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| [Original] Image Source: Rain dance - famous actors who've never won Oscars |
Topics: Apathy, Diversity, History, Oscars 2015, Selma, Voting Rights
I spent Friday watching "Selma" in tears from the haunting images, graphic displays of violence that was (is?) a part of our country on quite a regular basis in the 1960's. During the time of the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Voting Rights Act (1965), I was 2 and 3-years-old respectively, too young to be of any good to the movement and merely a worry for my activist big sister.
I think a lot about my big sister in movies like this. She would have been one of the young people that got on "freedom ride" buses and put her life on the line for equality, or as she says now, everyone's equality, women, immigrants, LGBT. I remember her arguments with our parents about her safety. I remember praying I'd see her again. I remember crying a lot.
As I said (without giving away spoilers), my wife and I spent most of the movie in tears. I doubt if either my sister, mother-in-law or a lot of seniors in my family will want to see this movie. For them, it brings back painful memories.
If "demographics is destiny" - the mantra for the year 2042 - then, at 6,028 voters of which 94% are so-called "white"; 76% male and the average age 63 years, it's a pretty forgone conclusion that our stories were not going to get a mention above "best picture" and song; our actors were not going to get an Oscar nod. Also of note in that demographic, their sentiments of the time would have been shaped by their environments. Since we don't know where they lived before residing in "liberal" Hollywood, their view of Selma's value in lieu of #BlackLivesMatter and the recent, gut-wrenching atrocities of Boko Haram is an interesting contrast compared to how they all jumped on the #JeSuisCharlie bandwagon so quickly...and easily. A group of 5,666 and male gender of 4,581 pushing into senior citizenry don't likely have heroic memories of the 1960's since there was clearly two sides of the debate - depending on their families' politics at the time - they could have found themselves on. That makes for an academy clearly lacking diversity, either ashamed or indifferent.
What exactly is an "Oscar," and why does it matter? This is a self-contrived public pat-on-the-back by the industry itself. Whether you look at it or not, it is a vast infomercial on the movies you could have seen and didn't. You'll pay the $11.50 per person (New York prices) and the equally outrageous price for popcorn; you'll order it on pay-per-view; download it on bootleg: win-win-win-kinda-sorta (not).
These are OUR stories, and all of humanity's stories: it is not for us to make some privileged, self-mythologized group of "others love us" - it is for us to love ourselves, they are validated in the telling of them; everyone else is along for the ride and welcome. Our campfires required no feedback from the tribe other than applause; they are now clearly in the electromagnetic spectrum. We can read; we can write; we can act and direct; we can upload videos and audio; we can distribute on DVD and via Netflix. If Selma is anything more than an ironic juxtaposition regarding Civil Rights and Voting Rights fought for by young people and fifty years later, their millennial grandchildren being too apathetic to decide their own hard-fought destinies in the voting booth (but, up front in line on Black Friday), they deserve whatever bizarre legislation that is likely to come of this 114th congress. Opinions are fine, but action is far better, and revolutions have never been won in living rooms on backsides, nor freedoms for "consent of the governed" maintained without constant vigilance and participation. Voting, as Selma did, and the midterms' aftermath will show: matters.
Offical Site: Selma Movie
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