The Oscars, as important as the event has become in the past few decades, still serves as a back-patting holiday for Hollywood insiders to get on stage and say something that they all agree with.
This time, it was hosted by late night host Jimmy Kimmel, and his speech was no different than the self-serving nonsense that Meryl Streep spouted off at the Golden Globes.
Kimmel made a joke about Trump in the first few minutes, asking audience member to remember last year when they thought the Oscars were racist, implying that Trump is not only racist, but a bigger threat than their hivemind, groupthink mentality.
He then went on to acknowledge Meryl Streep, after which she stood up and the room gave her a standing ovation, like a bunch of trained seals. However, it’s Kimmel’s last political and serious statement, the one that was supposed to unify everyone regardless of political affiliation:
“There are millions and millions of people watching right now, and if every one of you took a minute to reach out to one person you disagree with and have a positive, considerate conversation – not as liberals or conservatives but as Americans – if we all did that it would make America great again. It starts with us.”
Jimmy,
I agree that there is a lot of political division in this country, but what pisses me off about your outgoing remark about this country is that it shifts the blame from your side to everyone.
When you have the aforementioned Meryl Streep getting in front of millions and telling the world that Trump hates the handicapped without any evidence, that’s not our problem.
When you have awards recipients who say they will actively punch people in the face for disagreeing with a twisted progressive ideology, that’s not our problem.
When you have an Iranian director say that he stayed home because of the people banned by Trump, despite Iran being a place where they state-sanctioned murder of gays and refer to America as the “Great Satan,” that’s not our problem.
When you have violence in the streets, rioting, looting, people shutting down highways, and calls to violence from ideologues only on your side, it’s not our problem.
When you claim to uphold women’s rights, but call them monsters when they don’t agree that everyone should have the ability to kill their baby if they feel like it, that’s not our problem.
What you don’t understand, Jimmy, is that we were always Americans. We made it through eight years of Bush, and eight years of Obama. Your side, however, continually talked down to us, saying that we cling to guns and religion, saying that we’re low-information voters, and saying that we just need to die off, so our ideas go with us.
The tide has turned, Jimmy. You, and everyone who thinks like you has lost, and instead of accepting defeat, you choose to chastise those who want to make this country great by actually getting work done, not simply congratulating themselves on how great they are at collecting million dollar paychecks for pretending to be someone else on camera.
You don’t get to tell us how to act. You don’t get to preach your ideals, especially not when you spent the previous minutes of your speech calling Trump and his supporters racists.
What I’d like you to do is to take that finger that you’re pointing, and turn it back on yourself. Only then will you have the answer to all of society’s problems.
(Source: The Guardian)