Tag: oscars
'Are You Not Entertained?' When National Politics Becomes A Violent Spectacle

'Are You Not Entertained?' When National Politics Becomes A Violent Spectacle

“Are you not entertained?” shouts Maximus as the titular Gladiator in the 2000 film. And actor Russell Crowe sells it — enough to snag an Oscar — as he repeats the line to the stadium. “Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here?”

Everyone loves a spectacle, even now, which is why more than 123 million viewers reportedly tuned in to this week’s Super Bowl, whether you were there for the Kansas City Chiefs, the San Francisco 49ers — or a shirtless Usher.

Don’t forget, though, that the shouted movie line was about a lot more than the show. It was a taunt, used to communicate the gladiator’s disgust with the reason the crowd cheered him. They weren’t interested in a game well-played by evenly matched opponents, which I’ll wager was the main reason Sunday’s Las Vegas event was a must-see.

That ancient Roman audience showed up for the blood. The more gruesomely the gladiator dispatched the fighters in front of him, the louder the crowd’s approval, no quarter nor empathy given.

In politics today, I’m afraid too many political gladiators are harking back to the example of ancient Rome’s idea of what will win over the citizenry, rather than pulling a page from Kansas City coach Andy Reid’s strategic playbook.

Entertainment, sure. As fractious as possible.

Valentina Gomez, 24, a Republican candidate for Missouri secretary of state, wants to make sure voters know what she thinks of LGBTQ-inclusive books. A campaign video that went viral on social media shows the candidate using a flamethrower to torch a few, with the message: “When I’m Secretary of State, I will BURN all books that are grooming, indoctrinating, and sexualizing our children. MAGA. America First.”

Rather than back away, her campaign responded in a statement to NBC News: “You want to be gay? Fine be gay. Just don’t do it around children.”

Not good news for the teens who are gay, struggling for understanding and acceptance.

Kathy Belge, one of the authors of Queer: The Ultimate LGBTQ Guide for Teens, which appears to be a book Gomez targets, told NBC it “was written to give teens accurate and helpful information about what it means to be part of the LGBTQ community.”

“We discuss important issues that teens face, like coming out, bullying, dating and finding community and support. And yes, dealing with haters like this political candidate.”

State Rep. John Bradford of North Carolina is trying to rise to the top of a GOP primary race for the Eighth District, one that features six candidates vying for the U.S. House seat.

So he brought his bat, the one he promises to take to Washington, D.C. In a television ad, he uses it to smash a screen playing a speech by President Joe Biden as he decries: “Record illegal aliens. Record drug trafficking. Record crime.”

Staying in North Carolina, where gerrymandered districts reward the most extreme candidate, Grey Mills is a state representative now angling to be the Republican candidate for the 10th District seat. To do it, he is making tough border policy a signature issue, with a campaign ad that says he will use military force against drug cartels, accompanied by murky images of something being blown up. If the site of his planned assault is on Mexican soil, he might get some pushback from our neighbor to the south.

There seems to be little thought to what angry words and images can lead to.

Were the men the FBI recently announced were involved in a plot to travel to the Texas-Mexico border to kill Border Patrol agents and immigrants crossing illegally and basically “start a war” at all influenced by the dehumanization of asylum-seekers? Do the cynical politicians who would rather use desperate individuals as political weapons than work with Democrats on a solution care?

I’m sure one of the main things these candidates with the viral ads crave, along with the views, would be a hearty endorsement from the man whose tactics they emulate.

It has worked for Donald Trump this election season, as his control over the GOP hardens.

Fear of the threats and harassment that would await witnesses prompted Special Counsel Jack Smith to ask the judge in Donald Trump’s classified documents case in Florida to shield the witnesses’ identities.

Aggression is such a part of the Trump playbook, it’s shocking how much he gets away with, like his statement that Vladimir Putin and Russia could do “whatever the hell they want” to NATO allies that don’t pony up to the GOP front-runner’s satisfaction.

His Republican followers fall in line, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), onetime protector of strong defense and international relationships. The excuses make about as much sense as recent Trump speeches, full of distortions, random rants, and a charge that a reelected Joe Biden would rename Pennsylvania. (And they say the president has lost a step.)

