties went in L.A. after the show. I can see the Hollywood elites, huddled around tables, congratulating themselves for addressing the problems of the 1800\u2019s as the entire country collapses around them. I can\u2019t think of a more appropriate picture for the twilight of the American empire than that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Well, the Academy Awards have, again, come and gone. I didn\u2019t watch them this year. I had things to think about and pictures to organize last night. I had to get my folders caught up. I lost time last month because of the Olympics. I also didn\u2019t watch because of my uneasiness about the whole […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sighinide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sighinide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sighinide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sighinide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sighinide.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=240"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sighinide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":252,"href":"https:\/\/sighinide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240\/revisions\/252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sighinide.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sighinide.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sighinide.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}