The Golden Globalists
Aside from those nominated and the studios who like to run ads boasting of how many Oscars their movies have garnered, most people don’t really care about the Academy Awards. But at least the overwhelming majority of the 4,000-odd people who get to vote are actively engaged in the movie business.
Aside from those nominated and the studios who like to run ads boasting of how many Oscars their movies have garnered, most people don’t really care about the Academy Awards. But at least the overwhelming majority of the 4,000-odd people who get to vote are actively engaged in the movie business.
In the case of the Golden Globes, voters consist of 93 foreigners who aren’t even real correspondents. For the most part, they are freelance stringers whose work consists of occasionally peddling celebrity interviews to newspapers and magazines in England and Europe.
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, as they like to call themselves, has a history of tawdry scandals, consisting of having their votes bought for the price of a junket to Las Vegas. In fact, back in the 1970s, when I first became aware of them, the joke was that you could ensure a nomination for the price of a chicken sandwich. But if you wanted to actually win, you had to offer them a catered spread consisting of shrimp and pigs-in-a-blanket.
But that was before Hollywood realized that they could actually get people to sit still for yet another televised award show so long as you could convince enough female stars to show up and show off their bizarre outfits. Because most people no longer go to movies on a regular basis, and certainly don’t flock to those that tend to garner critical acclaim, the Association decided to expand viewership by also handing out TV awards.
So, it was that recently, the 93 moochers bestowed awards in 26 categories, 15 for movies, 11 for TV. But the one that received the most attention was the 27th Globe, the one recognizing not a single performance, but an entire career. That one naturally went to Meryl Streep, who appears to have a clause in her contract that guarantees that wherever awards are being handed out, she gets to take one home.
I’m not as big a fan of Streep as some people. My opinion of her talent falls somewhere between that of the Academy which has nominated her 18 times for Oscars and that of Donald Trump, who let us know he thought she was “over-rated.” To be fair, that was after Ms. Streep had referred to Mr. Trump during her acceptance speech as a combination of Hitler, Attila the Hun and a Grand Kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan, but with less charm and funny hair.
The problem is that even for someone such as myself who has worked in the industry for decades, it is easy to confuse the actors with the characters, who are often bright, brave and even heroic, that they portray. And because Ms. Streep has spent so many decades being first in line when the best roles were being offered, one might conclude that the actress is a mix of Julia Child, Karen Blixen and Margaret Thatcher.
My first hint that Streep, despite her affinity for accents, was a screwball was a few years back when Patricia Arquette copped an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress and took advantage of the opportunity to bellyache about the pay differential between actors and actresses. That was bad enough, but worse was seeing Meryl Streep leaping to her feet and applauding wildly.
Now for those geographically separated from Hollywood by hundreds or thousands of miles, but by light years when it comes to common sense, that might just sound like the usual grousing by liberals who like to equate being a fire fighter or an ironworker with being a nursery school teacher. But it’s worse than that, because for all its sins, Hollywood overpays everyone. If female stars are paid less than their male counterparts, it’s because their movies don’t tend to do as well at the box office. It’s not the fault of actresses that the blockbusters about super heroes defending earth against super villains, those sappy cartoonish movies that appeal to children of all ages, generally call for a granite-jawed member of SAG.
Hollywood isn’t what I’d call a meritocracy; it’s more of a luckocracy. It’s not that talent doesn’t matter, but that luck plays a larger role when it comes to success. When people like Streep and Arquette whine about being underpaid because they’re women, they ignore the fact that nearly every agent in town is male. Do these women think their representatives would rather collect 10% of one million dollars than 10% of five million?
Speaking of five million dollars, that happens to be a typical movie fee for Meryl Streep. Only in Hollywood would dedicated socialists think five million dollars for a month or two spent on a movie set constituted slave wages.
Unless you work in the business, you might not realize that the best-paid male stars tend to appear in franchises. Take Mike Myers as a handy example. He’s become a multi-millionaire because he starred in three movies that had “Austin Powers” in the title, and he was Austin Powers. The first time, he was paid $3 million, the next time they paid him $7 million. The third time was the charm, and he collected $25 million. In the case of “Shrek,” an animated series for which Myers merely provided the voice of the lovable ogre, he was paid $3 million, $10 million and $15 million. Not bad, considering he could have delivered his performance while wearing his bathrobe and slippers.
Matt Damon was doing okay, muddling along in the $3-5 million-a-picture level until he struck gold with the “Bourne” franchise. Seemingly overnight, his asking price soared to the $10-20 million level.
But the fellow who really won the lottery was Robert Downey, Jr. He was always a good actor, but it was only after he became the king of the franchises, starring in three of them — “Iron Man,” “Sherlock Holmes” and “The Avengers” — that he went from near-poverty, meaning $500,000 for the very first “Iron Man,” to $50 million for the third in the series. Proving it wasn’t a fluke, he also collected $50 million for the most recent “Avengers.”
When Hollywood celebrities take advantage of their platform at awards shows to attack Trump, they’re pretending to be speaking truth to power, but it’s as fake as the roles they play. Trump, after all, can’t really punish them. The worst he can do is tweet them.
When these hypocrites are in the presence of the real power brokers — studio and network chiefs, producers and directors — they grovel like peasants in the vicinity of kings, czars and mullahs.
The message that public exhibitions like the Oscars and the Golden Globes drives home, aside from the rampant narcissism that pollutes Hollywood, is that even people like Meryl Streep can carry off the illusion of being actual human beings so long as others write their lines, dress them and do their makeup.
Speaking of narcissism, I just saw a cartoon of Barack Obama standing inside a circle of full-length mirrors. The caption read: “In his final days in office, President Obama is surrounded by adoring fans.”
Secretary of State John Kerry, after knifing Israel in the back at the U.N., decided he should apologize. Not to Israel, of course, but to the LGBTQ community, for any discrimination that the sexual misfits may have suffered through the years.
The truth is, he should have been apologizing to the horses of the world. After all, ever since Kerry came on the scene 50 years ago, his face has been compared to that of a horse. This has caused the horse world a tremendous amount of embarrassment because it suggests that they’re homely, which clearly isn’t true. Those noble heads are unattractive only when they’re grafted in Frankenstein fashion onto the neck of a donkey.
After the posting of a recent article, a very kind reader wrote to say: “Thanks again for the chance to view your incredibly great mind.” I quickly set him straight: “It’s a nice enough place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there.”
Another reader reminded me of a line I wrote when Obama was first elected: “The problem with America is stupidity. Now I’m not saying that stupidity should be a capital offense. But why don’t we take warning labels off everything, and let the problem solve itself?”
