This story gets a Kaufman, the Ethics Alarms label for a topic that rates George S. Kaufman’s famous assessment of his interest in Fifties crooner Eddie Fisher’s difficulties finding younger women to date. (Eddie, you may recall, was the husband Elizabeth Taylor divorced to hook up with Richard Burton, and who earlier, with Debbie Reynolds, fathered Carrie Fisher.) Kaufman said, when posed with Fisher’s dilemma on a TV panel show,

“Mr. Fisher, on Mount Wilson there is a telescope that can magnify the most distant stars to twenty-four times the magnification of any previous telescope. This remarkable instrument was unsurpassed in the world of astronomy until the development and construction of the Mount Palomar telescope. The Mount Palomar telescope is an even more remarkable instrument of magnification. Owing to advances and improvements in optical technology, it is capable of magnifying the stars to four times the magnification and resolution of the Mount Wilson telescope. Mr. Fisher, if you could somehow put the Mount Wilson telescope inside the Mount Palomar telescope, you still wouldn’t be able to see my interest in your problem.”

And yet there have been dozens of news stories and social media posts about the current story, and I feel compelled to comment.

“Emilia Pérez” is a 2024 Spanish-language “French musical crime comedy” about a Mexican cartel leader who enlists a lawyer to help her disappear so that she may transition into a woman. [Comment: Well, other movies with insane premises have managed to be good…] At the 97th Academy Awards, “Emilia Pérez” will have 13 nominations, including Best Picture. Karla Sophia Gascón, who plays the cartel leader, is the first openly trans woman to be nominated as Best Actress.

Comment: Do I think for a second that a Spanish language musical with this score (I have heard the music. Meh.) would be nominated for anything if it were not a pro-trans propaganda piece ? I do not. Do I think the Academy would have nominated Gascón if she were not “historic”? No. I haven’t seen the film: maybe she’s terrific. But every year there are plenty of terrific acting performances that don’t receive nominations, and one that is in a Spanish language film with subtitles that is never going to get much box office in the U.S. would not have a chance without the gimmick of the actress being a former guy. This is Hollywood embracing DEI.

All was going well until old (but not THAT old) tweets (in Spanish) surfaced in which Gascón had suggested Islam should be banned. She also has attacked Catholics and called George Floyd a “drug addict swindler.” In 2021, after Yuh-Jung Youn (“Minari”) and Daniel Kaluuya (“Judas and the Black Messiah”) won Oscars, she tweeted, “I didn’t know if I was watching an Afro-Korean festival, a Black Lives Matter demonstration or the 8M.” (“8M” stands for International Women’s Day, March 8. I had to look it up.)

Oh NO! The nominee nominated to uphold wokism at the Oscars revealed herself as not particularly woke!

Comment: So what? She was nominated, Hollywood claims, only because of her talent and performance, not her politics or diplomacy. But of course, we know better. Now the actress is an outcast, which is funny, since the world would be a better, safer, more civilized place without Islam, and “drug addict swindler” is a relatively mild description of George Floyd. Now the actress has exactly no chance of winning the award, unless the votes were counted before her tweets were. This should teach Hollywood a lesson about giving out awards based on anything but merit, but it won’t.

Co-star (and also a nominee) Zoe Saldaña blathered this in London whan asked about the tweets:

“It makes me really sad because I don’t support it, and I don’t have any tolerance for any negative rhetoric towards people of any group. I can only attest to the experience that I had with each and every individual that was a part, that is a part, of this film, and my experience and my interactions with them was about inclusivity and collaboration and racial, cultural and gender equity. And it just saddens me. It saddens me that we are having to face this setback right now. But I’m happy that you’re all here and that you’re all still showing up for “Emilia” because the message that this film has is so powerful and the change that it can bring forward to communities that are marginalized day in and day out is important. And all that I can attest is that all of us that came together to tell this story, we came together for love and for respect and curiosity, and we will continue to spread that message. That’s all we can say right now. Thank you.”

Comment: Close, but still more coherent than a typical Kamala Harris answer. Concerned about marginalized drug cartel leaders are we?

Of course, the now obligatory script requires that the miscreant who issued a politically incorrect tweet before anyone had heard of her had to grovel an apology, though it wasn’t a very good one. “I want to address the conversation around my past social media posts that have caused harm. As a member of a marginalized community, I know this suffering all too well and deeply regret having caused pain. All my life I have fought for a better world. I believe that light will always triumph over darkness.” This might qualify as a Level 7 apology ( “A forced apology in which the individual apologizing may not sincerely believe that an apology is appropriate, but chooses to show the victim or victims of the act inspiring it that the individual responsible is humbling herself and being forced to admit wrongdoing by the society, the culture, legal authority, or an organization or group that the individual’s actions reflect upon or represent”) except for her playing the victim card and celebrating her own virtue, so it drops to an abysmal Level 9 on the Apology Scale: “Deceitful apologies, in which the wording of the apology is crafted to appear apologetic when it is not (“if my words offended, I am sorry”).

She also told CNN that she would not withdraw her name from consideration. “I cannot step down from an Oscar nomination because I have not committed any crime nor have I harmed anyone. I am neither racist nor anything that all these people have tried to make others believe I am,” Gascón told CNN.

Comment: Wait, I thought she said in her apology that she had “harmed” people. You see, this is often the problem when designating someone “historic” thrusts them into public scrutiny he or she cannot withstand. Gascón is no more virtuous or heroic than most people, and she also isn’t very bright.

Verdict: Hollywood’s addiction to woke grandstanding made her a celebrity, and then made her a pariah. That’s entertainment!