Award show or post-election rundown? Welcome to Hollywood, where each time art is recognized it’s stigmatized with politics.
If you didn’t watch the 89th annual Academy Awards, I’m sure any social media outlet gave you the update on what turns out every year to be the biggest night in Hollywood. Late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel guided the night into a mix up for best picture. (“La La Land,” you are forever in our hearts) The night was filled with subtle political jabs from the start.
Kimmel jumped the gun with a direct tweet to the POTUS and Emma Stone wore a Planned Parenthood pin on her dress. Has Hollywood taken the platform too far? Nights like the Oscars are geared toward appreciating people who create film and the art surrounding it. Lately, however, it’s geared toward targeting political agendas.
As presenter Warren Beatty said that night:
“I think that it could be said that our goal in politics is the same as our goal in art, and that’s to get to the truth. So, that’s like in the movies that we honor tonight that not only entertain us and move us. They show us the increasing diversity in our community and a respect for diversity and freedom all over the world.”
Yes, art in film is a depiction and representation of the world around us. The need for the truth and purity in film is what ties us to the entertainment world. Film should show us these values, make us feel them, not get up and tell us. Or, at the very least, celebrities should tone it down a bit.
Can Hollywood just spend a night appreciating the work that brings the world together?
Between the Golden Globes with Meryl Streep’s speech, Katy Perry’s politics at the Emmys and now the Oscars, the appreciation of art is being over-shadowed by political agendas. While these platforms do provide a great voice for what needs attention, it has been overdone.
Maybe next year Hollywood will go back to a night of appreciating good, hard work, instead of making cheap political jabs.