"Charmless and unlikeable" seems to be the consensus, and not just re me on "Tucker". We'll get to that in a moment. But first a couple of observations from our comment sections that I thought deserved a wider airing:
~An Arizona member of The Mark Steyn Club notes what he calls the "most revolting, hubris-laden" quip from Jimmy Kimmel's Oscar monologue:
The world is watching us. We need to set an example, and the truth is if we are successful here, if we can work together to stop sexual harassment in the workplace, if we can do that, women will only have to deal with harassment all the time at every other place they go.
As our Club member added:
In other words, everybody else is every bit as bad as we used to be, but we've cleaned up our act and you haven't. Truly odious.
It's also not true. The most famous (and Oscared) movie producer of the last thirty years has been credibly accused of rape by at least thirteen women and of sexual assault by dozens more. I'm somewhat astonished to find that, in the course of my not terribly glamorous life, I've met at least eight of them. It's quite something to have encountered, in various countries across the decades, eight women all physically attacked by the same man. And those actresses who refused to put out and managed to escape from the room had their careers vaporized - as happened to Mira Sorvino and Rosanna Arquette.
This is Hollywood. Harvey Weinstein co-opted dozens of his colleagues, from executive vice-presidents to lowly interns, to assist as part of their normal business routine in the management of his appetites, whether through laundering payouts or procuring erectile-dysfunction medication. This was an open secret, acknowledged and accepted by everyone from secretaries to Meryl Streep.
But, pace Kimmel, it's an aspect of the movie business that has no real equivalent in, say, the accountancy business or the feed-store business.
Hollywood is worse. But their sense of their moral superiority is so indestructible that Jimmy Kimmel couldn't resist lecturing the world that, even as the veil is lifted and the bathrobe cord is unknotted, they're still better than you - and always will be.
~Kimmel's fatuous jab reminds us that it's not the politics, it's the preening. There was politics galore in the Seventies. In 1974, when Bert Schneider accepted his Best Documentary Oscar by reading out a telegram from the Viet Cong, co-host Frank Sinatra responded by reading a disclaimer from the Academy, which in turn prompted Shirley MacLaine to announce as a member of the Academy her own disclaimer from the Academy's disclaimer, and Warren Beatty to berate Sinatra as "you old Republican". Now that was a show. Four years later, picking up a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, Vanessa Redgrave denounced "Zionist hoodlums", and got booed by the crowd, and derided on stage by Paddy Chayefsky.
Whatever one feels about Schneider or Redgrave, they came to pick a fight - which takes a certain amount of courage. Sunday's bloodless affirmations of solidarity with "dreamers" required not a scintilla of courage: They were simply the necessary cue to bathe in the warm glow of collective moral narcissism, which is as cloying and nauseating a perfume as there is. Miss Redgrave consciously chose to be unpopular. By contrast, Sunday's crowd said all the right things, all the de rigueur things, and yet were strangely unlikeable, and charmless.
~On "Tucker", our pal Wendy Osefo attributed the fact that the ratings were an all-time bomb to the lack of blockbusters among the nominees. This has become a common argument in recent years, but one unknown for most of Oscar's history. From Mrs Prodos in our comments section:
I never cared what movies were competing at the Oscars, whether I had seen any of them or had a favorite or not, or whether there was a blockbuster among them. I tuned in for the glamorous spectacle, all those stars in one place, all dressed up and witty and larger than life.
For half-a-century, from the dawn of television to the Nineties, from Bob Hope through Johnny Carson to Billy Crystal, audiences tuned in not out of interest in the nominees but because the real star was the show itself. Here is a fairly typical moment from the midpoint of that era. On the 1979 show, a couple of fellows (Larry Grossman and Fred Ebb) wrote a piece of what we used to call "special material" featuring dozens of movie songs Oscar's flipped the finger to, and then a couple of other fellows (Steve Lawrence and Sammy Davis Jr) rehearsed and managed to learn this fiendishly complex routine and put it over:
Now you might object that, forty years on, nobody under fifty knows any of those songs except maybe "Stayin' Alive" and "New York, New York", which Fred, the latter's lyricist, amusingly included in his celebration of Oscar busts.
But that's not the objection. I doubt, even with CGI, whether anybody on Sunday's show is capable of learning that medley and putting it over live, so in a certain sense there has been a massive loss of skills over the last quarter-century or so. But, as I said, that's not the point. The real objection is that, granted that times move on and tastes change, Hollywood has not replaced it with anything. Whether you like it or not, the above is something, it's a thing in itself. Ashley Judd lecturing us on "intersectionality" before introducing a montage of white women, gays, transgenders and Muslims telling us solemnly how great it is that they're not white men is not a thing - it's a big nothing. It would be boring if it happened to you while you were having a beer at that crappy sports bar out on Route 23 past the grain elevator, and it doesn't get any less boring just because Ashley's standing in a cocoon of 45,000 Swarovski crystals that, as Jane Fonda remarked, looks like the Orgasmatron from Barbarella (which is a funnier line than any of Kimmel's writers').
You'll notice, by the way, that the quartet who wrote and sold that medley includes African-Americans and gays. But Fred Ebb (whom I knew for many years, and who was as gay as any gay could be) didn't think the height of entertainment was walking out on stage and saying, "As a gay man, I'm proud to be able to stand here as a gay man and say that in the old days all the songs were written by butch heterosexuals like Cole Porter, Lorenz Hart and Noël Coward but now Hollywood is leading the world in celebrating diversity because I'm totally gay. Will that do? Did I mention I'm gay? If not, here's a Muslim and a transgender..."
