Academy Awards 2017 - Oscar Night: In the Pale Moonlight

[Dr. Pepper]

Cosmo put out a pretty amazing article about the Moonlight flub last night.  The entire article should be read and it's not long, but I'll post some of the most pertinent parts here. 

Moonlight Was Robbed of It's Moment

Quote

Part of what it requires to do the work of diversity is to recognize that there are some moments you simply cannot mess up. This was one of those moments. Although PricewaterhouseCoopers, the accounting firm that oversees the tabulation of Oscars ballots, has taken responsibility for the mix-up, imagine how it feels to the talent of Moonlight to not have had the fullness of their moment. Imagine how the mistake feels to those of us who have rarely seen ourselves represented in the awards ceremony. The carelessness and haphazardness with which Moonlight’s moment was treated is indicative of how institutional racism continues to work, even after people of color have overcome a significant barrier.

...

Diversity and inclusion are polite buzzwords that we use to signal a reduction in racism. And achieving diversity in representation on screen, behind the screen, and at the awards ceremony is a laudable goal. But truthfully, we should be more precise. What we need is an end to white dominance. And we have to use those strong words, because the resistance to diversity is a deep psychic problem for many white Americans whose whole lives have been shaped by being on top. On Sunday night, we got a glimpse, through the microcosm of an awards show environment, of how painful it is to give up the stage to winners who aren’t white. And before we spend all of our time lauding La La Land for being so gracious, we have to do the hard work of asking why they were even allowed to take the stage in the first place. We have to remember that it is the Moonlight team who handled the situation with more grace, because it is they who were robbed.

Institutional incompetence often demands black civility and gratitude even when an egregious error has occurred. Just because the error was unintentional doesn’t make it any less significant. We have to ask how messed up it is to ask black artists to win in an environment that screams, “There is no place for you!” And we have to acknowledge that while diversity might be about sharing the stage, the work of dismantling white privilege is about the far more challenging task of white people having less access to the stages and awards that they've always had. Moonlight’s moment in the sun was well deserved, and it is unfortunate that the messy work of diversity almost eclipsed it out of view

 

 

[generalzod]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

Many documentaries are anything but precise history.  In fact, many of them are not even history at all!

Anyone who thinks otherwise    I.e. the History channel!  For one instance only. 

At best, they tend to be mighty thin and shallow stuff.

There are others though, which are really terrific, such as my favorite documentary, which didn't win, of course, I Am Not Your Negro, or 13.  O.J. vs The People was very good, with very high production values, but -- it was ultimately about the danger of celebrity culture, in LA the distillation of celebrity culture -- hey, looky look! it's the Kardashian posse as kids! -- thus ultimately about Hollywood from whence it all cometh, and thus the Oscar academy's favorite thing, themselves.

 

 

You're laughing at Helena Ex Machina... Not me.  I'm literally quoting her: 

 

On 2/25/2017 at 1:44 PM, HelenaExMachina said:

Precisely. I find it annoying in the extreme when people belittle the audience of shows that may not be historically accurate. If I wanted precise history I'd watch a goddamn documentary.

So take your mockery of her view of documentaries up with her. 

So you're saying Michael Moore and Dinesh D'Souza are  slanted to a pov and not hyper-factual?

I don't know what your beef is with the History Channel documentaries, unless you're referring to their alligator hunting-find a stop sign in your attic and sell it to a pawn shop- Ice road trucking shows.  There's mistakes in Ken Burns documentaries too there, champ.  And he's considered the best of the best.

Thanks for the list of Academy Award nominated docs.  You might want to check out Cartel Land, better than any you listed.

I like your taste in Cuban music though.

How's your Templar research coming? 

 

[Nictarion]

8 hours ago, Relic said:

As for vapid Hollywood stars, this is a good place to start - http://www.ranker.com/list/celebrity-anti-vaxxers/celebrity-lists You can add DeNiro to this list, as well.

Mayim Bialik is a Mensa member, so I'd say it's pretty unfair to label her "vapid."

Also, I'm sure De Niro would respond to you the same way he did the mean tweets last night.

[Baitac]

21 hours ago, Triskan said:

Thank God the situation wasn't reversed between Moonlight and La La Land. 

Indeed!

[Nictarion]

2 hours ago, Triskan said:

I saw Gladiator in the theater around the age of 19 and left the theater on some kind of high.  It was a straight-up experience.  But I do think that I would have been a bit less impressed a few years later on in life.  bStill, I don't think it's too out-of-place as a best picture.  Certainly a better film than Crash.  

It's way better than Argo, too. It's probably better than a handful of best picture winners in the last 20 years tbh.