It is possible to urge NATO members to be more diligent in funding their countries’ militaries without threatening to throw them all to the proverbial wolves — including one wolf in particular who disposes of opponents and imprisons American journalists.

But would the crowd that cheers an emboldened Trump and his acolytes be entertained?

Reprinted with permission from Roll Call.

#EndorseThis: Jimmy Kimmel Trolls Trump At The Oscars

#EndorseThis: Jimmy Kimmel Trolls Trump At The Oscars

Jimmy Kimmel’s first time hosting the Oscars came with many surprises, including candy and cookies falling from the ceiling and an epic Steve Harvey moment when Moonlight was almost robbed of its Best Picture Oscar. What came as no surprise, however, were Kimmel’s hilarious jabs at President Trump as he opened the telecast.

“I want to say thank you to President Trump. I mean remember last year when it seemed like the Oscars were racist?” Kimmel reminisced. “It has been an amazing year for movies. Black people saved NASA and white people saved jazz. That’s what you call progress.”

Kimmel couldn’t ignore the Meryl in the room, singling out the “overrated” Streep for an ironically Trumpian riff that concluded with a standing ovation for her.  Later in the show, hoping that the president would be watching, Kimmel tweeted “U Up?” at Trump. But it was his follow up tweet — #merylsayshi — that had the audience roaring with laughter.

Kimmel knows that if anything can get under Trump’s thin skin, it’s being mocked and ridiculed by Hollywood celebrities. The whole monologue is well worth the click.

IMAGE: ABC Television Group / Flickr

5 Best Anti-Trump Statements At The Oscars

5 Best Anti-Trump Statements At The Oscars

Reprinted with permission fromAlterNet.

President Trump’s ongoing feud with the media was on full display at the 89th annual Academy Awards, where stars and presenters shared spirited reflections on the new administration’s first month.

Here were the top 5 jabs:

Jimmy Kimmel

“I don’t have to tell everybody the country is divided right now,” the host remarked before offering an offhanded thank you to the sitting president. “Remember last year, when it seemed like the Oscars were racist?,” he said, a dig at 2016’s “Oscars So White.”

“That’s gone, thanks to him.”

Kimmel also slammed Tump’s tweeting and immigration ban as part of his shtick.

“Some of you get to come on this stage and make a speech that the President of the United States will tweet about in all caps during his 5 am bowel movement,” Kimmel said, adding he was glad that “Homeland Security let  [French actress Isabelle Huppert] in tonight.”

Kimmel also pointed out “overrated” Meryl Streep in the audience; a label that drew ire and confusion when Trump described the actress as such following her controversial Golden Globes speech.

“Nice dress, by the way,” Kimmel told the actress.”Is that an Ivanka?”

It was a clear nod to companies like Nordstrom dropping the first daughter’s line this month.

Ashar Farhadi

The Iranian director received Best Foreign Picture for his film “The Salesman,” but instead of attending the high-profile event, Farhadi issued a statement reflecting on President Trump’s travel ban, which included his home country.

“My absence is out of respect for the people of my country and those of the other six nations whom have been disrespected by the inhumane law that bans entry of immigrants to the U.S,” his statement read. “Dividing the world into the ‘us’ and ‘our enemies’ categories creates fear—a deceitful justification for aggression and war.”

Gael García Bernal

The “Mozart in the Jungle” star from Mexico presented the award for Best Animated Feature Film and slammed Trump’s border wall plan in the process.

“Flesh and blood actors are migrant workers. We travel all over the world, we build families, we construct stories, and we build life that cannot be divided,” García Bernal said. “As a Mexican, as a Latin American, as a migrant worker, as a human being, I’m against any form of wall that wants to separate us.”

Cheryl Boone Isaacs

The President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences celebrated the Oscar winners by hinting at Trump’s ban on immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries.

“Tonight is proof that art has no borders, art has no single language, and art does not belong to a single faith. The power of art is that it transcends these things,” Issacs said.

