Hooray for Hollywood
Monday, March 8th, 2010In the Old Testament, a young shepherd vanquished a formidable giant in the Valley of Elah.
At the 2010 Oscar ceremony, David again triumphed over Goliath with a stone called “The Hurt Locker.” The flood of awards moved viewers around the world. Underdog stories are always good for a tear or two, much like the joy many felt when the scrappy, almost-straight-to-DVD “Slumdog Millionaire” ate the field’s lunch last year.
You may be wondering why a column traditionally devoted to American politics is focusing on Hollywood. The answer is simple. Apart from the battles over legislation and election season, no event in the US is more political than the Oscars. This year was no exception.
It’s likely that Cameron’s epic “Avatar,” the highest-grossing movie of all time and the end result of over a decade of work, lost for the simple reason that Hollywood doesn’t much like James Cameron. Jealousy always comes into play. Stephen Spielberg was not nominated for Best Director for “The Color Purple”, which, like “Avatar” and “The Hurt Locker”, was also nominated for 11 Oscars. It wasn’t until “Schindler’s List” that Spielberg received an award — because it was impossible not to give him the Oscar for creating a modern day masterpiece. Spielberg was a victim of his own success — too much, too soon, too much money, without waiting his turn like a good boy. Cameron is not only rich, but he’s also something of a pushy jerk.
So despite all the hoopla over Avatar’s box office gross and stories about (weirdo) viewers visiting shrinks because they didn’t live on Pandora or their frustrated desires to be reincarnated as Na’vi, the fact remained that Avatar was a glossed up “Ferngully” crossed with “Dances with Wolves” with special effects out of “The Lord of the Rings.” The script was a crude, cliche-ridden howler. It’s the CGI that kept people coming back for more, not the bio-babble plot featuring an intergallactic botanist.
It was apparent in the days leading up to the Oscars that “The Hurt Locker” was a serious contender and not just a flash in the pan. Conveniently timed hit pieces began popping up in the media, featuring interviews with Iraq war vets disputing the the realism of Jeremy Renner’s bomb squad officer. The campaign was similar to the 2002 unsuccessful hit job against “A Beautiful Mind,” a smear campaign so nasty that it drove the film’s real-life protagonist John Nash back into isolation.
2002 featured another smear campaign, this time aimed at Senator Max Cleland of Georgia. Cleland, a Vietnam veteran who lost two legs and an arm after a grenade explosion, was defeated by Congressman Saxby Chambliss, a multiple draft dodger whose ad attacking Cleland intimating that he was a Saddam/bin Laden fellow traveler. Naturally the campaign was the brainchild of the master of dirty tricks Karl Rove. Like John Nash, Cleland spiraled into depression and disappeared from view until 2004, when he energetically campaigned for John Kerry.
Some may think that “The Hurt Locker’s” win is a political act, marking a turning point in recognition of Iraq films, all of which have done poorly at the box office. Nonsense. “The Hurt Locker” could have taken place in any war zone at any time in history. The drama of an adrenaline junkie who misses his family when he’s away from them and disarming bombs when he’s at home is a psychological drama, not a political one. If the Academy had wanted to send a political message, members could have awarded the superb “Redacted” or “In the Valley of Elah,” a movie featuring one of the most shockingly brave endings in the history of war films.
So Kathryn Bigelow becomes the first woman ever to win a “Best Director” Oscar for making an apolitical set in Iraq. For those who are bound to be disappointed that Bigelow didn’t do the Jane Fonda raised fist salute, don’t worry. Her powerful and subtle depiction of the horror of war and the PTSD that results from daily exposure to heat, desolation, danger and horror is profoundly moving. Had it been political the Academy would have been too craven and frightened to back it.
And you can take that to Price Waterhouse.
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Crosspost from: The Pakistan Update