Are the Oscars a Sign of Much Bigger Problems for the Radical Left? (Guest Post)

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I don’t watch the Academy Awards, or any awards shows for that matter. Apparently, most of you probably didn’t either – ratings are down 18% from last year. However, I have to admit that the post-ceremony coverage has been pretty entertaining, as we’ve gotten to watch many of the left’s various professional victimhood classes turn on each other over what took place during the ceremony. National Review’s Ian Tuttle wrote up a good summary:

The American political Right has come to expect that Hollywood’s annual excess of self-congratulation will, as a matter of course, feature intermittent exhibitions of tired left-wing politics. Glamorous multimillionaires who win top honors in the most glamorous profession in America then transform stage into soapbox to complain about [insert faddish societal injustice]. So it was little surprise when Patricia Arquette took the occasion of her Best Supporting Actress victory Sunday evening to tout the need for wage equality: “To every woman who gave birth to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else’s rights. It’s time to have wage equality once and for all, and equal rights for women in the United States of America.” Backstage, she expanded: “It’s time for women in America and all the men, all the gay men, the people of color, to fight for us now.”

But the remarks earned a fierce response from various quarters on the left, which knocked Arquette for what was evidently a basic ideological failure: “Patricia’s comments show the danger in not being hip to this whole intersectionality thing,” tweeted Tracy Clayton, a staff writer at Buzzfeed. “Women of color get erased.” Who is hip to “intersectionality”? A not insignificant number of Twitter users, apparently, who made sure to pile on.

But what, exactly, was her sin?

Let Andrea Grimes explain. In “Patricia Arquette’s Spectacular Intersectionality Fail,” posted on Monday to RH Reality Check, an extreme “reproductive rights” website, Grimes criticized Arquette’s backstage comments for “eras[ing] gay women and women of color and all intersecting iterations of those identities.” Arquette’s transgression was her insensitivity to the hierarchy of disadvantage that is revealed when one considers various “intersections” of identity: non-white woman, non-straight woman, non-white non-straight woman. Grimes encouraged “white women” not to “go all ‘Je Suis Patricia Arquette,’” since the actress had revealed her insufficiently developed sense of the evils of privilege.

What she in fact revealed was that she is insufficiently left-wing for a chunk of the Left.

Arquette wasn’t the only one to draw ire:

Something similar happened to — who knew this was possible? — Sean Penn. Presenting the evening’s Best Picture award to Birdman director Alejandro González Iñárritu, from Mexico, Penn joked, “Who gave this son of a bitch a green card?”

“Great job Sean Penn,” tweeted Saved By the Bell star Mario Lopez. “Ruining a fantastic moment with a green card ‘joke.’” “#OscarsSoWhite A Director can’t accept an Oscar without being the butt of a racist joke,” tweeted Mic staff writer Derrick Clifton, using the “#OscarsSoWhite” hashtag that gained purchase after the Selma director nominations “snub.” Clifton again: “Even when people of color get awarded by mainstream industry orgs, racist ignorance often overshadows their achievements.”

It did not matter that Iñárritu immediately said that he found the joke “hilarious.” Penn — the Sean Penn who pals around with Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro, and who was crowned Best Actor for his hagiographic portrayal of gay-rights activist Harvey Milk — “othered” Iñárritu, and proved that he, too, is insufficiently left-wing for a part of the Left.

Even Neil Patrick Harris wasn’t immune. Harris is the rare breed enjoying wide ranging support in Hollywood, beloved by the left for being an openly gay actor, and loved by the rest of us for being a talented comedian. But not even Hollywood’s biggest openly gay star was immune to leftist vitriol, from his opening joke “Tonight we honor Hollywood’s best and whitest. Sorry, I mean brightest”, to his quip  “Edward Snowden couldn’t be here for some treason”, Harris took lefty fire for those remarks.


