Hollywood Pats Itself on the Back
Host Jon Stewart was the best thing about last night’s Academy Awards (well, the best thing other than Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit winning Best Animated Feature and its creators placing bow ties on their Oscar statuettes). Without him, the ceremony would have been three-and-a-half hours of Hollywood actors, producers, and directors praising themselves for being more forward-thinking and socially conscious than the rest of America.
It started early in the evening, when the usually funny and charming (as well as openly political) George Clooney accepted his Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in Syriana and launched into a speech about how, yes, Hollywood was “out of touch” with the rest of the U.S., but how this was a good thing because Hollywood could lead—and had led—the way for social change. Then he cited Hattie McDaniel’s 1939 win for Best Supporting Actress in Gone with the Wind, pointing out that this was at a time when African Americans had to sit in the back of movie theaters. Clooney didn’t point out that McDaniel and her husband also had to sit in the back of the auditorium the night she won her Oscar, nor did he mention that she won for playing Mammy, a role that hardly challenged white viewers’ stereotypes. More than one of the people assembled to watch the Oscars at our house saw some irony here.
The self-congratulatory tone continued with the Academy president’s speech, as well as a montage of “issue” movies that are credited with changing the way we think: Gentleman’s Agreement, To Kill a Mockingbird, In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Philadelphia, etc. There were lots of stellar films in the bunch, excellent and important films. But the high-blown tone of “three cheers for Hollywood” was too much. Fortunately, Jon Stewart managed to bust the balloon immediately afterward by deadpanning, “And none of those issues were ever a problem again. Congratulations to us.”
I don’t deny that movies may have the power to change society. But I think there may also be some validity to the argument raised in a couple of articles last month, the argument that movies simply reflect back to us the ways we’ve already changed. As Beliefnet blogger Paul O’Donnell wrote in his “Moving Mountains” post, “Hollywood is a generally a pretty conservative place, as any industry would be that places such large bets on what the broad audience will pay for.”
Maria DiBattista, writing for the L.A. Times, responds to the claim that Brokeback Mountain will change the way America thinks about homosexual relationships, saying, “Movies can envision the need for social change, but it is unclear that they can help bring it about. They are better at pointing the way to a different, happier, more fulfilling life.”
According to DiBattista, it’s hard to translate those semi-escapist fantasies of social change into real life. If they do succeed in real-world change, she argues, it’s because of the movies’ powerful images, not because of their agendas.
As I listened to actors, directors, and film executives praising their own agendas (many of them important agendas–I don’t question that), I began to wonder, “Do they actually think that box office revenues were down in 2005 because the ‘conservative’ American people couldn’t handle the ‘progressiveness’ of Hollywood?”
Of course, the real reason box office revenues were down is because, frankly, going to the movies is expensive, and Netflix is cheap. Period. I intend to see many of the Oscar-nominated films. But I’ll do it once they’re released on DVD.
Anyway, Hollywood last night seemed intent on deepening the divide between so-called “red” and “blue” America (a distinction that I really don’t believe exists). All the more need for films like Junebug, which challenge and question that divide. If there is a film from 2005 that changes the way we think, I hope it’s Junebug, because, really, this liberal-conservative war is getting pretty silly.
Sadly, Junebug’s Amy Adams did not win Best Supporting Actress last night, though she did pick up an Independent Spirit Award on Saturday night.
Oh, and I have to mention one more funny line from Jon Stewart. At one point, he quipped, ”I do have some sad news to report. Bjork could not be here. She was trying on her Oscars dress and Dick Cheney shot her.” Ah, that swan dress will live on for years to come.
1 comment March 6th, 2006