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How Hollywood is able to be so Oblivious

At the presentation of the Academy Awards on Sunday, Amandla Stenberg, stood with 79-year-old Georgia Congressman, John Lewis to introduce clips from the eventual Best Picture winner, “The Green Book.”  From the teleprompter, Stenberg said, “As this film demonstrates, any journey that opens someone’s eyes and softens their heart is one that is worth taking.”

It should surprise no one that the name Jussie Smollett was never mentioned all evening.

When Spike Lee won his first Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for “BlacKkKlansman,” this is among the things he said in his acceptance speech, “Make the moral choice between love versus hate. Let’s do the right thing!”

Lee was said to be furious that he lost the award for Best Picture to the aforementioned, “The Green Book.” Evidently, he thought it was “the moral choice” and the right thing to turn his back on the winners as they made their acceptance speech. In Spike Lee’s book, being a sore loser is the “right thing.”  This twisted thinking wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t expect the rest of us to live by his own set of rules.

There’s a reason they call it “La La Land.”  Here, in the world of fantasy, there is a “community” of actors and show biz types who live in a world of fantasy—and it’s not just when the cameras are rolling.

But why?  Could it be for the same reasons that so many are addicted to drugs, have failed marriages and commit suicide? Eventually, they can’t handle the cognitive dissonance of living a life of rage and anger while they enjoy a level of wealth, fame and privilege few of us could ever imagine.  We’re not jealous of them, but some seem to be jealous of us for being “normal.”

In some cases, that jealousy turns into contempt, as we are reminders of their own hypocrisy.  I guess that’s why they believe they must continuously lecture us about the immorality of walls and the forced redistribution of our meager assets as compared to themselves, while they extol the virtues of “income inequality.”  It never even occurs to them that their own wealth might be confiscated. They assume they are exempt because they are such good liberals.

The greatest irony of all is that conservatives in particular don’t begrudge them their wealth or even their “privilege,” but they sure seem to begrudge us of our traditional values and our normality. I have begun to think of that as the greatest award of all.

 

photo credit: Kai Lehmann Los Angeles Hollywood via photopin (license)

Karen Kataline

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