Did I Almost Forget about the Oscars?

I’ve been excited for the announcement of the Oscar nominations every year for more than half a century. I’m not sure exactly when and why it started but my earliest memory is being a really, really happy little boy when I heard Mary Poppins got a ton of nominations AND several months later literally jumping up and down screaming when Julie Andrews walked up to the stage to accept the trophy as best actress.

Thinking about it now I wonder:

How did they not know I was gay?

Well okay, that’s not the only thought I have in my head.

I am also recalling years when I rehearsed my own Oscar speech (in anticipation of a win even though I had yet to ever work on a movie); others when I was a reporter and actually had to get up at 5 in the morning to cover the damn thing live at the Academy (Note: Be careful what you wish for); and still others where I voluntarily woke up at 5 in the morning at home to watch it on TV and not miss a moment of elation or outrage.

And I’m only slightly embarrassed to admit that I was still doing that last one as a recently as, well, ahem, not that long ago.

Why?

I don’t know. Why do you care about the Super Bowl or the World Series; the NBA Playoffs, Wimbledon or Monday Night Football; Paris Fashion Week, the Cannes Film Festival, the Grammys or the winner of Eurovision?

Maybe you don’t or maybe you do but in life it’s nice to look forward to something.

Well, that ended this year. It’s not that I wasn’t tracking potential nominees but on the twice-postponed Oscar nomination announcement day I woke up, did my morning routine (Note: Use your imagination), hung out and, right before leaving the house at 11 suddenly thought, ‘oh right, the Oscars. I better…check?’

It was kind of surreal.

Perhaps it’s age or the movies, but I don’t think so. Maybe it’s the fact that parts of L.A. were on fire several weeks ago hastening the delay (Note: During which I did have to evacuate my house) so I got that and a lot of dates confused. Not likely.

Mostly it was because I was keeping my mind on a bunch of other announcements that didn’t involve a svelte golden statuette but an engorged orange (and profoundly non-statuesque) one.

But these announcements were actually orders for actions that were not democratically voted on. Things like:

Releasing more than 1500 violent criminals from jail who severely beat up cops and broke into and entered the Capitol building, where they hunted down members of Congress (Note: And occasionally stopped to smear feces on the walls and destroy offices) all in order to subvert the peaceful transfer of power to a new president they didn’t vote for four years ago.
Revoking President Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1965 order that guaranteed people of color and women equal opportunity to be hired, trained and employed by any agency in the federal government or any company or person who has a contract with said government, and
A termination to birthright U.S. citizenship even though it is literally written into the 14^th amendment to the U.S. Constitution that anyone born in the U.S. IS a citizen of the U.S.

For further elucidation and analysis of said announcements and their implications you can also check out these articles in Axios and the NY Times. Or simply use the google with the key words: recent executive orders for the source of your choice.

As for the Oscar nominations, anyone who follows these things or longs for a little competitive glamour or excellence in their lives courtesy of the movies, or is simply slightly film obsessed, has their favorites and their inexcusables. For me, it’s Timothée Chalamet’s performance in A Complete Unknown because I’m not sure how anyone can sound and act exactly like Bob Dylan, pretend they’re a young guy in the sixties, croon a tune to a pretend Woody Guthrie and go on to sing with and make love to a fake Joan Baez without making it a complete parody. (Note: Also because his best actor Oscar for Call Me By Your Name got stolen by Gary Oldman seven years ago. And no, I don’t forget).

Was this the most important cinematic moment of the year? Certainly not. But for me it was the most impressive and, anyway, as we all should know by now, that’s not what the Oscars are all about.

Nor should it be.

Also… sorry Timmy but better luck next time

The importance monicker is usually most omni-present in the best picture category, which pretty consistently reserves slots for movies that say something about social issues (Note: Forgetting the fact that ALL movies are social comments on our world), as well as advance the best of technology, execution or contemporary messages to be had from movies during that year.

Personally, I think expanding the best picture category from a limit of five nominations to these days as many as TEN nominations (Note: It works through a weighted scale the Academy concocted that is too cumbersome to explain in anything less than a term paper) is somewhat equivalent to being awarded a yearly participation award in a small, local day camp.

“And you get an Oscar… and you… and you!”

Okay, perhaps that’s a bit much but AMPAS voting to expand the list of possible nominees in 2009 seemed more like a marketing tool for studios due to lagging box-office than anything else.

But in an age where our new 78-year-old POTUS just announced that Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone and Jon Voight are to serve as his special ambassadors to Hollywood (Note: News to them, since it was relayed only in a tweet, but fitting since they all reached stardom in those regrettable, greed is good eighties), it’s a welcome relief.

See, unlike MAGA voters the vast majority of all 10 best picture nominees this year focused on stories about diversity, equity and inclusion in regards to immigration, race, trans/LGBT representation, ageism, economic inequality and/or religious persecution. And if you look back in history that tends to happen when political leaders spend their time taking away rights or lashing out at specific communities for power, or profit or simply because they can.

As I tell my students, movies are not life but, on the whole, they tend to absolutely reflect real life and the issues we, as a society are concerned about in that moment.

This is why this year I am thrilled to have as many as TEN, if not more, best picture nominees vying for the Oscar. I might be selling out my long-held views for political gain, but hey, at least it’s not to stay in office.

As for the list of this year’s films, they are: Anora, The Brutalist, A Complete Unknown, Conclave, Dune: Part Two, Emilia Perez, I’m Still Here, Nickel Boys, The Substance, and Wicked.

I’d be happy with any of them winning. And not only because Gibson, Stallone, Voight had absolutely nothing to do with any of them, and they address rights and issues they and the guy they will be ambassador-ing for want to roll back and, preferably, erase.

