As many predicted and others dreaded, the Academy Awards last night did it: they anointed the pro-domestic terrorism, anti-American, Hollywood woke fever dream “One Battle After Another” with the Best Movie award. Starring the usual far-left suspects Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn, the film is deliberately offensive to anyone who wasn’t convinced that Kamala Harris was a wonderful Presidential candidate; I made the mistake of starting to watch it and “walked out” (that is, changed channels to a “Chicago Med” re-run) after about 20 excruciating minutes. “The Critical Drinker’s” review above registered as fair and accurate based on what I saw: a well-acted, well-produced piece of political propaganda.
You know, like “Triumph of the Will.”
The fact that it was nominated told me what the annual awards broadcast would be like and that Hollywood is determined to alienate at least half the country. Good plan. If I had been producing the show, I would have told all participants that political grandstanding was strictly forbidden and that anyone who started blathering about Trump, trans activism, I.C.E. or “illegal wars” would have a trap door open under them like they used to have on “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In.”
But no, there were the predictable rants by narrow-view artists trying to suck up to future employers in their bubble. Even Conan O’Brien succumbed to the suck-up vibe, though he was obviously chosen as M.C. because he harkens back to the days when late night hosts mocked all parties and not just Republicans, and the producers wanted to trick Americans tired of being called racists and fascists into tuning in. And a trick it was.
I suppose because the Oscars (that nothing could make me watch again) are coming up, The New York Times, presumably with the help of its movie critics, published a feature called “When Casting Goes Wrong”[Gift Link], purporting to be their picks “from recent decades” of the worst cast movie roles. A new Oscar recognizes the process of matching actor and role—it’s a bad idea, but never mind. My problem is that the list of 14 manages to miss such flagrant, infamous casting botches that it forces me to doubt any future judgments of these alleged film experts.
True: of the films represented on the list that I have seen, the casting choices flagged were indeed terrible. However, the list somehow omitted what had to be the most inexcusable, bizarre, inept and offensive casting decision in Hollywood history: “Hyde Park On Hudson”’s casting of Bill Murray…BILL MURRAY!…as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I wrote about this 2012 fiasco here. An excerpt:
“There is no artistic or historical justification for having Murray play the iconic FDR. All I can hypothesize is that the producers knew that the movie would be a hard sell to anyone under the age of 80, so they decided, “Hey, Boomers love Bill Murray: they’ll pay to see him in anything!” The result is disrespectful to one of our most important leaders, ruinous to the movie (which has other problems), and the antithesis of artistic competence, integrity and responsibility.I watched this thing looking like the audience in “The Producers” after the completion of “Springtime for Hitler,” with my mouth in what Stephen King calls “a rictus of horror.”
“… [Murray] doesn’t speak like Roosevelt, sound like him, carry himself like him, or display his gravitas, power or personality. To me it looked like the actor wasn’t even trying…that, or the role was completely beyond his narrow talents. Did he do any research at all? To be fair, FDR was special, with a magnificent voice, an actor’s mastery of projecting the desired emotional messages, and physically imposing despite his disability. John Voight, an infinitely more talented actor than Murray, still flopped when he tried FDR in “Pearl Harbor” despite being covered in so many layers of latex that he looked a bit like him, or at least a rubber dummy of him…
“I was shocked to see that there were actually critics who praised Murray’s performance. This is one more bit of evidence that critics can’t be trusted. Presumably, these ignoramuses wouldn’t know FDR if he sat in their laps. One critic wrote that Murray “humanized” Franklin. I suppose one could argue that playing one of our most calculating, politically brilliant, ruthless, astute, complex, essential, influential and towering American historical figures as a clueless, shallow, unengaged and ironic jerk is “humanizing.” I would argue that it’s just irresponsible and defamatory.”
Arquette, once considered a rising superstar in her “Desperately Seeking Susan” days, took a swipe at the director in a recent interview, saying of his “Pulp Fiction,” in which she had a memorable scene,
“It’s iconic, a great film on a lot of levels. But personally I am over the use of the N-word…I hate it. I cannot stand that he [Tarantino] has been given a hall pass. It’s not art, it’s just racist and creepy.”
Tarantino replied with the “X” message above, and appropriately so. Among the legitimate ethics complaints against Arquette, perhaps the least is her breach of a duty to support fellow artists in their perilous and capricious profession. On the other hand,
She is disloyal and ungrateful. Her career was already on the wane when Tarantino cast her in “Pulp Fiction.” It was a gift. For her to gratuitously criticize him now is revolting.
Her blatant virtue-signalling to Hollywood’s Woke World is transparent, self-serving, and desperate. “Oooh, Rosanna Arquette is knocking Quentin Tarantino! Wait, who is she again?”
Arquette’s contention is idiotic. “Nigger” is just another word, and like all words, a legitimate tool in pursuit of character, nuance, plot, shock, surprise and humor. She’s “over it”? Swell, she doesn’t have to use it. I dare her to take a stand if she finally gets another chance at a major role and the word is contained in her dialogue. I double-dare her.
Of course she’s looking for headlines, social media controversy and renewed relevance, and throwing Tarantino under the metaphorical bus for her own gain. A Kantian violation at best.
Accusing anyone in show business, that most stultifying of partisan bubbles, of “racism” is deliberately trying to inflict harm, endangering a career, income stream, popularity and reputatation.
I have sympathy for Rosanna Archette. She must feel like Moonlight Graham—“We just don’t recognize the most significant moments of our lives while they’re happening. Back then I thought, ‘Well, there’ll be other days.’ I didn’t realize that that was the only day.”.She was ready to be a star, but from a combination of bad luck and bad management, she missed her moment. Her less attractive younger sister became a bigger star. Her one-trick pony of a brother had a major role in a popular horror franchise, the “Scream” films. Even her grandfather Cliff, who was a staple on “The Hollywood Squares,” had a better career.
And her reaction to her own failure and disappointment is to take a shot at Quentin Tarantino? How sad. This is a business that creates monsters.
A long-time friend, part of a retired two-lawyer couple, just posted a furious anti-Trump rant on Facebook because “Trump’s” war on Iran has interfered with their planned three-week luxury cruise. “The mid-terms can’t come soon enough!” she concludes.
Naturally, no one is pointing out in the comments the warped values and priorities such a post conveys. The outburst also shows how confident bubble-dwellers on social media become that their world-view is the only one decent, intelligent and respectable American could possible adhere to.
Jackson said, during a private memorial service at Rainbow Push Coalition headquarters in Chicago, that “[Y]esterday, I listened for several hours to three United States presidents who do not know Jesse Jackson.”
He continued,
“He maintained a tense relationship with the political order, not because the presidents were white or black, but the demands of our message, the demands of speaking for the least of these — those who are disinherited, the damned, the dispossessed, the disrespected — demanded not Democratic or Republican solutions, but demanded a consistent, prophetic voice that at no point in time ever sold us out as people. And it speaks volumes about who the Rev. Jesse Jackson was.”
Kamala Harris, Barack Obama, Joe Biden all used their eulogies to attack the President and his policies, though, as you might have guessed, Harris was the most obnoxious and made the least sense. “Let me just say I predicted a lot about what’s happening right now,” Harris smirked. “I’m not into saying I told you so but we did see it coming.” I’d love to ask her what it was exactly that she “saw coming.” The forceful repudiation of the weak, zombie administration she was part of? The voters’ rejection of her embarrassing DEI candidacy? Her running mate’s utter disgrace and exposure as a corrupt hack?
Jackson’s was a subtle and measured rebuke, so subtle and measured that most of the Axis media felt it necessary to ignore it. Many, realizing how inappropriate it was for Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to turn attention away from Jackson’s father and onto their hatred of Donald Trump at Jesse Jackson Sr.’s funeral, also worked to hide the Democrats’ nauseating conduct from the public…after all, there’s an election coming!
Nobody apparently told her about the industry she worked in for all those years. In an angry op-ed in the New York Times (gift link), Hannah, once one of the late John F. Kennedy Jr.’s girlfriends, protests that the FX TV series “Love Story” about the romance between John-John and Carolyn Bessette exploits her while warping the truth and marring her reputation.
“The actions and behaviors attributed to me are untrue,” Hannah writes. “I have never used cocaine in my life or hosted cocaine-fueled parties. I have never pressured anyone into marriage. I have never desecrated any family heirloom or intruded upon anyone’s private memorial. I have never planted any story in the press. I never compared Jacqueline Onassis’ death to a dog’s.”
I believe her, maybe, but it doesn’t matter. Fictionalized versions of living people’s lives, when those people are celebrities, are immune from lawsuits unless they can be shown to have represented the falsehoods as true (by definition, a fictionalized series does not do that), and done so with malice. One of the show’s producers explained why Hannah’s character was cast as a villain: “Given how much we’re rooting for John and Carolyn, Daryl Hannah occupies a space where she’s an adversary to what you want narratively in the story.” Oh. Then its all right to show her doing and saying things she didn’t do or say.
Let me fix that right away. I knew I would forget someone on that update, but he deserves to be there more than most.
The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, in an appearance in the Presidential primary state of New Hampshire, again used the term “apartheid” to describe Israel. When his interviewer claimed “every expert” had described Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocide,” Newsome, the epitome a human weasel, said nothing. When called out later on his “apartheid” smear, Newsom said that he was just quoting Axis New York Timescolumnist Thomas Friedman, thus resorting to the rationalization, “Thomas Friedman does it!”When called out on his “apartheid” smear, Newsom said that he was just quoting Axis New York Timescolumnist Thomas Friedman, thus resorting to the rationalization, “Thomas Friedman does it!”
The Democratic himbo also endorses the confiscatory plan pinko Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D. Calif.) have proposed for an annual 5 % wealth tax on billionaires.
Master commenter A M Golden had a stand-out week, with several COTD-worthy posts, including this one, and a Guest Post that arose out of yesterday’s Open Forum.
I am also grateful any time I’m given an excuse to re-post one of my favorite—and, sadly, most relevant—clips from the Ethics Alarms archive.
There is some evidence for that. Beyond statistical proofs that we are failing to properly educate generations of students in basic skills, there is a sort of – shall I write it? – malaise about being responsible adults in this country. I don’t know where it came from. Maybe it’s our high standard of living that emboldens it. Maybe is a misapplication of American individualism that has turned into the oft-unethical slogan, “My way or the highway.” It may, in fact, be a broader misapplication of the also oft-unethical slogan, “The customer is always right.” Because, in fact, the customer is not always right.
It is a rationalization that encourages a form of classism (customers consider themselves socially, educationally, financially above the ones who are tasked with serving them), incentivizes unethical behavior, such as fraud, theft, demands for special treatment and, occasionally, results in horrific behavior like sexual harassment, assault and/or battery.
We have started to commoditize large aspects of our lives. Whatever you may say about poorly-educated, biased teachers, there are plenty of good teachers out there who cannot run their classrooms because the administration acts like the store manager who allows customers to abuse the employees under some misguided notion that this is how to run a successful business. The teachers who can teach but are expected to look past misbehavior and abuse while still doing their jobs eventually leave and what are left are the ones who can’t and won’t teach. That’s what happens in a poorly-run business such as the one I described above. Eventually, you have only the employees who don’t care about their jobs.
Some reasons for this lack of maturity and growth include what (commenter) Steve Witherspoon pointed out above – laziness. We have large swathes of the population who can’t be bothered to do very basic things. They are manchilds and womanchilds, prioritizing their shallow wants over their very real responsibilities. Expecting them to pick up a broom and sweep the floor rather than playing four hours of video games per night is tantamount to crushing their souls. Expecting them to be fiscally aware, to save, to monitor spending, means they can’t spoil themselves with destination weddings and pricey vacations.
I am also going to add distraction to the list. Prior to mobile phones, we had to memorize important telephone numbers. Now, there are people who cannot even provide their own numbers without looking them up. The internet and the capabilities of the internet have made brain muscles weak. It has also contributed to the collapse of the work ethic and civility in general. Restaurants routinely have to put up with people on their phones while ordering in person which often leads to miscommunication and to the aforementioned abuse of staff when the order is wrong. Increasing numbers of restaurants will not serve customers until the phone is put down.
Note:That graphic illustrates the context of this post, not the topic.
Peter Baker, who has “covered Presidents at war since Bill Clinton’s intervention in the Balkans in the 1990s,” delivers a jaw-dropping example of dishonest Axis journalism in “Trump is the First Modern President to Take US to War Without Public Support.”(gift link). That’s its title on the Times home page: someone must have realized how slimy it was after the “analysis” was first posted, so now the article itself is headlined, “Wars Often Lose Public Support Over Time. Trump Started This One Without Much.” Either way, the sense that the Times, like the rest of the Axis of Unethical Conduct, is actively rooting for the President to fail is palpable. True, has been trying to make him fail regarding, well, everything, for a decade.
Baker’s rigged analysis hides the clear reason why Trump’s public approval of a bold military response to a rogue international evil-doer is low: “Traditionally, Americans stand behind their president when he first orders troops into battle,” he writes. Yes, he doesn’t write, and that was before, for the first time in American history, a President’s opposition and the mainstream media set out to strip a newly elected President of the traditional public approval of whomever is in the office from the moment this President was elected. Usually a new President has overwhelming support when he is inaugurated. Not Trump, in either term. Democrats and the media declared him an illegitimate President (that Electoral College thingy, and everyone knows Putin gor him elected) in 2016, and he had been tarred as Hitler and a “convicted felon” before his second term in 2024. That cloak of respect and honor had been a key feature in every President’s power since George Washington, and the Axis stripped it from Trump and, I believe, the office itself, permanently.
One thought, which many have been expressing: The Axis of Unethical Conduct—the “resistance,” Democrats and their captive media—are hoping that the United States loses the war against Iran. If the U.S. prevails, the party will have to defend its openly anti-American stance across the country. Right now, its only position is “We hate President Trump.” That was also its message in 2024.
Good luck with that.
Meanwhile, consider that DHS ad above, which seems to have helped get Kristi Noem fired. It’s moronic, pandering and manipulative, but to my eye, pretty much routine campaign ad stuff. Surely that clip-show didn’t cost $220 million, which is what you might think watching news reports.
Ethics Alarms 