The Sydney Morning Herald is actually a fairly well balanced newspaper, despite shrieking assertions to the contrary by their right wing opponents in the Murdoch stable - characters such as Akerman and Bolt.One of the reasons the SMH is shown to be balanced is by running opinions from the triumvirate of the right in Fairfax publications; Devine, Henderson, and Sheehan. Devine makes me annoyed. To her credit I get annoyed more because she's from an opposing political viewpoint to me, and embraces causes that get my anger motor running - things like Global Warming is a leftie plot, Muslim youth bad, and other assorted crap, than just firing off at the mouth with a minimal skerrick of knowledge on her chosen subject to froth on.This is her effort from today's paper. Found hereBy George, Hollywood's out of touch
Date: March 9 2006
Unlike Brokeback Mountain's cowboys, film's liberal luvvies are out and they're proud, notes Miranda Devine.
CALL me a masochist, but I do love a good Oscars night, preferably surrounded on the couch by fellow Tinseltown tragics and with the phone on redial to cross-town fans during ad breaks for further forensic deconstruction of dresses, speeches and candid camera shots.
As the annual acme of pop culture, the 78th Academy Awards on Monday night didn't disappoint. The movies themselves might be a "lagging indicator" of the zeitgeist, simply because they take years to make. But the Oscars telecast, said to be watched by a billion people around the world, is an instant snapshot of the "out of touch", as the heart-throb George Clooney calls them, the globalised arts establishment which has wielded supreme cultural influence over Western society for many decades.
Clooney perfectly epitomised the box-office troubles of this year's batch of "op-ed" movies (reflected in shrunken Australian and US audiences for the Oscars telecast).
Golden George was the hero of the night, feted by all, his ample charms and enviable sex life mentioned several times by the host and various hoofers on stage, his smiling visage bobbing up on the red carpet, in the opening spoof, as a presenter, flirting with our Nicole, and "speaking truth to power" everywhere.
Clooney, 44, was nominated for three awards for two movies - for best director and best original screenplay for Good Night, and Good Luck, his McCarthy-era period piece, and for best actor in a supporting role, for the anti-American oil industry flick Syriana, which he won.
Such was his ubiquity this year the awards could have been renamed the Clooneys, or the Clowneys, after his nickname in the right-wing blogosphere.
Thank God, you could almost hear Hollywood sigh, we finally found a replacement for that hirsute, four-eyed, frumpy fatso whatshisname. That would be Michael Moore, 51, who made a spectacle of himself at the 2003 Oscars when Bowling for Columbine won for best documentary: "Shame on you, Mr Bush! Shame on you! Your time is up," he cried, to scattered boos. Much as the bejewelled luvvies agreed with Moore's far-fetched left-wing conspiracy theories, in a town famously obsessed by appearances, they just couldn't abide his look.
But Clooney is the scrumptiously palatable face of Moore, who was last seen in Team America as a tomato sauce-covered suicide bomber with a hot dog in each hand.
Much has been made of the fact that the five contenders for best picture this year - Crash, Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Munich and Good Night, and Good Luck - were slow-boilers at the box office, message movies with a combined audience smaller than that of the Chronicles of Narnia.
And while in previous years the Oscars telecast has been hijacked by the odd actor to promote one cause or another, there was always the sense that the Hollywood establishment was exerting discipline, penalising overt politicking, cutting speeches short, attempting to keep proceedings light and entertaining. This year was different, maybe because the establishment has changed.
The Canadian billionaire co-founder of eBay, Jeff Skoll, 41, is at the vanguard of a generation of rich activists, plunging money into three message movies lauded at the Oscars this year, Clooney's Syriana and Good Night, and Good Luck and the feminist-themed North Country.
There is also a new president of the all-powerful Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, whose 6000 members vote on the awards. Sid Ganis told Time magazine last month that he wanted to change the image of the academy so it was "not a bunch of old conservative guys". It was Ganis's wife who suggested giving the hosting gig to Jon Stewart, 43, a rabidly anti-establishment, left-wing, Bush-hating satirist from an obscure cable TV show, who was destined to alienate a conservative audience.
There has always been a fashionable left-wing current of Hollywood flowing through the Oscars telecast but previously it has been kept in somewhat hypocritical check by the fundamental economics of movies - all the jewels and gowns and obscene salaries and private jets, which give the luvvies the luxury of being politically correct, only exist because the great unwashed are willing to fork out for a ticket to see their films.