Though, that helps.

A lot.

Jonathan Bailey – “Dancing Through Life” (from Wicked)

11.10.24

by notesfromachair

Notes for the 70 million

And how is everyone today?

Well, I guess my magic eight ball failed me. Which means I’m out of the political prognosticating business.

My last post predicted, with great assurance, that Kamala Harris would be elected president. A historic achievement for so many reasons but mostly for the sake of the future of the country and the world.

Of course, personally, I’m not that noble.

The truth is I abhor racists, sexual predators and people who brazenly lie, break the law and prey on the trusting nature of those less cynical than I am.

Which means pretty much everybody.

Also, as a Scorpio, another of my truths is I have a weakness for revenge. I’m not proud of it and have to work to keep it in check. But somehow I convinced myself that shaming the biggest bully in the U.S. as a loser in the public square would be justice.

Well, nothing good happens when you let the righteous anger of revenge get the best of you.

How do I know that? Witness the results of the 2024 presidential election. Seventy-four million Americans took their own palpable rage out on the other 70 million of us who were trying to take the high road for the good of their country even though many of us were quite rageful and revengeful deep down. In doing so, they elevated a bully to the highest office in the land, and perhaps the world, hoping he’d…

Make their world better?

Protect them?

Beat up (Note: Or worse) the people they don’t like, disagree with or who look different than they do?

Get them some more money?

All of the above and quite a lot more?

I have ZERO idea.

Here’s what I do know.

As a college professor, advisor and mentor with hundreds of current and former students in my life, I heard stories from A LOT of traumatized young people this week.

Women in their twenties who were quickly obtaining birth control because they feared the next administration would outlaw their method, track their menstrual cycles and…much worse.
Sad students I had taught or am currently teaching who have non-white immigrant parents and are terrified for themselves and their families despite the fact they were born here.

Gay, lesbian and non-binary students so depressed they couldn’t speak about their present, much less their futures, even in a so-called safe space.
Trans students living openly wondering why they are so hated and others planning to transition who are now delaying becoming their true selves for fear of practical, and very public, retribution.
Very, very white students dreading Thanksgiving dinner with their gloating, MAGA relatives.
And across-the-board concerns, despite political beliefs, from all of them, about not only the health of the planet but their careers and economic futures under a president they universally see as a geriatric version of Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker. (Note: Their analogy, not mine).

The dancing is similar but you know Trump doesn’t do stairs

It was hard to know what to say.

Not to mention, heartbreaking.

This is not the world they imagined. It’s certainly not one I every fully acknowledged.

Or had I?

This led me to the only perspective and advice I had to give, that I’ve shared in bits and pieces on social media. It’s not a solution or a practical guide of what to do. I can’t think straight, or even gay enough, to offer much on that score at the moment. But what I do know is:

70 MILLION PEOPLE VOTING FOR SOMETHING IS NOT NOTHING. It is the possibility of SOMETHING.

As a gay man of a certain age, these days I try to not dwell on key events of the eighties. But like all trauma, and deep disappointments and losses, they are forever engrained in my psyche and have shaped me into what I hope is the decent, and mostly loving, person I am today.

Back then I thought it was all over after Reagan was elected and then re-elected thanks in great part to fear of “the other,” greed and Christian nationalism. In particular the latter (and Reagan) capitalized on a fear and hatred of the LGBTQ+ community, turned their back on the AIDS crisis and literally ignored the deaths of many tens of thousands of American citizens, not to mention eventually millions around the world.

A lot of them were my friends and peers and watching the mass indifference of so many of those so-called citizens basking in the glow of “Morning in America” made me sick to my stomach and uncontrollably angry. And, eventually, quite hopeless.

In those years I was convinced as a country we were soulless and probably doomed, not to mention completely morally bankrupt, and that nothing good could ever occur again for me, and certainly not US. I never, EVER imagined we’d get to Barack Obama. Not. A. Chance.

But now our country has clearly changed again (as it always does), has to some extent been deluded by disinformation, has to some extent chosen racisms/sexism/homophobia and others isms, and has to more than some extent chosen to be guided by fear and delusion vs. reality-based evolution.

So we’re going to have to go through some rocky times, most likely extremely rocky times, before we get to “the promised land.”

Fortunately, the nature of this country historically – especially in relation to change – is that there are huge swings back and forth as we evolve. It’s never easy and we often metaphorically, and literally, go kicking and screaming, but against all odds we manage to, if not get there, at least progress. Consider, more than a century and a half ago there was a CIVIL WAR. People you knew in the south were shooting at and killing those in the north they disagreed with. There should have been NO WAY for this country, much less any country as young as ours, to survive it.

Will it now happen again and include the Midwest, Southwest and Pacific coast states? As I said, I’m out of the predicting business. If only because I don’t even want to contemplate being trained in the use of a contemporary style musket.

Though, if needed, I could, and will, certainly learn.

Our CURRENT SITTING VICE-PRESIDENT, Kamala Harris, said in her concession speech – “The light of America’s promise will always be bright – as long as we never give up – and as long as we keep fighting.”

Endings = Beginnings = …Well, that’s up to us.

It’s okay to be sad and depressed and to escape with your vice of choice for a few days. Then it’s time to start again, all of us, as so many before us have done.

And remember, those aged 18-29 voted against the Bully by a clear margin – over 10%.

That’s the beginning of a whole lot of something. A seeable slice of hope in our always uncertain future.

Chappell Roan – “Good Luck, Babe”

notes from a chair

Tag Archives: MAGA

Did I Almost Forget about the Oscars?

Notes for the 70 million