OPINION:
MEMORANDUM
To: 2017 Academy Award Winners
From: The Rest of America
When you give your acceptance speeches, thank your publicist, limo driver, manicurist, masseuse, day nanny, night nanny and weekend nanny. Your attorney Marty Singer for killing that salacious National Enquirer story. Thank your spouse, children, middle school drama teacher. Your astrologist and psychologist. Thank your pool boy and gardener, accountants, assistants, Pilates teacher, hot yoga instructor, teeth-whitening dentist and most of all, Bosley and Botox.
You can even thank Wolfgang Puck for naming a pizza after you.
But please, stay off politics.
We’re exhausted.
With every hour and every day, we are bombarded: pipelines and climate change, save the Dolphins, Russia, North Korea, walls and trans-Atlantic calls. Travel bans and pussy cat beanies. Leaks and tweets. Our heads are about to explode. Now, more than ever, we need a Xanax the size of Texas.
The Academy Award has long been a global opportunity to vent: from Marlon Brando’s Sacheen Littlefeather in 1973, to the anti-Vietnam war streaker, to 1978 Vanessa Redgrave and her “Zionist thugs.” Michael Moore (war in Iraq). Sean Penn (2009, gay rights) When Oscars producers caught wind in 1993 that actress Susan Sarandon and fellow presenter Tim Robbins were planning to go political, they begged their PR people not to do it. But the two actors refused. Before the presentation for Best Film Editing, Mr. Robbins said, “We’d like to call attention to 250 Haitians being quarantined in Cuba. Their crime? Testing positive for the HIV virus.”
Last year, it was Leo DiCaprio and Native Americans. Not a year goes by before the red carpet turns white with rage.
“The show’s about movies, about people’s work in movies, about entertainment,” Bob Rehme, former president of the Academy once said. “The Oscars are not supposed to be about political activities around the world, no matter how much individually we might support any one of those causes.”
Last year, Oscar viewership was lower than at any time since 2008. According to Esperian, only 26 percent of the adult population even go to the movies at all.
We’ve reached the tipping point. No one cares what overpaid, undereducated people who dress up and play other characters for a living actually think about politics. If so, you’d be running for office, not jogging in Kate Hudson’s leggings in the Hollywood Hills pretending to avoid the paparazzi.
The talent agency UTA, who represents Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, (barred from traveling to the United States), announced it was scrapping their Friday night lavish bash. Mr. Farhadi’s film “The Salesman” is up for Best Foreign Picture. Instead, the agency will host a protest rally at its Beverly Hills headquarters that Friday afternoon. UTA also announced it will donate $250,000 to the American Civil Liberties Union and the International Rescue Committee.
In London, Mayor Sadiq Khan said he will stage an outdoor screening of the “The Salesman” the night of the Oscars in Trafalgar Square.
And yes, there will no doubt be “no surprise” surprises during the overlong, bloated, self-congratulatory ego fest which is famous for setting panties atwist back in La La Land (about the soul-crushing nature of show business up for numerous awards).
What would be a surprise is a speech that goes as follows:
“Ever since I was a little girl (boy) I watched the Oscars and pretended to win one in front of the bathroom mirror, holding a lug wrench for the golden statue. You have made that dream come true tonight. (Tears) I want to honor my fellow nominees. (Camera pans to brave-faced dejected losers) And I am grateful for everything this profession has given me. Especially my ruthless agent.”
• Stephanie Mansfield is a former reporter for The Washington Times and The Washington Post, and author of “The Richest Girl in The World” (Pinnacle, 1999), a biography of the late Doris Duke.
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