So, how is this honorarium and departure manifesting? Well, in 3 ways, basically - by the depictions in the nominated films themselves, by the #OscarsSoWhite mortification and boycott movement, and by the #HollywoodSoOldWhiteMen movement that's about to get underway.
Starting with the movies...
"The Big Short," "Spotlight," "Room," "Bridge of Spies," "Brooklyn," and "The Revenant" all harken back to recent or not so recent moments in time when the primary themes of 3D life were greed and corruption, sexual abuse and denial, paranoia and xenophobia, prejudice and nativism, survival and revenge.
Ah, you gotta love dualistic, linear, time-limited consciousness!
Then, there's Mad Max and The Martian, set in a future created by the most popular 3D themes of all: fear, fear and more fear! Fear of abandonment, of course, fear of technology, and fear of the ever present imaginings of a dystopian, nuclear war torn, water-deprived doom in the not-too-distant future.
What anticipatory, optimistic fun, eh?! Well, actually, it was for a while, in its way, and I sort of enjoyed most of the films above, but with a sense of relief to be moving on from those old story lines.
Onto #OscarsSoWhite... so much has already been said and written about this embarrassment that all I can add is... Really?!
Starting with the movies...
"The Big Short," "Spotlight," "Room," "Bridge of Spies," "Brooklyn," and "The Revenant" all harken back to recent or not so recent moments in time when the primary themes of 3D life were greed and corruption, sexual abuse and denial, paranoia and xenophobia, prejudice and nativism, survival and revenge.
Ah, you gotta love dualistic, linear, time-limited consciousness!
Then, there's Mad Max and The Martian, set in a future created by the most popular 3D themes of all: fear, fear and more fear! Fear of abandonment, of course, fear of technology, and fear of the ever present imaginings of a dystopian, nuclear war torn, water-deprived doom in the not-too-distant future.
What anticipatory, optimistic fun, eh?! Well, actually, it was for a while, in its way, and I sort of enjoyed most of the films above, but with a sense of relief to be moving on from those old story lines.
Onto #OscarsSoWhite... so much has already been said and written about this embarrassment that all I can add is... Really?!
That's it? That's all you've got, Academy members?!
Oh well, now, the movement I'm most excited about - the #HollywoodSoOldWhiteMen farewell!
These days, most people in the movie business under 65 years of age are pretty clear that the "Studio System" and the so-called "Golden Age of Hollywood" are defunct, certainly dying if not quite dead.
Old or aging white male moguls, titans and tyrants, who ruled with an iron fist for so long, keeping women, racial minorities, gays, and ironically, people their own age, locked out of positions of power or out of the choicest roles in films, are being challenged by younger, diverse, enlightened minds and rapid advances in technology and social media.
And just as traditional studio filmmaking gave way (somewhat) to independent filmmaking, and Network television gave way to Cable, which is giving way to Netflix, Hulu and AmazonPrime, all of which will give way to home grown, grassroots production companies and collectives very soon, the oligarchy that has been Hollywood is heading for its final moments on stage next Sunday.
More prescient that he may have known, Billy Joel's apocalyptic song from 1976 was our clarion call to "Say good-bye to Hollywood!"
See ya!
Flash! Hot off the press - "Hollywood still 'straight, white, boys’ club', finds major diversity survey!"
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