[Mladen]

5 hours ago, Dr. Pepper said:

Cosmo put out a pretty amazing article about the Moonlight flub last night.  The entire article should be read and it's not long, but I'll post some of the most pertinent parts here. 

Moonlight Was Robbed of It's Moment

 

For God's sake, it was a mistake. Even the journalists in Cosmo are smart enough to see that. And mistakes, especially those unintentional ones, are color blind. No one intentionally stole "Moonlight"'s moment and the way everyone on stage reacted was truly a sign of great solidarity. Yes, it is not the ideal situation but to read anything else into it is, IMO, totally wrong.

As someone said, can you imagine it was reversed? Can you imagine the chaos it would ensue? 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

7 hours ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

The argument that Moonlight won BP because the Academy wanted to be PC is non-sense, because, among other things, it fails to understand how the system works since the 2010 awards:

The preferential voting system (and the fact that are now 8-10 movies every year) means it's virtually impossible for a film to get 50% +1 of the vote in the first round- the round where people actually vote for their favorite films of the nominees. Whereas, for example, in 2006 you'd have people that didn't like Brokeback Mountain rallying around Crash as their #1 choice to stop it from winning, today that wouldn't happen because they could simply vote in Capote or Munich and then just have have Crash as their #3 and #4 on their ballots.

What does that have to with Moonlight? The argument that the majority of the Academy decided to rally around it as a PC choice makes no sense, because, even if part of the Academy felt they had to do that, it would lead the earlier rounds of voting, but as movies got eliminated, it would lose it's #1 status- because if you want to make Moonlight winning for PC reasons a priority, surely you'd have him at the top of your ballot instead of #6 or #7.

But what happened with Moonlight was exactly the opposite- in fact, I'm willing to bet good money that after the first round of voting (and maybe in the next few ones), La La Land was leading it.

However, when movies got eliminated, Moonlight likely kept getting votes from people that preferred other movies- for example, people that liked Arrival or Manchester By The Sea, but thought that LLL was too vapid, or people that care about social issues and stories about POC, but voted first in Hidden Figures or Fences, and ended up winning because it was the consensus choice.

 

However the voting works it seems clear that there was a deliberate campaign in the media to discredit La La Land when it was the run away leader a couple of months ago. 

Is it a coincidence that a bunch of articles just appeared at the same time talking about how the movie is racist and so white it hurts? That backlash didn't just happen out of nowhere, the oscar campaigns are notoriously dirty.

and the one movie that was then suddenly talked about was moonlight, its popularity occurring just at the right time.

while its not fixed its naive to think that people weren't influenced heavily by the changing wind of opinion 

[Isis]

5 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

However the voting works it seems clear that there was a deliberate campaign in the media to discredit La La Land when it was the run away leader a couple of months ago. 

Is it a coincidence that a bunch of articles just appeared at the same time talking about how the movie is racist and so white it hurts? That backlash didn't just happen out of nowhere, the oscar campaigns are notoriously dirty.

and the one movie that was then suddenly talked about was moonlight, its popularity occurring just at the right time.

while its not fixed its naive to think that people weren't influenced heavily by the changing wind of opinion 

People pay A LOT of money to promote their films during award season and to waft them under the noses of the right people at the right time. Kind of horrifying when you think about it.

[Mladen]

19 minutes ago, Isis said:

People pay A LOT of money to promote their films during award season and to waft them under the noses of the right people at the right time. Kind of horrifying when you think about it.

Not just that. Do you know that the biggest piracy leaks are actually during the award season. The private screenings with members of the Academy is basically a norm.That is how we get the winners like Gwyneth Paltrow... Harvey Weinstein created the game and now people play it brilliantly  

[DireWolfSpirit]

9 hours ago, generalzod said:

 

Ha!  You know more than the critics and the Academy and 86% of the movie-going public.  And the fact it plays on a loop on television because  the unwashed masses find Gladiator "trite, cliched, melodramatic, over wrought, self important, and silly steaming pile of boring brainless bullshit."

Yes, your taste is so good and rarified, its an international treasure.  Let's be sure to bury it.  

Or maybe you're just a kewl contrarian, waiting for the next bloodless BBC drama of sheer anglophile angst and boredom to grace your screen while you sip tea and revel in its uncommerciality?

Bonus points for finding a way to use uncommerciality in a sentence and not have it sound awkward at all. I would never have came up with that in a dozen tries.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

12 hours ago, Dr. Pepper said:

Lol, 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

9 hours ago, Risto said:

Let we be clear about one thing... Gladiator is not the most awesome movie there is. It is LOTR:ROTK Extended Version. 

