I noticed that the film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri won four awards at last night’s Golden Globes awards show for Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell, best drama, and best screenplay. I had reviewed this film favorably when it came out last month. It is widely tipped to do well at the Academy Awards show next month as well.
But Ira Madison III wrote that the racial politics of the film were awful, like that of the much praised 2006 film Crash that he equally disliked, because it does not reflect the real lived experience of black people. Madison says, “It attracts the type of crowd that likes to reward simplistic tales of racism like Crash, where white people learn how to be good to one another at the expense of black people.” He predicted that that is why it is likely to be a big winner when awards season comes around.
There has also been a lot of buzz this morning about Oprah Winfrey’s speech that she gave when she received the Cecil B. de Mille Lifetime Achievement Award. She said that she hoped that the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements were the beginning of the end of the way that women have been treated by powerful men. Here is her speech.
And now there’s buzz about Oprah running for President in 2020. I hope we can nip this in the bud.
I have nothing against Oprah personally — I know she’s a very intelligent woman. I just think that a terrible precedent has been set, whereby megastars seem to believe it’s ok that their very first job of public service should be president.
If she wants to get into politics, she should take the traditional, Schwarzenegger/Reagan/Franken route from entertainment to politics. Let her go ahead and run for governor or senator. If she does that, proves she knows how to run a good campaign and is successful at governing or legislating, I will happily consider her or any other celebrity for the top office. But the last year should have proven spectacularly that POTUS should not be an on-the-job learning type of gig.
Wolff’s book has given us a great chance to run as the party of competence — let’s not blow it.
brucegee1962:
If she takes the Franken route, one hopes that doesn’t include whapping members of the opposite sex on the butt.
(Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)
brucegee1962:
She spruiked The Secret.
(If she’s intelligent, she’s a very convincing liar — but I guess that’s an asset for politics, no?)
John Morales,
Good point.
Learned a new word today, too: spruik. Thanks!
… and Doctor Phil.