It’s almost impossible to make heads or tails of the Motion Picture Academy’s stupid, anti-art diversity rules. A good faith interpretation tells me the following Best Pictures would not have won Best Picture had these stupid, anti-art diversity rules been in place at the time.
Keep in mind, I’m only going back 20 years… This is just the last 20 years… Kinda silly to go back any further. Besides, the sheer number of Best Picture winners over just the last 20 years that would have been snubbed for not hitting a stupid racial/gay quota makes the point pretty well, I think.
- Spotlight (2015)
- Argo (2012)
- The Artist (2011)
- The King’s Speech (2010)
- The Hurt Locker (2008)
- No County For Old Men (2007)
- Departed (2006)
- Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003)
- Chicago (2002)
- A Beautiful Mind (2001)
- Gladiator (2000)
Yep, more than half.
Lordy, don’t get me started on the 90s…
American Beauty, Shakespeare in Love, Titanic, The English Patient, Braveheart, Forrest Gump, Schindler’s List, Silence of the Lambs, Unforgiven.
Only one from the 90s that would’ve been spared is Dances with Wolves.
Chicago and Silence of the Lambs revolve around women, sure, but you have to meet a second quota-criteria, and I don’t see it.
Chicago sucked anyway.
So basically, what we have here is an affirmative action program, and when you look back, you can see that had this stupid quota system been in place over the last 30 years, most of the movies that earned Best Picture would not have won. Instead the Best Picture winner would not have been the Best Picture, but rather the Best Affirmative Action Picture.
Which is kinda sad.
Think about it this way…
Had Moonlight (2016), The Shape of Water (2017), Green Book (2018), Parasite (2019), and 12 Years a Slave (2013) — all Best Picture winners– won under these new rules, there would be a mental asterisk next to them forever. Did they deserve to win, or are they affirmative action winners?
But I’m seeing a whole mess of loopholes in these stupid rules…
I’m not going to rehash it all. You can look for yourself here. Take a close look-see and tell me you don’t smell a rat.
With the caveat I could be wrong when things are better explained, at first glance it appears that if you can convince the Academy your Best Boy identifies as a girl, or the assistant editor is bisexual because he had a drunken threesome with his girlfriend and a college roommate, or a senior executive on the marketing team is more Cherokee than Elizabeth Warren, or Shaun King is an associate producer, or a harelip does too count as a disability…
See what I’m getting at?
Feels like gloss.
The other problem is China. A racist country. China hates black people and all that gay stuff. Hollywood loves China’s markets and tailors movie after movie to appease China’s racist tyrants. That’s not going to change.
But just for a moment, let’s pretend these stupid, anti-art diversity quotas are sincere…
Well, as stupid and anti-art as they are, this is what happens when you’re an industry 50 years behind the American public when it comes to racial progress.
When I was growing up during the 80s — and growing up during the 80s was awesome — the biggest movie star, comedian, primetime TV star, daytime TV star, sports stars, and pop singer were all black.
Eddie Murphy.
Richard Pryor.
Bill Cosby.
Oprah Winfrey.
Magic Johnson, Mike Tyson, Sugar Ray Leonard, Bo Jackson.
Michael Jackson.
Nevertheless, Hollywood refused to catch up with mainstream, everyday Americans who long ago accepted black superstars. Hollywood is racist, is way behind the times, and because it refused to stop being racist, now it’s being regulated.
It’s not right. These rules are stupid and anti-art.
Still, that doesn’t mean Hollywood didn’t have it coming.
Like we all needed another reason to not watch the Oscars, right?
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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