Frances McDormand ended Oscar night by triumphantly declaiming the words: "Inclusion rider!" - which is what happens when a star has enough clout to insist that the production be staffed according to demographic fashion with precisely calibrated proportions of approved identity groups.
But Sunday's Oscars were one giant inclusion rider, and how'd that work out? Someone should pitch Universal a new creature feature: The Inclusion Rider That Swallowed the Show.
Incidentally, just to tie it all together, the walk-off music for Sam and Steve after that killer medley was "That's Entertainment!" The walk-off music for Miss McDormand after the words "Inclusion rider!" was ..."That's Entertainment!" Who earned it?
Oh, and Kathy Shaidle reminds us that Miss McDormand's inclusion rider impressively extends to the thief of her Oscar.
~From Steyn Club member Steven Payne:
I think Wendy's right that we haven't seen all the firsts yet. For example, we have yet to see a person with a beard in a wig winning the Best Actress award.
Actually, the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest was won by a bearded lady. I'm firsted out.
~SteynOnline regulars seemed to enjoy my last bit of guest-host ratings analysis, so, after this week's stint on "Tucker Carlson Tonight", I thought I'd offer another round. As I emphasized last time:
Ninetysomething per cent of [the ratings success] is due to Tucker and his terrific production team and the show they've built. But the trick for a guest-host is not to blow that.
Monday was a rough night for Fox. Without wishing to sound like Wendy special-pleading on the Oscars, that's no reflection on the network. Rather, all that crazy Sam Nunberg stuff broke in late afternoon, and, if you take (as MSNBC's audience do) the "Russia investigation" seriously, it sent viewers stampeding to Rachel Maddow & Co for the lowdown. The fever lasted only a few hours, and had been pretty much forgotten, or significantly walked back, by the following morning. But on Monday between 7pm and midnight Eastern Nunberg's fifteen minutes were in full swing, and MSNBC won every time slot - except one. At 8pm a certain Canadian guest-host delivered Fox's only victory of the night. To reiterate:
All but a sliver of that is due to Tucker and his tremendous brand, but the sliver's the difference between winning the night and not.
So congratulations to MSNBC, but I'm relieved that "Tucker Carlson Tonight" was still the Number Three show of the night - and in hard numbers we had, for example, almost twice the audience of Fox's newest star, Mark Levin, on his Sunday show. So I thank all of you who swung by, and I also thank the best team in cable news for putting together a rollicking hour for me. I can't tell you how great it feels to be in the hands of professionals. All I have to do is read the prompter and make sure my hairpiece stays on.
That said, I'll be back in my proper place, to answer Tucker's questions, tomorrow night, Thursday, at the usual time. Hope you'll tune in.
PS If you're that into Canadian guest-hosts, there's always The Mark Steyn Club. It's lots of fun -and, if you've got some kith or kin who enjoys classic fiction and other audio-visual delights, we have a special Steyn Club Gift Membership that includes a welcome gift of a book or CD personally autographed by yours truly. More details here.
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Your write SO many amazing columns BUT this one, including the songs that Oscar snubbed was FABULOUS.....I have taken the liberty of SHARING it on my FB page....I am of a certain age and have FB friends who will remember, know the lyrics and grew up with these songs.....and you are right, it takes CGI to make today's 'movie stars' even remedial in their talents...I tried to watch LaLa Land last year and all I could think was that Fred and Ginger would be rolling in their graves.....'Hollyweird'....the perfect moniker....
You have a hair piece,Mark?Say it ain't so.
Saw recently an odd video with Obama where he said Kimmel was an... organizer or something? and Bono was the circus leader or something peculiar - oh! oh! it was a Kimmel show all about red. (??) That's what we get for channel surfing once in a blue moon - lost in an alien land where the creatures are all talking gibberish. Maybe others can make more sense of it. Had NO idea what they were talking about, but the take-away impression was that Kimmel was a bigger player than his talent suggests to the naive so maybe that's why he gets the Oscar sort of gig. But Bono was somehow higher up? Like today's Oscars and 'art', the concept of no-personal-sacrifice-whatsoever-cover by buying tickets to indulge in gluttony at charity concerts almost always claiming to 'help Africa' is so vapid. But why does King Leopold keep coming unbidden to mind?
I haven't watched the Academy Awards since they gave Laurence Olivier a "special" Oscar back in the late Seventies, I believe it was. Most of the time, the awards go to the most undeserving rather than the most deserving.
However, I'd like to say a word or two about this year's truly deserving Oscar winner: Gary Oldman. He is one of the very few great, protean actors available to Hollywood today. He's been there for a long time, actually, making a ton of lousy-to-mediocre films, but has always been the one reason to watch many of them. He's also been a Hollywood "outsider" despite all the years he's lived there.
In this "Destroy All Men!" atmosphere we live in, his fourth wife, Donya Fiorentino, has found the "courage" to dredge up her 17-year-old disproved accusation that Oldman had physically abused her, and which he has denied, then as now. The outcome of their divorce, by the way and most interestingly, was that sole custody of their two sons was awarded to: HIM! That's SOLE CUSTODY.
As his 20-year-old son, Gulliver, has written in a moving and heartfelt open letter defending his father (which has been published by several outlets, including Variety) courts would never award custody of children to an abuser and not only that, very rarely to a father, period!
