Oscar Awards, Sunday, February 29, 2009 at 9:00 P.M. on ABC. This essay was written the day before the ceremonies were held. Please see my essays -- "'The Reader': A Movie Review" and "'Revolutionary Road': A Movie Review."
This Sunday evening the American Academy of Motion Picture Sciences will host the 2009 "Oscars." I have my favorites. (Go, Kate!) I am sure that you have your choices for academy award winners this year and every year. The movies are among the aspects of America of which we can be justly proud and optimistic. American movies are exciting, beautiful, inspiring and meaningful for people all over the world. I love movies. I can remember the thrill I experienced when seeing classic films and earlier versions of the awards ceremonies as a child. The glamour and fascination of movie star lives continues to enthrall most of us.
This year some disturbing questions have been raised about the Oscars ceremony and whether the spectacle is distracting us from the serious concerns of our time -- concerns over social justice issues and war, desperate poverty and starvation against affluence or greed. I wish to address these concerns and questions, briefly, before I see the program on television.
I cannot say whether I will be able to post this essay since I have just been blocked, again, from accessing the Internet. I continue to struggle against censorship and cyberwarfare. These opinions and comments will certainly make me more unpopular with corrupt officials in New Jersey. As a result, I suppose that I can expect more attacks on my writings. Besides, MSN Groups is scheduled to "close" tonight -- according to notices that I have received! -- so that there may not be an MSN site at which to post these writings with images in the morning. I will continue to write and hope for the best.
March 4, 2009 at 10:29 A.M. I am informed that MSN Groups has "closed." As a result, I am unable to access Critique. However, if that group still exists and my writings can still be read there, I urge others to visit the site. Regrettably, I cannot repair any harm being done to those writings during this period when I am unable to access my own work. This is the experience of a dissident in a society that proclaims a Constitutional commitment to freedom of speech by criminalizing state action in furtherance of any form of censorship. Does anyone in the world still believe these claims other than those American officials who make them?
At least 25-50,000 people are expected to die of hunger today, according to UN statistics. Some authorities place the number much higher, around 100,000. Let us accept the smaller number for purposes of argument. Hundreds of thousands -- or millions -- of persons in the world have never seen or used a telephone or computer, do not own a television set or automobile. Studies in several Third World countries indicate that a greater number of 12 year-old boys are familiar with semi-automatic weapons than can read and write at grade level. Billions have never seen a movie. In light of these and many other facts establishing beyond rational doubt the greed and selfishness as well as insentivity of so many of us in the wealthy societies of the world, should we feel guilty about seeing the Oscars on Sunday night?
No, we should not feel guilty about seeing and enjoying the Oscars ceremony on Sunday night. However, we should feel responsible for this grotesquely unjust world in which we live. We must do what we can to improve the lives of men and women who are suffering as I type these words.
Dissidents in many countries are censored or silenced, for example, damaged and impoverished for expressing controversial opinions that offend gangsters and corrupt officials. I am one of them. Millions suffer from unacceptable poverty, denials of access to health care and education, relegation of their lives to oblivion for the sake of our gas-guzzling cars and overconsumption: 20% of us are consuming 80% of the world's resources.
Many Americans and Western Europeans don't know or care about these facts. Some of Miami's Cubanazos have been known to say of the wretched of the earth -- "The hell with them!" These are among the people hacking into my computer or obstructing my communication efforts. (See "Che" and "Fidel Castro's 'History Will Absolve Me.'")
Many Hollywood celebrities do care about these statistics. As a group, Hollywood's artists and businesspeople are far more generous than most of us, donating (based on the last statistic that I saw) well over ONE BILLION DOLLARS to poverty relief and world economic improvement efforts of one kind and another. The movies are an industry. As with any industry, there are costs that are incurred to generate profits. This awards ceremony is one such cost. The Oscars is one part of the spectacle and theatricality of the industry, which is as much about the audience as it is about the artists and others recognized for their efforts by their peers.
The Oscars is what helps generate movie profits that keep people working. Ordinary, middle-class people in the United States -- also in many countries around the world -- eat and dress, shelter and care for their families with income created by the movie industry that calls Hollywood or other centers of movie making (with comparable awards ceremonies) "home."
Those smiling, beautiful and talented people on red carpets are making hunger less likely for millions of other persons in the world. They are creating lasting beauties to feed the spirit as well as the body, offering some solace to afflicted and sick people. Movies are "spaces" where our collective meanings can be worked out in the great global dialogue of culture. The Oscars are not the place to point to if your concern is with greed.
Try Wall Street, New York; Washington, D.C.; or Trenton, New Jersey -- if you want to get angry about something. In middle American settings you will see naked, filthy greed with very little redeeming value. You will also find well-fed hypocrites and frauds in politics asking for more of your money (and the money of those movie stars who also pay taxes!) to steal. Right, Senator Bob? Most working people in America fail to appreciate just how much they are getting screwed.
The global economy requires wealth-creating industries that are not tied to scarse resources, necessarily, but thriving on the basis of imagination. America's greatest resource is still IMAGINATION. Many American films, for example, have been made available to children in refugee camps in many places in the world, all of whom express great joy and happiness at sharing Dorothy's adventures in Oz. This makes it clear that films manage to tap into archetypal images and universal clusters of icons/symbols that educate and guide all kinds of people through life's tragedies and transitions.
Movies are not the answer to all of the world's troubles, but they are on the side of life and beauty as well as meaning and ethical goodness, like most real art, and are necessary and not a mere luxury for many of us "simple folks."
I am thrilled at seeing Kate Winslet and Sam Mendes, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt on the red carpet. Denzel Washington and Andy Garcia, Benicio del Toro and Halle Berry, Chow Yun Fat and so many others, "stars" who symbolize our hopes for ourselves and humanity in the darkest times. Movies were never more popular than in the thirties, during the so-called "Great Depression" (we may be heading for an even greater depression, thanks to Bush and Cheney), because dreams are most essential when real life gets grim and difficult.
If a school or hospital is built with revenues generated by a successful film, that's fine by me. James Cameron spent a lot of money in Mexico "sinking" the Titanic. Mexico will be very happy to invite Mr. Cameron back, any time, to spend some more money by employing Mexicans from all walks of life. Mr. Cameron making a profit as a result of his efforts is fine by all concerned. I will pop Titanic into the DVD player, after the ceremony, if my daughter stops raving about Slum Dog Millionaire. Is Slum Dog better than The Reader? Much of the fun on Sunday is this sort of debate among family members.
Philosopher Peter Singer is a good author to read on world poverty and hunger issues as well as animal rights. Images accompanying this essay at Critique cannot be posted at this site. MSN must be subjected to political influences from Democrat friends of the Jersey Boys. On many occasions, I have blocked the following hackers:
http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/N296.msn/B2385667
http://view.atdmt.com/NYC/msnnkccs03400... (City Council Speaker?)
The New York Branch of the Family? "City Counsel Speaker-CCS"? Ms. Quinn, are you a civil libertarian? How do you feel about free speech? Say hello to "Slim Jim" McGreevey.
My complaints this year center on the denial of nominations to Leonardo Di Caprio (Revolutionary Road) and Benicio del Toro (Che). Mr. del Toro received both the Cannes Film Festival "best actor" and Spain's prestigious "Goya" awards. To deny even a nomination to him is to insult those countries' world recognized awards and critical communities. It is also stupid. Both of those men were outstanding in their movies. I highly recommend their movies in 2009.
Sunday, I will get into pijamas (wearing my Leo and Kate t-shirt), make a big bowl of Paul Newman popcorn to share with my family members. (One new "error" inserted in this essay since last time.) As the only male in the household, I will cheer for the guys. I will enjoy the Oscar awards, thinking silently of what I'd say to missing loved-ones at key moments in the program and what movies I'll see afterwards to celebrate the outcomes. This year, I think, Casablanca and The Sting will be my choices. Maybe, also Sense and Sensibility.
