Michelle, the Oscars and Autocratic Trappings [View all]

[cthulu2016]

Last edited Mon Feb 25, 2013, 04:57 PM - Edit history (2)

First Point: If Laura Bush had announced the best picture winner at any point in the reign of the Chimperor the DU reaction would be strikingly and hilariously different, so the whole thing is an exercise in deep hypocrisy.

Nancy Reagan actually had a connection to the film industry, but having her announce the best picture winner during the Regan presidency would have been a vile and alienating gesture.

How about Ann Romney handing out the trophy at the Superbowl... I'm sure all of DU would have loved that!

Second Point: Having the wife of the national leader announce the best picture winner is the sort of crap America exists to avoid.

Our chief executive and his family is not supposed to be the ubiquitous personification of the nation.

It is in very poor taste, and un-American and antiquated and hearkens back to the worst of human history. That doesn't mean it was a tragedy... nobody died... but it was GROSS. The Academy should not have asked, though they have the right to do so, and she should surely have not accepted.

It was like the Emperor Louis Napoleon announcing the prizes at the Paris salon... distasteful, but what one would expect from 19th century France. Even if Louis Napoloen didn't judge the Salon, it's gross to have the Emperor come out to tell you what the good paintings are.

I get 'the fear' from a state imprimatur on the arts.

And I get the double-fear from the wife of the Commander in Chief amid military trapping announcing that a hagiography of the CIA and her husbands efforts to kill Osama Bin Laden being the apogee of our most vital art form... which easily could have happened. (Fortunately Zero Dark Thirty didn't win, and she only announced an award for a film that exposes the wickedness of a nation her husband is currently deciding whether to bomb.)

And I get the triple fear from the fact that the MPAA has tons of business before the government about how to protect their copyrights from The People, and were mostly Democratic contributors. (If they were mostly Republican contributors and Laura Bush gave that kind of national imprimatur to their trade organization awards show...)

And anyone who has the slightest capacity for thinking beyond naked partisanship (and celebrity worship) should get this. Seriously... isn't anyone capable of principled thinking???

This is America, where the president watches the Oscars just like everybody else, and where art and sports should be, to the degree piratical, separate from, and a vacation from, the freaking State.

I have never cared for the F'ing president calling to congratulate the winning super bowl team. It is very ROMAN. And why should I have to hear what Richard Nixon thinks of the football team I follow???

When the question is, "Should the First Lady announce the best picture winner at the Oscars?" the answer is not, "What party is she?"

The answer is, "No... of course not. That's gross."

There is not, nor has there ever been any American political figure who I would not say the same about. This has nothing whatsoever to do with Michelle Obama. (When I was a child, IIRC, the 4th of July fireworks on the mall tried to do a picture of LBJ in the sky, drawn with fire... that was way grosser!)

The biggest problem with the Chimp was not that he was a bad emperor. It was that he was an emperor, period.