Gulliver Oldman's letter is more than a defense of his father's character; it's a tribute I would imagine any father would be overwhelmed to read. Here's one excerpt:
"My Father is my one and true guiding light. My only hero. He is the man I aspire one day to become. If I could only become even half as great and half as pure. I was granted the good graces of his fatherhood as a child to be raised by him and only him. For that I am eternally grateful every hour of every day. I owe him the world and I owe him my life."
And, no, he doesn't "bad mouth" his mother. Rather he says:
"If it appears that publicly speaking ill of my mother [is] something I am either fond of, or accustomed to, that is not the case. She has been a sad and very troubled person most of her life. Yes, she brought me into this world. She didn't however, teach me how to be a part of it."
Variety included Gulliver Oldman's entire statement in which he also takes the media to task for simply repeating allegations that had been proven untrue years ago. It can be read at the following URL:
https://variety.com/2018/film/news/gary-oldman-son-domestic-abuse-allegations-statement-1202719917/
And finally, I want to point out that Gary Oldman stood on that stage in front of that privileged, self-serving, self-important audience, supposedly of his "peers"—although few if any are that, in fact—and said the following:
"My deepest thanks to the Academy and its members for this glorious prize. I owe this and so much more to so many. I've lived in America for the longest time and I'm deeply grateful to her for the loves and the friendships I have made and the many wonderful gifts it has given me: my home, my livelihood, my family, and now Oscar."
Those comments were greeted with silence. Thanks to America? What the hell??
How sad that the only thanks for the opportunities and success this country has afforded so many in that town comes not from anyone fortunate enough to be born here, but from a LEGAL immigrant!
Anyway, every once in a while that dumb town actually rewards a real and very great practitioner of the art that the rest of them (with exceptions you can count on one hand today!) are clueless about.
Ooops! Fiorentino was Oldman's THIRD wife, not fourth. (I definitely need an "edit" button...or an editor!)
Regarding Paddy Chayefsky, he excoriated Vanessa Redgrave for making a political speech, saying he was sick of that sort of thing. And got interrupted by applause. Quite a difference from today.
Not hard to imagine the reaction today if an actor made a speech calling out Israel, and a presenter later excoriated them for politicizing the Oscars. I think about Paddy's Oscar moment every year when I hear the show is coming up, and viscerally react with "no way in hell I'm watching that!" I used to have friends "in the business", and would to the Oscar watching parties of those on the periphery that were not attending. Over time, it evolved into take-it-or-leave-it. Now it's come to seething dislike. They can call me when they want to go back to being an awards show and not a sit-in.
"Here in Hollywood, we were already perfect. Now we're even more perfect!"
Inclusion Rider. That must be how the admitted rapist Kobe Bryant still managed to be awarded an Oscar amidst Academy members' cheers and adoration in the middle of a #MeToo #TimesUp virtue-signaling fest.
I seizing on the word APOCALYPSE! A post on Drudge by the McClatchy site has stated that a Federal Judge inCalifornia named Alsup is asking for a "tutorial" on "Climate Change". Mark's "A Disgrace to the Profession" should be sent to him immediately as well as all lawyers representing both sides of the argument. The D,C, judge hearing Mark's case should be compelled to attend the presentations on March 21. Another possible plan to assist in the Judge's "tutorial" is start a GoFundMe for Mark to present facts to the Judge on March 21.
What say the Clubbers?
What the D.C. judges in Mark's case needed is a remedial course in "First Amendment," with a requirement to read and summarize New York Times v. Sullivan, and an essay question on "Why the Supreme Court didn't say, 'Just Leave It to the Jury.'"
Beyond that, I don't want judges deciding anything based on out-of-court propaganda, whatever its leanings. It's enough of a job to get them to apply the stuff they're supposed to be experts in. CAGW isn't an issue that belongs in the courtroom. The courts should be rejecting out of hand every effort to "make the heretics shut up about it," and leave the policy issues to the political branches.
Just nominate a day to collectively purchase Gift Certificates.
Today's Oscar ceremony has me smelling a rat. Look, it's great that Harvey Weinstein's getting pilloried and all, but it seems to me there's something....ummm...missing here. Harv's getting it in the neck from everyone, Kevin Spacey has been exiled and excoriated... but the only other really serious serial offenders are outside Hollywood (Matt Lauer), and/or pre-date Weinstein (Roger Ailes, Bill O'Reilly).
There's been a load of random allegations - this (http://time.com/5015204/harvey-weinstein-scandal/) is a huge list, but it's also a grab bag of everything that's ever been said about anyone, including Roman Polanski. Polanski is a lowlife, but it somewhat pre-dates the current situation. And there seems to be one either very sensitive or very alluring former NFL Network wardrobe stylist?
Surprising and courageous as allegations of sexual harassment against Michael Douglas & Gene Simmons may be, there is something really missing here. Even in this long list, much of it is either of the Garrison Keillor ilk, and/or well outside Hollywood. I think they've been successful in turning the spotlight elsewhere ("Wag The Dog", anyone?).
Where is the next Harvey Weinstein, and the one after that? I just don't believe that Harvey is it – and I'm not talking about every key grip that ever tried to proposition a makeup artist. I'm suggesting that he wasn't the only serious, serial, unashamed and "open secret" harasser and possible rapist in the ranks of senior Hollywood movers and glitterati. And if there are more, which there just has to be, then they are being hidden, facilitated and covered up by many of the same people that were just on public Oscar's display.
It just feels like, "Nothing to see here, move along folks, shows over", to me. Throw a few outliers to the wolves, then move on with business as usual. Or (more controversially) is it that powerful Hollywood women have got what they want (see Frances McDormand's acceptance speech, Michelle Williams pay dispute) and are moving on to the next thing?