This year, however, there was a suicide bomber aspect to the Oscars - and it wasn't just a scene from Syriana. There was an end-of-empire recklessness in the focus on limited-appeal message movies, the choice of Stewart, the nose-thumbing pride in being "out of touch" with the reviled mainstream who used to go to the movies in droves.
"We are a little bit out of touch in Hollywood every once in a while," said Clooney, accepting his Oscar. "I think it's probably a good thing. We're the ones who talked about AIDS when it was just being whispered, and we talked about civil rights when it wasn't really popular. And, we, you know, we bring up subjects."
No longer do the liberal luvvies have to suppress their ideological fervour, or be content with speaking in code or silently endure being the butt of Team America jokes. Unlike the cowboys of Brokeback Mountain, they are out and they are proud. But Hollywood's brave new attitude coincides with a new economic reality, which is that, like all other forms of media, movies are under attack from the internet and technology.
Stewart alluded to the problem of video piracy - which threatens ultimately to strip the revenue base from Hollywood. The days of the big movie studios may be numbered, leaving the luvvy lunatics to run the asylum. And then - who knows? Their politics might change when they have to do some real work for a living.
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Actors are it seems all luvvies, which from what I understand from my lingo makes them effete limp wristed artistic types. Nice one Miranda. Of course it's the unwashed masses that make these overpaid actors and actresses able to fund their PC lifestyle according to Miranda - for if the common trailer folk stopped attending these hideous leftie message pics then they would all be forced to do a hard days work for a hard days pay instead of sitting at home and masturbating to Das Kapital like they clearly do.
First up, Miranda's economics theory. She seems to infer that quality 'message movies' don't cut it economically so thus they should not be represented in getting awards. More people eat at fucking McDonalds than they do in nice sit down places where it's hard to pronounce the wine and/or menu items. Is there a junk food awards? No, there is not. They are awards given for excellence, not mass fucking appeal. Unless it's something like the Grammies.
As for the Narnia crack it probably helped that Narnia, like The Passion of the Christ, was helped along nicely by pulpitorials from the churches encouraging the faithful to attend because the Narnia story is a loose Christian allegory. Very loose. No talking lions in the bible. But there is sacrifice.
And witches and fantasy creatures. In fact I still find it odd it was spruiked by the megachurches when the appearance of creatures from myth and legendin films and books such as in Harry Potter or Dungeons and Dragons gets routinely blasted by the good church people (some of them mind) as fodder unfit for young WWJD focussed minds.
Any way, I digress.
The salaries. I am too often outraged by enormous sums paid over to people that seem far beyond the pale. But guess what Miranda? This is your precious market forces at work. They get paid this because this is what the market deems they get paid. All part and parcel for being a piece of the movie industry in the top ranks. I'm sure you don't get a pittance for your minor rumblings on the right and that you don't give it all away in some sort of 'Come on Down Charities - I'm Crazy' sale at your place.
Yes some of them deck their halls with boughs of money but many of them also get down and dirty with causes or are concerned with the plight of others. Fundraisers, speaking out, actually pitching in and doing something about the wrong in society, many top of the line entertainers do exactly that. And they put their money where their mouth is. Not all of it. Since there's not many hair shirted rich people out there who live in a fibro shack and give it all away. Especially not on the right where Miranda hangs out I'll warrant.
I cheered when George Clooney stated his pride in being a small L liberal. In being part of those who will be on the right side of history. Unlike the carping Miranda Devine, presumably sitting at home with popcorn on her grannie PJs hissing corn bits out her teeth when Jon Stewart stuck it to the man.
And guess what Miranda. The Daily Show is not an obscure cable show. It's huge in the states, especially amongst the 46% of people who did not vote for Bush. It mixes humour and politics and slays the dragons of the right like the lawyer shooting Cheney night after night. In short it fucking rawks.
Unlike the dribbly bits of poo you occassionally burble out in the SMH. Of course, that's my opinion. And I for one am glad you are writing in the SMH. Because it reminds me that there are people out there who are like you, and think the way you do. People to be pitied, not admired.
Again, that's my opinion. Like you have yours.
Aren't opinions fun?
