Anybody catch the Oscars last night?

Say what you will about the movie industry, there's no denying its financial and political clout. For me, watching this parade of celebrities congratulate one another was anything but inspirational. I suppose these hard-working movie makers deserve their day of formal recognition, but I found it a little hard to reconcile an actress wearing a $20K gown with whatever noble aspirations her current project might be associated with.

I don't begrudge these folks the grandiosity of their ceremony, but I found their self-righteousness to be somewhat offensive. It seemed as if, having reached the pinnacle of their chosen profession, these celebrities considered themselves to be a species of royalty. As if by having attained membership in such an exclusive club, they had also attained the status and the privilege to speak on behalf of the body politic generally.

It seemed to me that there was a glaring lack of humility to the proceedings. But I suppose Hollywood never got to be Hollywood by virtue of understatement.

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Big Al's picture

and cranky or because of what I've learned in my life, particularly over the last ten years or so, but I can't stand to watch that stuff anymore. The major sporting events, everything has gotten so over the top to me it's become sickening in ways.

It's a bunch of largely rich people living in mansions pretending to care about the common folk. What was their "gift bag" worth this year, I heard 100K? Did any of them speak out against that kind of ridiculous show of wealth? The only segment of society more hypocritical is Congress and the office of the president.

I heard they gave a standing ovation to the Netflix film White Helmets getting an award. They're just as ignorant as the rest of society.

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@Big Al

From Veterans Today:
Busted: Syria’s “White Helmets,” the CIA’s Secret Weapon to Aid ISIS

This election has been an eye opener. Other than a few folks from Hollywood, for example Susan Sarandon, they are all a bunch of big-business, elite, establishment, war-mongering, fake Liberals.

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Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.

TheOtherMaven's picture

@The Wizard
She's had her WTF moments too.

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

Mark from Queens's picture

“If poor people knew how rich rich people are, there would be riots in the streets."

I've avoided the infotainment of HuffPo for years, but a search for this quote pleasantly turned up an author who was willing to mention economic inequality and paint a little snapshot of what it's like to be a 1%er.

Lavish air travel is just the start. Rich people often get paid to wear jewelry. They get paid to lose weight.

They’re given free laptops and TVs. They also get paid thousands of dollars to just show up at clubs.

They get gift bags just for attending big award shows, bags filled with goodies worth $20,000 — which is more than a full-time minimum wage worker earns in a year. Their kids’ birthday parties have corporate sponsors.

The divide between the haves and the have-nots is nothing new in America, but in recent decades that gap has been getting wider as the middle class shrinks and the very richest Americans keep getting richer. Meanwhile, economists are warning that the world is heading toward Gilded-Age levels of inequality unless we do something to stop it. It’s already worse than most of us realize.

I've worked many of these debauched parties for these smug, self-centered, stunted and spoiled adult children. The depth of overwrought gaudiness, the staggering amount of sheer wasting of resources (the food alone that winds up in the garbage is beyond criminal) and nauseating privilege makes one seethe.

One of these days something is going to go down at one of their vile private galas.

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

@Mark from Queens and I may have forwarded that one on too. He's so right and I can only imagine what you've had to see at one of their smug parties.

I haven't watched any of those shows in years, just cannot stand the preening and really they are pretty boring to me.

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

Mark from Queens's picture

@lizzyh7

The Atlantic article, "Nor a Lender Be: Hillary Clinton, liberal virtue, and the cult of the microloan," says it was published in Feb 2016, but it feels like I heard him somewhere before then relate this story (maybe in a radio interview or some such appearance).

As he was painting this picture, which to me was a full color description of everything I deeply loathe about the faux, jaunty, bs kleptocracy meritocracy of neoliberalism and its attendant phony pandering language masking the ugly cronyism and pillaging, it made me so filled with disgust and an existential despair about an HRC presidency. Bernie's announcement was a very great relief. I knew I had to volunteer for his campaign.

The day after International Women’s Day in March 2015, I attended a Clinton Foundation production put on by its No Ceilings initiative at the Best Buy Theater in New York City. It wasn’t a campaign event—the 2016 race had not really started at that point—nor was it a panel discussion, as there were no disagreements among the participants or questions from the audience. Instead, it was a choreographed presentation of various findings having to do with women’s standing in the world. But if you paid attention, the event provided a way to understand Hillary Clinton’s real views on the great social question before the nation—the problem of income inequality.

Onto the stage before us came former secretary of state Clinton, the Democratic Party’s heir apparent; Melinda Gates, the wife of the richest man in the world (the event was produced with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation); various NGO executives; a Hollywood celebrity; a Silicon Valley CEO; a best-selling author; an expert in women’s issues from Georgetown University; a Nobel Prize winner; and a large supporting cast of women from the Third World. Everyone strode with polished informality about the stage, reading their lines from an invisible tele­prompter. And back and forth, the presenters called out to one another in tones of supportiveness and sweet flattery.

In her introduction to the event, for example, the TV star America Ferrera, who has appeared at many Clinton events both philanthropic and political, gave a shout-out to the “incredible women who have brought us all here today” and the “amazing girls” whose conversation she had been permitted to join. Then Chelsea Clinton, who announced herself “completely awed” by the “incredible swell of people and partners” who had participated in some event the previous day, invited us to hearken to the “inspiring voices of leaders, of communities, of companies, of countries.”

Those were just the first few minutes. It kept on like that for hours.

This is just the first three paragraphs. You have to read the whole thing.

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

orlbucfan's picture

I keep the arts, book reviews, and high society sections. The high society section is a comic strip. I would not want any of their gilded life. It's that boring, but it's still a hoot to read. Rec'd!!

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Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.

Just like reality TV.
Boring.

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Raggedy Ann's picture

I haven't watched the Academy Awards show in 10 years or so - along with Grammy, Tony, People's Choice, Golden Globe, All-Music award shows, etc. When any of us win an award at work for something we did well, is that ceremony on TV? Patting themselves on the back is okay - just don't have the need to televise it so that you can get even more attention.

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

Amanda Matthews's picture

on the back and telling themselves how important they are is what they do.

I haven't watched any of that shit for decades, including the grammies. Like Ian Hunter sang years ago...

The moon shines brightly on some summer lawn -
and envy caught like a leaf
Comes floating down upon this frozen desert sand -
spitting bullets through the night
The siren wails on the ambulance - compassion touches my head `n it bleeds
There ain`t no rock`n roll no more just the sickly sound of greed.

Ian Hunter - Apathy 83 Lyrics | MetroLyrics

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa