Academy Awards

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Satire Site Babylon-Bee summed up the Academy Awards as, "4-Hour-Long Political Lecture To Be Disguised As Awards Show". Yeah, it's worse than that. The lack of intellectual diversity, the demands of political correctness/conformity have sucked the drama and interest out of what was already a boring idea: industry wonks patting other industry wonks on the ass, over their ability to play make-believe and pretend to be people more important than they are. The results are the smallest audiences in the shows history.

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The question isn't why are their ratings and ad revenues crashing, but why can't they figure it out?

The flaws of their format are:

  • They added so many awards, that they had to cut the time of each. And everyone has to add canned thank you's to so many people that made this award possible, that's it a redundant repeat of redundant information that's irrelevant, boring and redundant. Yawn.
  • Then when one of the few goes off that script, they jump on to the other Hollywood one, bashing the far-left's villains of the day -- which is always insulting to conservatives, economics, science, or common sense.

Awards shows used to be somewhat spontaneous and diverse. You didn't know what anyone would say -- and that was drama or interest. They could crack a politically incorrect joke, jab a rival, make a comment from either side of the aisle: it was interesting. That makes it good for water-cooler drama the next day at work. "Did you hear what XXX said about YYY?". Now if they do say anything, you can guess the script before the actor says anything.

  • DiCapro, Clooney, Harrelson, Travolta or James Cameron flew in on their private Jet, from one of their wasteful mansions and more wasteful productions, to lecture us on the importance of environmentalism?
  • Oh goody, Harvey Weinstein, Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, Asia Argento and Martin Weiss are going to lecture us on #MeToo or child exploitation
  • Jimmy Kimmel, Bob De Niro, Jeanine Garofalo, Rosie O'Donnell, or Jussie Smollett is going to lecture President Trump on civility

There's no drama or interest in that: way too predictable... and hypocritical to be funny. Where's Robin Williams, Billy Crystal, or Johnny Carson making fun of themselves or the industry?

And the Awards are going to go to the worst movies as well. Not based on their actual entertainment value, but their virtue signaling:

  • 2018 - the movie Vice is up for an award -- shallow, far-left masturbatory hate-fantasy about Bush/Cheney, sold as reality? Who is surprised by that winning? Who would find a clip of that interesting? BlacKkKlansman? Black Panther? A middle-of the pack of Marvel super-hero movies? I didn't mind it but yowsa, if that's the best that 2018 had to offer. If it isn't, they shouldn't be on the list.
  • 2017 - Shape of Water was the best that 2017 had to offer? It was a mildly interesting yawner, but would never make my top 10 of anything.
  • 2016 - had runner up La La Land
  • 2015 - had the leftist fantasy The Big Short

I had to go back to 2009 and The Hurt Locker, for a movie that was really exceptional that won best picture (and she likely only won because it was a female director). But 2008's Slumdog Millionaire, 2007's No Country for Old Men, 2006's The Departed... I think those were all worthy and interesting films. But the entire decade of 2010's has been as forgettable as the speeches made for winning.

Sabo mocks the Oscars (2017)

A couple years ago, Street Artist Sabo mocked the Oscars in artistic commentary. [1]

My view is that businesses and entertainers should do all they can to avoid alienated over half their audiences, unless the cause is something a lot more important than forced conformity. That doesn't mean they can't have positions or opinions on their own time -- just don't muddle your brand with your agenda. And if you are going to do it, make sure that what you're doing it over, is something you're willing to give up business or fans over. If this is really a civil or human rights issue, good for you. If this is anything below life and death, just STFU. Picking fights you don't need to pick, alienating a large swath of your customers, or using award shows to force-feed your personal agendas down the throats of people that wanted to see a celebration of entertainment, not the dim-witted rantings of High School drop-outs and Beauty Pageant runners-up.

I'm glad that Sean Penn can stretch so far as Jeff Spicoli and Sam Dawson, but I don't want to be lectured by any of them. I pay/watch to be entertained -- keep pretending to be someone else. But if you drop out of character into that of an asshat activist without a clue, I might typecast you into someone I don't want to watch, and then you're diluting your own brand.

So I love the guy that points this out. Stop pretending fame makes you important. Remember, Milli Vanilli, Kardashian, Cyrus and Hilton are all famous too.

Ratings

2018 was the worst year in the shows history as far as viewership: 26.5 million viewers, for a show that pulled in 57.25 million viewers in 1998 (20 years earlier). And their peak was in 1970 with 43.4% of all households in America. In 2019 they were excited that were up and was bragging about it... and omitting the context that this was only slightly from their all time worst year ever, making their 29.6 million viewers, the second worst in history. You'd think this was a hint that people don't like sanctimony wrapped in hypocrisy, even when force fed them by actors. But based on the lectures at the show, I don't think the message has struck home.

Conclusion

Their ratings are crashing, their ad revenues are in the shitter, they lost the moral high ground back with the Red/Pink scares in the 1930's and 1940's (a decade before McCarthy), and have only gotten worse... and they refuse to learn. And a bunch of industry wonks patting other industry wonks on the ass, about how morally superior they all are, is about as boring as it gets. I'll come back when they can admit their own mistakes, admit something the other side did that was right, make fun of all sides equally, and be less predictable and more intellectually diverse. Otherwise it's like sitting down to have coffee with Bernie and AOC to talk about economics.

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