Viola Davis

Davis is now the first African-American to win an Oscar, an Emmy (in 2015, for How to Get Away with Murder), and a Tony (Fences in 2010 and King Hedley II in 2001). In her Golden Globes speech, the Fences star took a more subtle approach upon receiving her award for best supporting actress.

“People ask me all the time: ‘What kind of stories do you want to tell, Viola?'” she said. “And I say, exhume those bodies, exhume those stories. The stories of the people who dreamed big and never saw those dreams to fruition, people who fell in love and lost. I became an artist — and thank God I did — because we are the only profession that celebrates what it means to live a life,” she explained.

Alexandra Rosenmann is an AlterNet associate editor. Follow her @alexpreditor.

IMAGE: The 89th Oscars broadcasts live on the ABC Television Network. ABC/Eddy Chen via Flickr.

The LA Movie That Should Have Won Best Picture

The LA Movie That Should Have Won Best Picture

My candidate lost, and yes, I still can’t get over it. I speak of the 1997 movie “L.A. Confidential.” A riff on the creepy film-noir movies of the 1950s, its dark brilliance lay clouded in the bloated shadow of “Titanic.”

This year, another Los Angeles movie is doing a lot better. “La La Land,” a sunny musical romance, has amassed 14 Oscar nominations, tying “Titanic” and “All About Eve” (1950) for the record.

Movie critics have responded to “La La Land” with 50 shades of praise, ranging from total to grudging. What it and “Titanic” have in common are their bigness, striking special effects and pedestrian love stories.

Look, any filmmaker with the guts to make a colorful song-meets-dance movie in the year 2016 deserves a lot of credit. Grumpy me felt she got her money’s worth feasting on the Hollywood pool party and splendid West Coast sundowns — just as she appreciated the skill behind “Titanic’s” computer-generated blow-by-blow of a sinking ocean liner.

But she’s seen “L.A. Confidential,” with its devil characters and pained relationships, four times. I would not again watch “La La Land” (or “Titanic”) were it free on a 12-hour flight across the Pacific — not unless my iPad battery gave out.

Or I might just hang in for the movie’s boffo opening, a frenetic dance number on a gridlocked Los Angeles freeway. But that celebration of modern LA’s diversity of skin colors grated somewhat, for no sooner did the traffic start moving than the story dissolved into a microscopic close-up of the ambitions, frustrations, and faces of a leading couple as white as the Rockettes of 1956.

The male character’s (Ryan Gosling) obsession with the African-American art form of jazz added more dissonance to the diversity theme. Many people of color are in the background, but only one gets character development — and not much. That would be the jazzman turned ’80s retro band leader, played by real-life musician John Legend.

Nothing wrong about a story centered on white people who aren’t even ethnics. The Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals never get old. But if you’re going to make a big deal of LA’s racial and ethnic mosaic, the least you can do is give some of the other pieces a personal life.

When it comes to dancing, Gosling and the female lead, Emma Stone, are no Fred and Ginger. The music score is not Gershwin. But again, congrats to director Damien Chazelle for even doing a musical comedy, albeit without the comedy.

Good writing is what makes a movie (or television series) great. Gosling and Stone are both accomplished actors, as are Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet from “Titanic.” It’s not their fault that the dialogue is cardboard.

“La La Land’s” plotline at least takes a few interesting forks. “Titanic’s” love story plies the sea lane of soggy melodrama: upper-deck girl ditches rich but insufferable fiance for soulful artist from steerage.

“All About Eve” had one fabulously witty, out-of-the-blue line after another, many delivered with drone accuracy by Bette Davis. Can you cite one clever exchange from “Titanic”?

“Titanic” swamped the Oscars with 11 wins, including for best picture. The Academy showed there was some justice in the world by giving “L.A. Confidential” a statuette for best adapted screenplay.

At the end of “L.A. Confidential,” a prostitute styled to look like film star Veronica Lake (Kim Basinger) tells her tormented police detective lover: “Some men get the world. Others get ex-hookers and a trip to Arizona.”

Love can be a twisted thing. And so can be the criteria by which the Hollywood establishment judges films. Fortunately, TV these days is great.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com.