I think you've hit the bull's eye. The actor John Krasinski unwittingly admitted what this is last week in "E! News": "Sexual harassment is the by-product of a system that failed women a long time ago. The sexual-harassment stuff is the disgusting by-product that is shaking people up and making people awake, but I hope we don't stop there. I hope we have 50 percent women in the workplace in power positions. I think it's a conversation about power more than anything else."
Notice that HW happened to be nearing his expiry date? I recall reading an article last year where a Hollywood insider, perhaps inadvertently, made the temporal connection with the events and Weinstein's relative "loss of power". So yes, there were/ are certainly others who were not as vulnerable due to the balance of power, and what subordinates stood to gain. Sol's quote here sums it up perfectly.
As long as Hollywood is voluntarily eliminating its systemic discriminatory practices, there is one that they missed, and it's a big one: nepotism. #HollywoodSoRelated
Lately I've been pondering if the AIDS ribbon was, if not the beginning of, at least the kicking into high gear of virtue signaling. It seems to me that it may. It's the first time I recall that it was possible to let everybody know what a great person you are by doing practically nothing.
There was even a Seinfeld episode about it. In it, Kramer participates in the AIDS walk, but refuses to wear the ribbon. He gets soundly beaten up for this -- "You must wear the ribbon!" It was the perfect example of signaling virtue being more important than actually doing anything about it.
Am I off base here?
Perhaps high gear did mean donning the ribbons with the Aids walk, but the genesis of the virtue signaling might possibly go back to the first Earth Day in 1970 with the motto "Act or Die"!
Definitely not off base. As soon as I started reading your comment (before getting to Seinfeld), I also thought: "Ribbon Bully". The show was way ahead of its time, with the mob in the back alley metaphorically very unsettling, 25 years later. And the Puerto Rico Day scene also very prescient. Maybe it's still ok to laugh about the armoire! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jIwSgv0Yr8g
Silly me. I thought the Oscars was about selling the next movie, and it turns out to be the Superbowl for people too short and pretty to play football - all about selling telly ads.
Now that the casting couch is a bed of nails, will we see the less-attractive ladies scoring the leading roles in future?
Wow, Steve and Sammy were real entertainers! Who could do that anymore!
So the point of Hollywood isn't entertainment anymore; it's morphed from "responsibility" and "courage" (to tell progressive stories and support progressive politics), to the "rights" of tax-paying actresses (and a few actors) to lecture the rest of us on their endemic problems, and demand affirmative action quotas apply to their system. Hollywood needs to own Harvey and not impugn men everywhere (Ballbounces' comment is spot on), whilst letting complicit Hollywood actresses off the hook (another MSC member pointed out a few months back that a certain transaction is correctly referred to as prostitution). As for "white washing" and other discrimination, could this too be the fault of Weinstein et al, whose power-broking appetites didn't extend to transwomen?
The only 3 minutes worth watching was the presentation by the amazing, wonderful, dignified and gracious 93 year old Eva Marie Saint.... a reminder of Hollywood of yore.
PS. Mark, your guest-hosting was brilliant, notwithstanding the occasional neck-bolt-popping brought on by Wendy's outlandish comments. If non-US viewers had been able to tune in to see you, I suspect the ratings would have been even better! Well done!
Mark guest-hosting radio or TV is always the best! As to your point re: Eva Marie Saint, My wife has her annual Oscars party in the front room, with champagne and chocolates. She and her best friend of over fifty years connect via speaker phone to dish on the gowns and hair, etc. The both worked in the studios back in the day (Columbia Motion Pictures, then Sony). My role is to watch my Live PD in the back room and when I come out front to refill my Pinot Grigio, to refill her champagne or whatever. This year I heard a yell so I came out of my cave to be instructed to look at Eva Marie Saint. My wife agrees with you, it is getting tougher to watch.
A lovely tradition, and how sad it must be for "insiders" to watch the bizarre decline of Hollywood. Eva Marie Saint was as poised and elegant as ever; her presence put the current crowd to shame.
When I hear about inclusion riders and such, I'm reminded of when Elizabeth, in Pirates of the Caribbean declares "You're pirates. Hang the code, and hang the rules. They're more like guidelines anyway."
Not to nitpick, but it's actually Barbossa, the pirate who took Captain Jack's ship, who says "they're more like guideline, anyway." It's important because Elizabeth appeals to the rules, only to be dismissed. That's liberalism/progressivism/whatever today: no actual rules, just guidelines to be dismissed at their convenience.
I think that's your point as well, I'm just nerdy enough to flesh it out.
Sorry, did not recognize your sarcasm.
Noel Coward a heterosexual? Mark, where have you been? He was as queer as a three bob note and proud of it. Just look at his "performance" in the Italian Job. No acting at all - still great though, not like today's poseurs.
John, I think all three men Mark mentioned were homosexual. And I am certain Mark was well aware of that when he wrote. How and why I knew that and knowingly chuckled when I read it I have no idea. Mostly. ;-)
Great comment on Hollywood today. Indeed, there is no there there.
Steve Lawrence and Sammy Davis Jr. Make it very clear that in the sands of time, 'Not to be nominated 'Not the Oscars Isa real honor. As an aside, have you ever seen the Axis of Awesome's Four Chord Song? https://youtu.be/5pidokakU4I
Your club could use an edit button or I could use better proofreading. Irrelevant aside, if Mueller doesn't sink the Titanic then in my no-political-experience opinion the Dems should run a credible moderate male. Sexism does exist and the planet is worth a dose of common sense.
Entertainers are meant to entertain, not to tell us off. But instead of playfully diverting us all, they pronounce moral judgments on the great un-Entertained. They don't like the name Entertainer either - it's not classy enough - a bit too close to a "Children's Entertainer' making balloon animals at a 7 year old's party. They prefer 'artists' - well OK, do some Entertaining art, Deep in the heart of an Entertainer there must bit a little voice that asks: 'Am I, as someone working in Hollywood, what with all this urm, turmoil, really qualified to strike moral poses?" When the answer comes, it's a resounding "Yes".
The the word 'Entertainer' suggests the court fool, but the 'Entertainers' have taken over the court.
"and in hard numbers we had, for example, almost twice the audience of Fox's newest star, Mark Levin, on his Sunday show. "
Mmm, I see what you did there.
Not sure what the blowup was between you and Levin/CRTV was. I remember reading something when it happened by someone at CRTV the gist of which was you are an insufferable, arrogant, what's that British naughty epithet, oh yeah tw...never mind. I guess we find out April 12. Too bad, I like both of you. BTW, are you insufferable and arrogant?
I think Levin has a head bigger than a zeppelin. And it seems even larger when he tells the audience how he doesn't like to brag — right before he does. So when I saw Levin doing a show from what looked like a desk in his den, and then saw Steyn's studio — with a band no less — I told my wife "this won't end well, Levin thinks he's the headliner." And here we are. I would not be surprised if Levin was involved with firing the torpedos from behind the scenes. And vaguely recall him plugging everyone on the network but Steyn in the run up to the cancellation. But this is simply my conjecture. I would be curious if Steyn ever had Levin deposed.
Not that Mark needs a suburban Zionist Jewish mother as his White Knight BUT....I feel I must jump in.
I can personally attest to the fact that Mark Steyn is a mensch, who is always genuinely interested in people and their stories (and remembers them, down to the very quirky and unique details) and who is indefatigable in doing the lion's share of work in the battle for civilization with great grace, humour and aplomb despite the crushing financial, psychological, social and emotional costs to him and the people around him.
*waves*
Amen! As Tucker would say: "Thank you for that!"
Kathy Shaidle is a serious contender for the position of second-finest living Canadian, but credit for pointing out that McDormand got a "lesson in diversity, good and hard" rightly goes to California's Steve Sailer.
Thank you to Mark Steyn and the Steyn Club commenters who watched the Oscars, found something to write about it, remembered what they are/were, knew who Jimmy Kimmel was, or somehow knew something or had any interest in the whole affair.
Please someone do remember to drop a comment when the first black gay muslim refugee illegal alien bisexual transgendered feminist wins the Most Diverse Role award or whatever since I'll probably be doing something much more fun like watching snow melt or grass grow or paint dry.
Bingo! I couldn't have said it better.
Hey, that was very funny! I gulped a big swing of my stout just before reading it but managed somehow not to explode.
Thanks so much for the Lawrence/Davis extravaganza. What talent! And who, but you, would even remember? Those were the days--and now we have you!
My husband and I (Toronto) watch Tucker nearly every night. The other night, I actually clapped when I saw you were the host. Mark, you never disappoint: you deserve your own show.
You're a witty, wise and wonderful antidote to so much of what's wrong these days. Godspeed!
What an enlightening "item" to comment on.The insight into 2018. The fond recall of what show biz used to be. The Oscars were family appointment television. The type of item that brings out the best of the club's commentators . This item best in show goes to sol Cranfill.
When you have seen the very best in entertainment all else pales in comparison. Once live on Jack Parr's old show for us night owls, he was demonstrating a skiing simulator, a wide conveyor belt contraption. He managed to fall, then got dragged up to the top by the "carpet" where his ass received a good pinch, judging by his loud scream. The audience was hysterical with laughter for minutes and trouper that he was, he rolled back and forth, his face very expressive of both real and possibly feigned pain.
Perhaps the Oscars should write in something similar next time.
That's Entertainment!
Heh. "The world is watching us."
No they aren't! And this not-watched flop sweat seems to accurately concide with the 'not watched' repulsive films they produce. What a laugh about 'free speech' ! Not a hiccup in the Oscars isn't scripted. Someone commented earlier about the prison atmosphere - totes agree. The ladies staring at the teleprompters all looked like they had Stockholm Syndrome denouncing everyone except their captors ... and it's a standard phrase for the past 100 years that the studios 'own' the 'stars' - shouldn't they be questioning that mentality or is more than just a mentality? Never knew anything about Kimmel (don't have TV) but after a very low-effort browse to see what he's done in his career... ouf!l! That wasn't hard to discover how demeaning to women his work has been, and they ALL know it.
Fantastic column, Mark! And fantastic medley by Sammy and Steve. I missed that one back in the days when I actually watched the Oscars.
Regarding Fox News, when are they going to wake up and make The Mark Steyn Show part of their lineup? That would certainly make me splice back the cable cord that I recently cut to avoid enriching ESPN.
Thanks so much for posting the Steve Lawrence/Sammy Davis Jr video. I just watched it and can't stop smiling. They're GOOD!
I worked all day Sunday, so when I came home, I turned off my brain and sat in front of the Oscar show. I had not seen one movie all year, so I had no rooting interest in any film or anyone. Being Canadian, I was hoping that the fish-person story would win some swag as it was all filmed here with Canadian crews. The only other thing I hoped for was for someone to fall off the stage and plop on Streep's lap in her "usual" seat.
Thanks for posting that duet by Steve and Sammy. That is a display of real talent. I was gobsmacked at how bad the nominees for best song were this year, and how poorly those songs were performed. It sounded to me like each performer had serious pitch problems as well, though if it was all of them, that might have been a sound system problem. That said, they all have those systems in their ears with the very best equipment 21st century technology and money can buy. Contrast that to the duet you posted, where two professionals, using old time microphones with 100 foot cords being pulled by roadies at the side of the stage, where you can see the guy in the background turning the sheet music, no ear monitors - all decidedly low-tech by our standards. And yet, pitch perfect.
The biggest difference, though, is the joy you can sense in Steve and Sammy's performance. Who knows - they might have thought it was the dummest thing they ever sang, but they smiled and harmonized and padded around the stage and sang joyfully for 10 minutes without dancers, props, fake smoke or anything but their own panache and voices. The performers at this year's Oscars were morose, and frankly, lacked any charisma at all.
I think Carson said it best, jamming 10 minutes of entertainment into 4 hours.
And by the way, if we are so trans and intersectional and all the other BS they are telling us we should be, why are there still different categories for actors and actresses?
Actually David, diversity calls for expanding the categories, not contracting them. For instance, the Oscar for Best Performance by a Lead Actress with a Penis. Or, Best Score by a Gender Non-Conforming First Peoples Composer.
"Best Performance by a Lead Actress with a Penis." Bwahahahaaaa
I always enjoy your shows, Mark.
As a fan with some understanding of rhetoric, I suggest you work on your Tucker face when some non compos mentis spouts talking points. Either that or force the conversation towards your agenda as Tucker did with Dr. Lady Gun-Ban last night. Canadian politeness only emboldens them. I will say once your slow burn reached combustion you did sound the charge as well as any polemical cable personality. (No snide insult intended by cable personality -- O.K. snide insult intended towards OTHER cable personalities.)
I'm looking forward to tonight.Stay Awesome!
Maybe the lack of blockbusters is due to audiences becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the "collective moral narcissism, ... cloying and nauseating" distracting from the entertainment. But their business is fiction, so it's not surprising they begin to believe their narcissism.
I have a solution for their sex assault problem, though. Just include martial arts in every school curriculum beginning about third grade. Hard to imagine anyone thinking they could assault a real world Laura Croft. Weakness encourages assault. It's human nature.
The truly unnerving thing is when I am in that nursing home and nurse Ratchet has the remote in lock down, I'll be watching some future MSNBC broadcast day after day after day.
I would love to have a "Real People Awards" where, for example, we could all tune it to see a veteran recognized, instead of the numbskull actor who simply plays him in the biopic. Or if you have to have the numbskull actor, have Mark Wahlberg come out and lead a round of applause for Marcus Luttrell or the Deepwater Horizon engineer that he portrays in the latest movie.
"my hairpiece stays on." I KNEW it!! Can we get one at the Steyn Store? I'd like to send one to a noted climatecueballogist.
Could we simplify things, just for thinking convenience?
If Hollywood can lose ratings, and therefore - one would think - lose money. it isn't a business anymore.
Maybe it is a government? Like Canada's billion-dollar progressive bandwagon, the CBC? Now demanding ever more money to burn?
Just a thought: I'd personally suggest less of a focus on how stupid Hollywood is and more of a focus on what could motivate anyone to still care about it who isn't over eighty years old.?
Every movie cast must needs represent humanity and reflect the Global Village ideal: 50% Asian, 24% African, 4% American, 0.2% Melanesian, etc. It would be very interesting to see an entertainment industry that was Jewish only to the same proportion that the world is Jewish. The 1979 musical medley here is a Jew and a Jew, singing the arrangement by a Jew (or maybe two?), incorporating the work of who knows how many Jews.
The less Jewy version would be considerably less neurotic and schmaltzy but definitely more boring. Try to imagine Christmas without Jewish songwriters!
Is it enough to say 50% Asian? Shouldn't we say 15% Chinese, 15% Indian, 5% Indonesian, etc.? Should we break down Indians into Muslims vs. Hindis vs. whatever?
You can never satisfy someone who plays these types of games. So don't play!
It is amazing how many of these tone deaf echo chambers exist in our society: schools, universities, large corporate employers, all mainstream advertising, government. Sometimes I'm tempted to pull at my hair and (speaking of Paddy Chayefsky) go full Howard Beale. If Tucker asked the audience to scream out our windows - I have a feeling a large section of us might just comply. Except while we might be "mad as hell" we appear hell bent on taking more and more of it. If only someone could organize some mass resistance to the hell that is the secular religion. Say what you want about Savonarola unlike Jimmy Kimmel he didn't start his career in the blasphemy business before going all high and mighty (the Man Show... cough Jimmy...).
Girls bouncing on trampolines. And other such stuff.
I hate Twitter, but I really should have tweeted that to Kimmel on Monday.
That's why we need Steyn— the boy from the Emperor's New Clothes.
And if Kimmel is the best they could do, it's no wonder there's a problem.
It's worse than not replacing Steve and Sammy with anything, they replaced them with a 'hiphop' 'star' named 'Common' who 'rapped' a bunch of words that barely rhymed. 'Immigrants to get the benefits...' What do you suppose all those massively talented black artists would make of that?
To turn a phrase, just when those talented black artists thought they were in, they were pushed back out.
For Inclusion Rider, see 'Pale Rider'.
I don't understand some things.
If the white people at the Oscars wanted it to be less white, then why didn't they just come out in blackface?
Mark replies:
Actually, diversity fetishization is a kind of metaphorical minstrelsy.
Mark's point is very true but not obvious, particularly to leftists who, because they have convinced themselves that up is down and white is black, have permanently lost the ability to think logically.
"Actually, diversity fetishization is a kind of metaphorical minstrelsy."
Now that is a great line. It's like the little dog Paris Hilton carries in her purse.
This was terrific, and the clip, well, that was really something!
Mark, thank you, thank you for that fantastic medley. Now I know at least one good thing that came out of the 70s!
I can't claim to be under fifty (I am, literally, fifty), but I knew all of them. Part of that is playing in a gigging string quartet with Carlo Martelli, some thirty years ago. Yes, my introduction to The Great American Songbook was in London. Carlo made arrangements of several of these songs. Some of them were a bit too hard to sight-read ("They All Laughed" comes to mind), but they're all wickedly clever. (Carlo had a sort of friendly duel going with Bill Thorp; when Thorp worked Tristan into an arrangement, he countered with a version of "Cheek to Cheek" incorporating chunks of Die Meistersinger But I digress.)
But your point, which I heartily endorse, is that in '79 two people wrote that (as you say) fiendish medley, and two other people rehearsed it to perfection, and the audience applauded as each new tune came in. I don't think that either the performance or the audience reaction would be possible today. Which is damn sad, if you ask me.
Jimmy Kimmel's "mansplaining" sexual harassment in the workplace got me to thinking that I haven't signaled nearly enough virtue lately. But how? I considered wearing sparkling gowns with plunging necklines, but in that department I bring less to the table than even the least endowed starlet. And then I thought: trousers. Women shouldn't be stereotyped in sparkling gowns with plunging necklines (not just, anyway), but as going about their womanly business in a good old pair of pants. There, I said it! To show solidarity with my sisters, I will be seen out only in blue jeans, khakis, and the occasional baggy sweat pants. At least until summer comes. You're welcome, ladies.
Just as long as you're not wearing cargo pants. Grown men who do wear them should be castrated [although, I suppose, in a sense, they already are].
Bah! Spoken like a true fashionista. Perhaps someone would prefer a cargo dress instead. I'd like to see that castrated line used on a Special Forces operator wearing his cargo pants.
It's always good practice for a man to be prepared.
I wear cargo shorts all the time in the summer. They're the best for carting around the wallet, sunglasses, keys, and all the other things necessary these days. When travelling backpack style cargo pants are the best for the same reasons, particularly the type that you can zip the legs off of as it gives that much more flexibility and therefore requires less to pack.
Now if I were planning on going to a classy event like the Oscars, maybe I'd stay away from the zip-off legs because it's important to give the event the respect it deserves and the zips just might be construed as a prepared Weinstien wardrobe malfunction.
Cargp pants? Baggy shorts on a grown man yes, but cargo pants?
Cargo pants have their place. Police and military use them, many people in the trades use them and the operative word is USE. As Tom says, sometimes they are necessary to pack in all the things you need, especially if you don't carry a purse. Not that there's anything wrong with that. In addition to Tom's list, doggie treats, dog ball, dog leash, doggie poop pickup bags... You see where I'm going with this?
Don't forget cell phone, pocket knife, girlfriend's cell phone and wallet and lip balm and sunglasses case (if her shorts don't have baggy pockets I'm fine with that!). Oh yeah, it's best if the cargo gear is some shade of khaki too; lavender and peach and whatnot belong elsewhere.
Besides, I really don't know just where or when cargo short or pants became ostracised. If you do anything that's at all outdoors or active in general then they're great. And personally I prefer the look over this sort of thing. I consider some of those to be neither gentlemanly nor manly, nor even womanly. But they sure are stylish!
https://video.gq.com/watch/upgrade-your-style-summer-shorts
As an added benefit to myself for having looked up that video, I apparently now have permission to wear a long sleeve shirt with shorts, but only if I roll up the sleeves. If only I had known that last summer I wouldn't be so filled with angst now! Those people can stay in New York or San Francisco or wherever it is they hideout from the real world. As the saying goes, if they're looking at your shoes they're probably afraid to look you in the eye. I dress comfortably and respectably and am indifferent to what colour is 'in' during this or any other year.
I meant cargo shorts...apologies.
Maybe next year they can have Steve Winwood drop by and do a rousing rendition of "Inclusion Rider." I do believe Dave Mason is still available as well.
Maybe Mick Jagger doing The Midnight Rambler.
I'd prefer a medley of songs that sticks to the theme. Perhaps, Inclusion Rider (by Traffic), Inclusion Riders on the Storm (by The Doors), Midnight Inclusion Rider (by the Allman Brothers Band) and Low Inclusion Rider (by War). I'm open to other suggestions. Too bad Sammy Davis isn't available to give it a whirl. Mark?
All good choices.
Perhaps, also: CC Inclusion Rider [by Chuck Willis or The Animals] or Ghost Inclusion Riders In The Sky [by Vaughn Monroe].
Mark replies:
I think "Ghost Inclusion Riders in the Sky" is my favorite so far. Would have loved to see Vaughn Monroe loom up behind Frances McDormand and start intoning...
She would have giggled with that teenage girl giggle she showed-off the other night.
Too bad because she's a damn fine actress...or actor...or actron — whatever term is fashionable among The Beautiful People this minute.
