Dear H,
Anyone tolerant enough to have seen the first 20 minutes of Birdman knows that the Academy Awards are a matter of opinion -- and the opinion is sometimes a bad one. This is because, despite what the Academy wants us to believe, there's no way to judge a film other than by the way it makes you personally feel. There's no science of film criticism, and (whatever Jeremy Bentham said) there will never be mathematical formula for measuring happiness. The question should never be whether the Academy gave an award to the right movie or people. It should be whether they gave the award to the right feeling.
This of course is always a matter of debate, which is why the Academy Awards have done their best to get rid of most of the debaters. In fact these cinematic aristocrats, unknown to the American public and somehow responsible for telling us how we feel about films, have been telling us for decades why their opinion is better than others. The question nobody's asked until recently is why their opinion matters more than IMDB's, or Rotten Tomatoes'. If any vote is necessary, why should it be the Academy's? If someone's going to tell us what America loves, shouldn't it be the American public?
Never has the question been more necessary than now. Not even because the Academy's been giving us bogus opinions, but because the Academy no longer gives honest opinions. You can laugh at a man for recommending a bad movie, but at the very least he's the kind of man who tells you what he likes. The moment anyone makes him recommend anything he stops giving his opinion. And the moment he stops giving an opinion is the moment his recommendation loses its value. He's not trying to share the best of the world with you. The question then becomes, what is he trying to share?
In today's case it's whatever a black person tells him to share -- which means the Academy Awards is even less representative of the American public than the Academy itself. For centuries Americans have been warning us of the tyranny of the majority. What we've forgotten is a tyranny of the majority is a historical improvement over a tyranny of the minority. What we've done with the Academy isn't an improvement over anything at all. In all senses to all sensible people it's a regression. With the Academy's decision to nominate more black actors and films according to the opinions of black people, what they've decided is to exchange the minority of the majority for a minority of a minority.
These ironies aside, what black America has asked isn't that whites consider blacks our equals. It's that we tell people things are good when they aren't. It's that we recommend colors to our friends and families instead of movies. Or that we believe art's purpose is to glorify the artist -- and that glorifying the artist has nothing to do with whether we like his art. Art for art's sake is dead, and what's followed it is even worse. Criticism for beauty's sake is dying. Truth for truth's sake is being murdered. Our celebrations of entertainment are now too serious to enjoy. We're taking
interracial "justice" so seriously we can't trust people of our own race.
A few years ago, Kanye West stormed a stage and interrupted an awards ceremony only to say that his opinion was better than everyone else's, which resulted in the entire world giving an opinion about him. The world's opinion was that he was an ass. Today we would apologize and promise to listen to him next year. We would say that his feelings matter more than our own. We would promise to ignore the people we love, and to love the people we should have ignored.
Black activists think that forcing someone to give you a trophy is the same thing as winning it. They pester and protest because they know that we'll listen. We've given in to some unreasonable demands and found dozens more following them. We keep trying to show that we care -- but how much better would the world be if we showed them that we didn't?
Your father,
-J
Anyone tolerant enough to have seen the first 20 minutes of Birdman knows that the Academy Awards are a matter of opinion -- and the opinion is sometimes a bad one. This is because, despite what the Academy wants us to believe, there's no way to judge a film other than by the way it makes you personally feel. There's no science of film criticism, and (whatever Jeremy Bentham said) there will never be mathematical formula for measuring happiness. The question should never be whether the Academy gave an award to the right movie or people. It should be whether they gave the award to the right feeling.
This of course is always a matter of debate, which is why the Academy Awards have done their best to get rid of most of the debaters. In fact these cinematic aristocrats, unknown to the American public and somehow responsible for telling us how we feel about films, have been telling us for decades why their opinion is better than others. The question nobody's asked until recently is why their opinion matters more than IMDB's, or Rotten Tomatoes'. If any vote is necessary, why should it be the Academy's? If someone's going to tell us what America loves, shouldn't it be the American public?
Never has the question been more necessary than now. Not even because the Academy's been giving us bogus opinions, but because the Academy no longer gives honest opinions. You can laugh at a man for recommending a bad movie, but at the very least he's the kind of man who tells you what he likes. The moment anyone makes him recommend anything he stops giving his opinion. And the moment he stops giving an opinion is the moment his recommendation loses its value. He's not trying to share the best of the world with you. The question then becomes, what is he trying to share?
In today's case it's whatever a black person tells him to share -- which means the Academy Awards is even less representative of the American public than the Academy itself. For centuries Americans have been warning us of the tyranny of the majority. What we've forgotten is a tyranny of the majority is a historical improvement over a tyranny of the minority. What we've done with the Academy isn't an improvement over anything at all. In all senses to all sensible people it's a regression. With the Academy's decision to nominate more black actors and films according to the opinions of black people, what they've decided is to exchange the minority of the majority for a minority of a minority.
These ironies aside, what black America has asked isn't that whites consider blacks our equals. It's that we tell people things are good when they aren't. It's that we recommend colors to our friends and families instead of movies. Or that we believe art's purpose is to glorify the artist -- and that glorifying the artist has nothing to do with whether we like his art. Art for art's sake is dead, and what's followed it is even worse. Criticism for beauty's sake is dying. Truth for truth's sake is being murdered. Our celebrations of entertainment are now too serious to enjoy. We're taking
interracial "justice" so seriously we can't trust people of our own race.
A few years ago, Kanye West stormed a stage and interrupted an awards ceremony only to say that his opinion was better than everyone else's, which resulted in the entire world giving an opinion about him. The world's opinion was that he was an ass. Today we would apologize and promise to listen to him next year. We would say that his feelings matter more than our own. We would promise to ignore the people we love, and to love the people we should have ignored.
Black activists think that forcing someone to give you a trophy is the same thing as winning it. They pester and protest because they know that we'll listen. We've given in to some unreasonable demands and found dozens more following them. We keep trying to show that we care -- but how much better would the world be if we showed them that we didn't?
Your father,
-J
There are so many opinions in this world as there are people. I think that we should respect each of them but still keep to our own viewpoint. Nice article!
ReplyDeleteBest wishes,
David
www.davidwadsworth.co.uk