Image appears via The People’s Cube

Forget how the media likes to trump up any disagreement between Republicans as some major rift within the party, the left looks like it’s descending into a civil war of its own. A few years ago when Tim Tebowmania was big I wrote about how the left has to have someone to hate. While their policies have become increasingly extremist, they’ve had the benefit of a charismatic figure in President Obama to keep them all together. His expertise at convincing all of his various interest groups that he’s “one of them” has allowed them to focus all of their natural vitriol toward anyone opposed to the president. But what happens when this central figure goes away? The radical left’s “Divide and Hate” strategy worked very well in the presidential elections, but outside of those elections the American people have roundly rejected their ideology. And now as the president fades into selfies and interviews with green lipstick wearing non-journalists, the left is losing its binding element. And now they’re starting to notice that their one time allies all have some trait that is the subject of their personal hatred. And they are turning on each other. Yes, the mainstream press is trying to keep their anger properly focused with silly non-stories on Scott Walker and Rudy Guliani, but until they find a new cause to unify their hatred, this is going to get ugly. And it may leave some memories that won’t soon fade when these factions are called on to unite again someday.

Time to kick back with some popcorn – hooray for Hollywood!

Cross posted from Brother Bob’s Blog

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Was there any awkward silence when Patricia A or Sean P spoke?
I had heard they were well received…..at the time.
How two-faced to turn on them only a couple hours later.
“I think we all cheered at Patricia Arquette’s speech at the Oscars, because she’s right – it’s time to have wage equality,” Hillary Clinton said.
I guess Hillary is just another out-of-touch old baby-boomer biddy.

These thespians should put their money where their mouth is and take only an ordinary wage. Their excess millions can then go through Obama’s Wealth Redistribution programs. The world will be a better place when these sanctimonious blowhards ease up on their greed and selfish lifestyles. Spread it around, babe. Let’s see some real meaningful action or does this socialism not apply to you.

Bother bob the left needs someone to hate? Does the right need anyone to hate or is it just the left ?
Mr Pott meet Mr Kettle
I think more popcorn will be eaten watching the Kabuki theater of the GOP congress than Oscar night drama when it comes to passion and purity in politics the radical right is less than welcoming under their big tent

@Brother Bob: Minimum Wage Chickenhawks, now that’s outrageously funny!

I have a basic understanding of Wealth Redistribution. I tried it and didn’t like it. http://skooksjournal.com/?p=227

The left is made up of haters, self-righteous haters, sanctimonious haters, acrimonious haters. They have a lot in common with Islamic haters. The only question is whether they will kill each other, self-abort, or just implode with hatred.

The problem with the Oscars is the Oscars are no longer relevant to the U.S. audience because the films are no longer relevant to the U.S. audience. Even American Sniper was sold as a generic super warrior in a generic war.

Blacks have a visible problem in this system, but U.S. culture is not part of the general movie culture for fear it won’t translate to another culture.

The biggest movie culture for the American film companies, of course, is China so everything has to be made for the Chinese in mind. If it can be sold to the Chinese, it can be sold to other countries as well.

@John: Hahahaha! Never forget, John, that Orwell’s Two-Minute-Hate was a tool of the Leftists/Socialists, and not any part of the Right.

Nice try at moral equivalence, though. Don’t you have some Straw Men to weave?

The Oscars are an event whereby one group of rich, hypocritical, self-righteous elitists show up in their expensive modes of transportation to give another group of rich, hypocritical, self-righteous elitists who show up in their expensive modes of transportation, awards for promoting their rich, hypocritical, self-righteous, elitist agendas.

We witness the blatant hypocrisy every time anyone from that side opens their mouths. For example, their “carbon footprint” is just as great and in many cases greater than the rest. Everyone I know who is pro AGW falls into that hypocritical category.

You are correct about how easy it is for the radical left’s leaders to lead their flocks. Witness Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Castro, and the rest. The only way to overcome it is by being vigilant about it and confronting it at every turn. Everything they push for involves control. If we don’t confront it now it will only get worse to the point whereby the solution won’t be pretty.

@another vet: Have you ever seen Cinema Paradisio?
People have always loved The Moving Pictures.
It’s the 99% of TV that sucks.

@rich wheeler: I may have . If so, I still had to look it up on the Internet Movie Data Base to see what it was about. 99% of TV sucks as does most of the big picture industry. I’ll stick to my ‘B’ grade movies and oldies especially the Sci-Fi flicks from the ’50’s and the 1930’s movies like the original Stagecoach, King Kong, Frankenstein, Dracula, and Scarface. . The first Flash Gordon serial was also an all time favorite. As for the bigger pictures that may interest me, I wait for them to come out on DVD. I won’t spend a dime on anything associated with assholes like Sean Penn, Oliver Stone, or George Clooney. Penn should have had his teeth knocked out a long time ago.