The Hollywood elites are hard at work making themselves irrelevant to the real world and their incessant posturing amounts to mental onanism. I think in 10 years there likely won't be any Academy Awards, as more and more people realize just how vapid these people are.
Nice column again Mr. Steyn. Unfortunately I'm one of those that can't tune in to Fox due primarily to geography. But it is nice to see the bits I can on here.
Regards
Have you tried downloading the FOX News App, Tom? I believe it's free and you could catch more samplings if you wanted.
A lot of FOX programming is available on YouTube, although with a 12-hour lag. Better late than never?
Don't forget the pre-Oscar Red Carpet shows. I can't even remember which one my wife was watching because the plastic hosts toadying to the stars all look the same to me. The only thing that caught my attention was one hostess breathlessly gushing how fantastic it was that this year the Oscars were "less white."
I never watch the Oscars but I used to watch the red carpet event. I haven't since Joan Rivers passed away. Her brand of comedy was not for everyone, but I loved it.
This is the apparently the new Leftist global agenda: get rid of whites.
I believe you are exactly right. And I fear we will all too willingly cooperate with that agenda.
Had dinner with a good friend last week. She's an elderly woman, in her eighties, I think, and normally pretty sensible. I have always known her to sincerely straddle the center line, with an occasional sprint to the far left.
She breezily declared, "White people are becoming obsolete."
I said, "What an awful thing to say!"
To which she replied, "Who cares? Let them fade out."
"You mean let US fade out?"
"Our time is over. Let someone else step up."
When I pressed her further, she waved her hands and changed the subject. If an impressionable 80-odd-year-old broad with her own storied past is eager to see her heritage and history wither to dust and distant memory (an idea that would get you hanged if you wished it on any other race of people), then what are the 20-somethings thinking in this white-hostile climate? We whites are indeed peculiar in this hatred of ourselves.
Laugh-out-loud, shocking, crass humor, and when you laughed you covered your mouth and looked around to make sure no one saw. Only she could pull that off. Loved her.
Just curious, does the elderly woman have children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren to think about?
So true Susanna. Rivers reminded me of the saying, "A drunk man's words are a sober man's thoughts." She expressed opinions that many people thought, but could never say out loud. I loved her for that.
Elderly people can get a little gloomy, I guess, as they've seen it all or maybe they just deal with chronic pain, so I cut them some slack. Too, they're entitled to speak their mind, but I believe she was reflecting on what's happening around the world. If you put the bits of what we soak up everyday, it's hard not to think it. What convinced me was that documentary one of the club members, Calvert Whitehurst, suggested last week in comments under Mark's post, "Decadence and Neo-Apartheid." It was called "Addio Africa." It was hard to watch, but it hit me then that eliminating our white Anglo race is something some Leftists would go for.
And South Africa's Julius Malema has said to "go after white people" and "we are cutting the throat of whiteness." But here at home all the self-loathing talk of "white privilege" is copious evidence of that the "get rid of whites" movement is afoot.
My friend wasn't gloomy and has no chronic pain. Her tone was approving, "progressive."
Legions of them.
Hear hear! RIP the Incomparable Joan - Golly, I really miss her.
I do hope those SOBs who killed her have been properly punished and disbarred from practicing.
I'd have lurved to hear what Joan would have said about all the Hollywood virtue signalling of the past year. T'would have been marvellous to hear and to see their reactions when she put it to the 'A' listers directly! Now, THAT thought makes me chuckle!! :-D
It was a really awful and outlandish remark she made, I certainly have to agree. I must have an auto reflex for making excuses for why people say the crazy things they say. Maybe, too, I've seen enough elderly people go through some rough things that makes them susceptible to being morose and thoughtless. "Progressive" fits into that picture as well.
You are very kind and right to give the benefit of the doubt. Let's hope she was just in a mood and didn't mean what she said.
I'm happy for anyone to step up - but that doesn't mean that I have to lie down.
I think the deeper thing that those anti-white leftists, or whatever they are, are going for is the elimination of the individual liberties established in the legal codes of the West, particularly the ones recognizing the right to think for oneself and to speak one's mind freely without legal penalty.
The need for those rights rights applies to every human mind, everywhere, but they were most firmly established in law and practiced in the West. So those who chafe at Western respect for facts and reason and the requirement to rigorously prove one's assertions confuse that with "whiteness" and especially with white men. And hence they dream of handicapping or getting rid of the race they associate with the rigour of objective thought.
The fact that the human mind, regardless of race, functions best when it's free to develop its honest reasoning capacity and that this is not a "white" thing, but a human thing is beyond the grasp of these silly, destructive people. It's clear in their approach to dissenters from their dogma that they neither understand nor embrace the crucial need of the mind to function free from coercion.
That's the real divide - the people who understand the need of the mind to think honestly and rationally and to be free from coercion versus the people who feel oppressed by intellectual rigour and want to rule others through coercion and decree.
It's not actually a racial issue. Non-whites who are dedicated to honest analysis and robust intellectual exchange and who depart from PC dogma are treated by these asses as "white" and as race traitors. The same goes for members of any other minority who don't go along with the script.
As well as pain and a general your elderly friend may be suffering from the ennui of old age and the feeling that when she passes, everything (in this case of her culture) should come to an end. It's a widely held emotion and has been remarked on by Mark in previous columns in different contexts.
You pack a lot of clarity into your comment. I do really appreciate your thoughts on the topic. Perhaps it's the best summary of the crux of some of the social disturbances we're witnessing currently.
Thank you, Fran!