Please don’t talk politics at the Oscars
At the Golden Globes in January, Meryl Streep reminded everyone that Donald Trump is, in fact, president of the United States and that he is a bad person.
At the Grammys two weeks ago, Busta Rhymes reminded everyone that Donald Trump is, in fact, president of the United States and that he is a bad person. “I just want to thank President Agent Orange,” he remarked, “for perpetuating all of the evil that you’ve been perpetuating throughout the United States.”
The overwhelming likelihood is that we’ll get the same reminder on Sunday night during the Oscars, and probably a full-throated one on the order of Michael Moore’s in 2003: “Shame on you, Mr. Bush! Shame on you!”
If I were a man of the left, maybe I would find more to like about these “political” outbursts — and let’s admit that the “politics” of celebrity confabs are left-liberal. I’m not. So although I try to enjoy watching the Oscars, I rarely do. Conversely, I wonder if my progressive friends would take pleasure in these events if award recipients were to, say, complain about high abortion rates among racial minorities or protest that Obamacare has driven up health insurance premiums.
The common critique of political sermonizing by celebrities — that it’s all a bit rich coming from the world’s most pampered people — strikes me as entirely valid. The spectacle of begowned and tuxedoed celebrities shouting progressive bromides to the delight of their hyper-affluent peers is not one calculated to move the hearts of ordinary Americans.
Mark Wahlberg made the point plainly in a recent interview: “They might buy your CD or watch your movie, but you don’t put food on their table. You don’t pay their bills. A lot of Hollywood is living in a bubble. They’re pretty out of touch with the common person, the everyday guy out there providing for their family.”
There are, of course, many reasons why the everyday guy might turn on the Oscars; one of them is not to be told what social or political issues to care more deeply about. You don’t want a lecture when you didn’t come for one. And that’s especially true when the lecture is about politics.
Politics sours friendships and kills laughter. Two or three people with a congruent attitude to almost everything can spend a terrific weekend together, enjoy every minute of conversation on a thousand topics, but then fall out completely on the subject of taxation or immigration. Samuel Johnson’s couplet seems truer all the time: “How small, of all that human hearts endure / That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.” Why let something so small ruin so many parties?
It’s a sign of cultural dissolution that political questions now embitter so many segments of life. Moms who joined Facebook to post pictures of their kids now cram their page with infographics about terrorism and media bias; county council meetings, once harmonious and boring, now simmer with acrimony over transgender bathrooms.
You don’t have to think the function of movies is to provide escapist relief in order to lament the way in which the genre and industry feel more and more like extensions of the nation’s elections. Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of “Hamilton” (his song “How Far I’ll Go” from Disney’s animated movie “Moana” is nominated for an Oscar), takes the opposite view: “Why should we ignore for three hours what we’re talking about 24 hours a day?”
Maybe because we’re already talking about it 24 hours a day?
You get the feeling, in any case, that some of our most celebrated celebrities have misjudged the nature of their fame. Those who follow the triumphs and travails of actors and pop stars aren’t interested in these people’s character and intellect; they’re interested in being entertained. The celebrity’s cultural role is to be outrageous, to get into minor trouble with the law, to be a nuisance to neighbors in Palm Springs, to be photographed in bizarre situations, to marry and divorce almost at the same time. The personal irresponsibility, the weirdness — it’s all part of the entertainment package.
Politics is something else altogether. Politics is earnest, consequential, rooted in principle, high-minded, dull. Even when it turns salacious, as it did in 1998, for instance, an air of gravity remains.
And so when a Hollywood actor starts to bark about politics, listeners tend to think something’s gone wrong — because something has. The celebrity isn’t just overstepping his bounds, but neglecting his function. Top-level entertainers are, in essence, America’s court jesters. We like them and pay them well, but not because we take them seriously. If the jester suddenly goes out of character and tries to offer the king serious advice as if he weren’t a jester but a nobleman, the court throws him out.
We can’t throw out Oscar winners. But we can change the channel.