Stef - I totally stand with you: it is not high-falootin' to think the Academy Awards should represent the best of the film industry's impact on society.
That said...I grew up in Los Angeles. I know people in the business. My mother worked as an actress's personal assistant for about 20 years and met many Hollywood personalities. I met a few when I went to visit her at work.
The MPAA is not about caring for society. It's about clapping each other on the back and rubber-stamping each other's decisions. The actress my mother worked for would give my mother tapes to watch and give an opinion for the actress to vote. It's horrifying to glorify these people.
It reminds me of academia, which is now falling victim to its bro focus as peer-reviewed journal articles are retracted for crappy data rubber-stamped by the primary investigator's buddies. It is ridiculous, and certainly not the way a civilized society is intended to act.
I hope David Rubin's opinion becomes reality. I guess time will tell.
Absolutely. I appreciate you sharing that about your history. I feel the same way about publishing. People think it is so liberal and progressive, but it is ridiculously right wing and conservative and plagued by just as much systemic nonsense as the movies.
And yet publishing, like the movies, has been the industry by which so many of our greatest works of art have found the mechanism to bring them into existence. Sometimes what is merely virtue signalling is then claimed as legitimate and used to empower those for whom authentic gestures matter.
I support the mission statement I quoted. Or rather, I support the Academy Awards, but not the Academy. I will applaud everyone of diversity who gets an Oscar, but I'll do so while pointing at the Academy and saying, "This happened despite you not because of you lol"
Stef - I totally stand with you: it is not high-falootin' to think the Academy Awards should represent the best of the film industry's impact on society.
That said...I grew up in Los Angeles. I know people in the business. My mother worked as an actress's personal assistant for about 20 years and met many Hollywood personalities. I met a few when I went to visit her at work.
The MPAA is not about caring for society. It's about clapping each other on the back and rubber-stamping each other's decisions. The actress my mother worked for would give my mother tapes to watch and give an opinion for the actress to vote. It's horrifying to glorify these people.
It reminds me of academia, which is now falling victim to its bro focus as peer-reviewed journal articles are retracted for crappy data rubber-stamped by the primary investigator's buddies. It is ridiculous, and certainly not the way a civilized society is intended to act.
I hope David Rubin's opinion becomes reality. I guess time will tell.
Absolutely. I appreciate you sharing that about your history. I feel the same way about publishing. People think it is so liberal and progressive, but it is ridiculously right wing and conservative and plagued by just as much systemic nonsense as the movies.
And yet publishing, like the movies, has been the industry by which so many of our greatest works of art have found the mechanism to bring them into existence. Sometimes what is merely virtue signalling is then claimed as legitimate and used to empower those for whom authentic gestures matter.
I support the mission statement I quoted. Or rather, I support the Academy Awards, but not the Academy. I will applaud everyone of diversity who gets an Oscar, but I'll do so while pointing at the Academy and saying, "This happened despite you not because of you lol"