I simply don't care 45 minutes of ending, I couldn't care less about some choices regarding the narrative (Rohan defending its own country with 300 people and yet 6000 riders went to Gondor), or even some questionable CGI. Because the moment Angmar breaks Gandalf's staff and the Rohirrim charges, everything is irrelevant. After Aragorn threatens to Sauron and afterwards have that amazing speech at the Black Gates... Who cares about anything?

So, Sir Ian McKellen should have won an Oscar for Gandalf in FOTR. Cate Blanchett should do a movie with Galadriel in the center and I honestly would like Hollywood treating Miranda Otto nicer. 

So, no judging... Or at least judge those smart-asses who made Suicide Squad the Academy Award Winning Film. 

And to repeat "Carol" got zero last year. Sometimes I think Hollywood deserves that ass in White House.

No.  Carpet chewing Denethor with his flaming 5k run, the scrubbling bubbles of death, trunk surfing, skull avalanches, and Aragorn beheading a herald, just no.

[Mladen]

Just now, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

No.  Carpet chewing Denethor with his flaming 5k run, the scrubbling bubbles of death, trunk surfing, skull avalanches, and Aragorn beheading a herald, hust no.

First, it was at least 7 kilometers, he also had to climb all the stairs to the main level and then jump. Then, trunk surfing had narrative sense since we had one in TT. Beheading a herald was necessary to show us their faith in Frodo...  You see, reasoning

I am sorry but Rohirrim trumps everything. It is the bestest.

And bonus points for having Cate Blanchett. She is a seal of approval. And you can't argue against that (Don't you dare mention THAT moment in LOTR 1 and Hobbit 3)

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

4 minutes ago, Risto said:

First, it was at least 7 kilometers, he also had to climb all the stairs to the main level and then jump. Then, trunk surfing had narrative sense since we had one in TT. Beheading a herald was necessary to show us their faith in Frodo...  You see, reasoning

I am sorry but Rohirrim trumps everything. It is the bestest.

And bonus points for having Cate Blanchett. She is a seal of approval. And you can't argue against that (Don't you dare mention THAT moment in LOTR 1 and Hobbit 3)

The Galadriel super-freak out?  Peter Jackson just doesn't know what subtle means.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

4 minutes ago, Risto said:

First, it was at least 7 kilometers, he also had to climb all the stairs to the main level and then jump. Then, trunk surfing had narrative sense since we had one in TT. Beheading a herald was necessary to show us their faith in Frodo...  You see, reasoning

I am sorry but Rohirrim trumps everything. It is the bestest.

And bonus points for having Cate Blanchett. She is a seal of approval. And you can't argue against that (Don't you dare mention THAT moment in LOTR 1 and Hobbit 3)

The Galadriel super-freak out?  Peter Jackson just doesn't know what subtle means.

[Mladen]

6 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

The Galadriel super-freak out?  Peter Jackson just doesn't know what subtle means.

Pfff, that is an long-established fact  

[Dr. Pepper]

5 hours ago, Risto said:

For God's sake, it was a mistake. Even the journalists in Cosmo are smart enough to see that. And mistakes, especially those unintentional ones, are color blind. No one intentionally stole "Moonlight"'s moment and the way everyone on stage reacted was truly a sign of great solidarity. Yes, it is not the ideal situation but to read anything else into it is, IMO, totally wrong.

As someone said, can you imagine it was reversed? Can you imagine the chaos it would ensue? 

Sigh, you clearly didn't read the article.  

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

4 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

Sigh, you clearly didn't read the article.  

What did Risto miss in the article that was so important? As far as I can see its yet another clickbait article willing to connect the dots in a shape that suits it in order to gain attention without actually having the slightest bit of substance or basing anything on facts. But that seems to be quite a trend with most internet journalism to be fair.

[Dr. Pepper]

Just now, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

What did Risto miss in the article that was so important? As far as I can see its yet another clickbait article willing to connect the dots in a shape that suits it in order to gain attention without actually having the slightest bit of substance or basing anything on facts. But that seems to be quite a trend with most internet journalism to be fair.

Risto missed the entire article considering he thinks it was about the mistake being intentional. 

But I get it, Risto, much like you, also thinks diversity in the Oscars is fake and not worthy.  He's unlikely to be willing to read or comprehend an article about how the mistake was quite damaging. 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

9 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

Risto missed the entire article considering he thinks it was about the mistake being intentional. 

But I get it, Risto, much like you, also thinks diversity in the Oscars is fake and not worthy.  He's unlikely to be willing to read or comprehend an article about how the mistake was quite damaging. 

As has been pointed out to you, it was a mistake. Mistakes happen and are regrettable. Adding some sort of racial commentary onto it is unhelpful and really just says more about the motivations of the author of the article than anything about the reality of the situation.