I'm Just a Blogger From a Trailer Park...

I'm just a girl from a trailer park. I can't believe I'm here.

Oooo-kay. That's enough self-love for one night. Flip off the Oscars. Time to blog for a few minutes before bed. (Though blogging is sorta self-love, too. Nevermind.)

We were double booked for parties today. A baby shower in Brooklyn at 1:30 and a birthday party in Westchester at 3:30. I drove out to the Brooklyn and met up with Steve and the boys later in Westchester.

New Jersey to Brooklyn to Westchester to New Jersey. That meant lots of time in the car. Lots of time in the car borrowed from my parents. Lots of time in the parents' car with a radio that only plays conservative talk radio. As I sat in god-awful traffic heading into the Lincoln tunnel and later navigating through the depths of Brooklyn, I listened to discussion on the topic of the day -- the Oscars and the Hollywood establishment.

The radio people are very upset at Hollywood for lots of reasons. First, there are not enough conservative movies or actors in Hollywood. Sure, there's Mel and the Passion, but that's it. He's no match for the army of lefites -- Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, and so on.

Second, the movies that don't have any political message are objectionable because they aren't upbeat. The radio host was very upset with Sideways. Major downer, baby. He said that more suitable subject matter would be uplifting, show our troops in a positive manner, and celebrate the American way of life. The average American thinks that those artsy, Miramax films are wierd. (Personally, I am a big fan of wierd. Just saw Napoleon Dynomite, which I don't think would please the radio people much. )

Third, it's clear that ideology rather than profit drives the Hollywood establishment, because the Passion of Christ made a ton of money. If they were solely driven by a profit motive, then they would make more religious films.

Fourth, it's an Establishment. Hollywood is dominated by a few, very liberal individuals, whose aim is to indoctrinate the masses. (Well, they must not be very effective. Both houses and the president are controlled by Republicans. Is that an Establishment, too?)

The host urged a boycott. Stop going to films and handing them $8.50 to see some wierdo go on about his preference for Pinot Noir and disgust for Merlot.

Do you think that the radio dude made any good points? For every Fahrenheit 9/11, should there be an opportunity for a conservative film maker to do his thing? Is there something elitist about the Oscar night that turns off average Americans? The expensive jewels and corny self-love speeches could be turning people off, as much as the politics.

(spell check and links tomorrow)

Comments

[Jeff]

Sometimes I think the excesses of Hollywood should elicit bipartisan condemnation: Conservatives should be outraged on principle, and average liberals should be outraged by the bad name actors give them.

Me, I passed on the Oscars to partake of a documentary about my home state of New Jersey that was inexplicably overlooked by the Academy: Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle. I call upon Asian-Americans, potheads, and all Garden State expats to boycott Hollywood until justice is done! Come on, who's with me?

[barry]

Don't you folks have NPR in New York?
Or is the radio a one station-only setup?
As to the talk show idiots....well they can keep you awake.

[cc]

Haven't seen Million Dollar Baby, but I'm glad that it won, if only to send Michael Medved into apoplexy.

[David Foster]

You'd probably call me a conservative, and I *loved* "Napoleon Dynamite." The world of political opinion isn't unidiminsional...

[ianqui]

Whatever. Conservatives (dare I call it the "conservative establishment"?) have plenty of money. If they want to start an alternative movie-making industry, they could. Then we could really judge Americans' preferences for movies. Conservative, family-friendly feel-good, boring pieces of shit? My guess is that those movies wouldn't sell too well. People--even red-staters--like violence, sex, and even reflections of the real world, as depicted in Sideways (fine, so maybe "real Americans" aren't wine drinkers, but these guys could've been beer aficionados instead and the message would've come across).

And if the conservative movies didn't win Oscars, who'd care? They could start their own awards.

[Frolic]

Having grown up in Oklahoma, I can assure you that most hard-core conservatives like drugs and sex as much (or more) than the liberal on the coast. Sure, you've got some straight laced religious folks, but even some of them learn to make peace with their sinning. Oh the stories I could tell about about the exploits of a few of the kids in the high school Christian club.