@another vet:

Modern movies are pure junk. Gone are the actors that really cared about the nation that allowed them to become so wealthy pretending to be someone else.
Now the movies are just indoctrination films, pimping their politically correct pablum.

@rich wheeler: Cinema Paradiso about a small Italian town whose life revolved around it’s small theatre and the townspeople’s love of the movies. A beautiful movie. It’s too bad Conservatives can’t separate some great actors from their politics.
Like music, I find great movies from all genres and eras.
Little hope for the boob tube as my father so rightly defined it many years ago.

@rich wheeler:

It’s too bad Conservatives can’t separate some great actors from their politics.

The problem isn’t just that, it’s that the actors and directors can’t separate their politics from their movies. Oliver Stone made everyone who served in VN who didn’t do drugs look like a bunch of moral degenerates in Platoon. He completely altered historical facts in JFK such as changing the way JFK and Connally were seated in the limo so the bullet holes wouldn’t line up. When was the last time a villain in a movie was depicted as a liberal? They are almost always depicted as conservative.

@retire05: I will have to dig up a slide show someone once sent me with all the Hollywood actors from back then who served in WWII. It was quite impressive.

@another vet: I thought the Good Sergeant (Dafoe) Bad Sergeant (Berenger) very well acted–an entertaining movie. Thought JFK an outstanding movie extremely well acted by an outstanding cast,
Movies are not documentaries. Their purpose is simply to entertain.

@rich wheeler:JFK was presented as a pseudo documentary. It was designed to do more than just entertain. It was presented as a “factually” based account of the JFK assassination. So you will now have people running around believing that is THE way the JFK assassination took place. A huge conspiracy involving everyone but possibly the Martians. Had it been presented as a “fictional political thriller” it would have been entertainment. As a historically accurate account of the JFK assassination, it failed miserably and does a disservice to what actually happened given the way it molested historical fact.

@another vet: Disagree–In my mind JFK was a movie that presented several alternatives to the Warren Commissions findings. I’m not a conspiracy theorist in the vein of many Conservatives er RT and others. But I sure don’t buy the W.C .R. unquestioned.

@rich wheeler: What would you do if someone made a movie about the bombing of the OKC Federal Building advancing the theory that the federal government was behind the bombing in order to give the Clinton administration an excuse to attack conservatives? And they presented this as undisputed facts:

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evils%20in%20Government/Oklahoma%20City%20Cover-up/questions.htm

Would you view this as an alternative to the official explanation of what happened or some wacked out right wing conspiracy movie?

Speaking of the problems of the gibbering left:

‘Hate Groups’ Spread Across America…Or Maybe Not

The UK Daily Mail reports on: “The pockets of hatred spread across America: California has the most hate groups, followed by Florida and New York.”

There’s a great deal to question about this analysis, beginning with the fact that way down at the bottom of the article, we are told the count of “hate groups” declined by 17 percent between 2013 and 2014, bringing it to the lowest level since 2005. That would make the attention-grabbing headline assertion the opposite of what the report actually says – the number of hate groups is declining, not increasing.

That’s assuming the report should be taken at face value, which it should not, seeing as how it originates from the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has a history of irresponsibly declaring its political opponents as “hate groups.” Most infamously, a previous map of “hate groups” from the SPLC led a disturbed man named Floyd Lee Corkins to launch a gun assault on the Family Research Council in Washington D.C., packing a hundred rounds of ammo and a bag of Chick-fil-A sandwiches, which he intended to stuff in the mouths of his slain victims. Fortunately, he was stopped by the FRC’s heroic building manager, who disarmed Corkins after taking a bullet.

For much of the Left, “hate” equals dissent. Even if the effort to identify “hate groups” could be purged of all political bias, it’s still a highly subjective classification, especially when the point of creating a “hate map” is to convince residents of certain areas that they have a serious problem requiring vigilance, possible legal action… and of course, generous donations to the groups that draw hate maps.