[Jen]

I'm a liberal but I still dislike Hollywood and the Oscars. I hate the body image stuff you get from Hollywood -- be thin and gorgeous and young or you're worthless! And I dislike the "don't live your own life; pay $9 to watch someone else living a better life" aspect of it. Turn off the media and get out there and have your own experiences!

[dave s]

after Karl Rove, who is clearly number one, I think it's a tie between Michael Moore and Margaret Marshall who was most important for the reelection of George Bush. So I think the Reeps can be perfectly happy with Hollywood exactly as it is.

[fling93]

Hollywood seems to be very risk averse. I think this is partially because movies are so expensive, and partially because it's just very difficult to predict what will be a hit (would anybody have bet on "Blair Witch" or "Big Fat Greek Wedding"? Sometimes luck determines what reaches the tipping point). This is why they tend to like "safe" bets: star-driven movies with actors with proven track records, sequels to big hits, movies based on popular TV shows, formulaic plots, etc.

As production and distribution gets cheaper, hopefully the industry will move more towards a Long Tail model, where decisions of what gets made is decided more by artists and audiences instead of being left to pointy-haired bosses at movie studios.

And me, I didn't watch the Oscars. Waste of time. They always get a lot of things wrong. Some voters delegate their vote to somebody else. Most haven't seen all the films. Some don't bother to vote. Many just vote for their friends. It's all ridiculously arbitrary.

[fling93]

Oh, I meant the above as a response to why Hollywood doesn't make more religious films. They don't have a solid and dependable track record, and you run the risk of offending somebody.

[Laura]

What great comments. OK, quick stab at a reply.

1. David Foster and Frolic point out that conservatives, red staters, whatever also like challenging, weird, and sexy films. Yeah, no doubt. I was just relaying back what this talk show host said. He really had it in for Miramax in particular. Is there a major disconnect between conservatives and their leaders? Maybe.

2. Fling, I think that this talk show host would say that since Passion made a ton of money, religious films aren't risky. Film producers aren't making them, because they are anti-religion.

3. Dave S, agree. Hollywood makes a great punching bag. It is hard to figure out how Republicans can continue to gripe about the media and Hollywood, when they've got a trifecta (spelling?) in Washington.

[Isaac]

To point #2: if they take one data point to show that religious movies (in general) can be successful, then they'd make very poor investors. Though, it probably is true that religion could be profitably exploited in more movies, but it's not politics that's driving that, it's conservatism -- of the pocketbook.

[Caleb]

A presidential election won thanks to a song and dance ... maybe the radio people would like Napoleon Dynamite!

[flaime]

Of course, Hollywood is risk averse. Regardless what some idgit on talk radio spouts, Hollywood only makes movies to make money. That's why we have 4000 sequels to Spiderman and the X-Men, and all these bad movies made from moderately good selling books.
Passion of the Christ was the first religious movie in a long time that made money. And it only made as much as it did because the marketing went out of its way to be controversial.
Trust me. I've been trying to get into the system long enough that I have a handle on how risk averse it is.

[rachael]

i suppose that you could tack all kinds of labels onto me - call me a conservative, call me a Christian, call me anything else that puts me in a little box where it's predefined what i should like/dislike, enjoy/hate, or embrace/be offended by. but i'm a person. i'm sure that my particular ideologies give me preferences and sensitivities that tend to color my choices, but i'm a smart enough person to know that my power to choose what i watch/read/listen to does not indicate that i am automatically a certain kind of person, or that i can be that easily pigeonholed.

i watched the oscars because my husband watches them every year, and he was gone on his job so i taped them for him. i think there is definitely something very surface about the academy awards; but then they also do applaudable things like give out lifetime achievement awards to deserving artists. i loved chris rock's hosting because he didn't seem to fit into the establishment's pigeonhole for a host.

all that said, i agree with you that the oscars are a waste of time to watch. but i also wanted to raise my small voice and say that you can't stuff me in a box. my preferences are my own, and i've never appreciated being lumped into categories for someone else's ease of judgment.