Hollywood’s Oscar inclusion rules
Actor Richard Dreyfuss has something to say on the new Oscar rules about – what else? – diversity and inclusion. He says they make him vomit.
Here are those rules, if you’re curious.
Personally, I haven’t been watching movies for quite some time. I’m sure there are still a couple of good ones being made, but I hadn’t had luck with movies for so long that I finally just stopped watching. So as far as I’m concerned, movies have already died anyway. But if they needed a final nail in the coffin this is would be it. The racial and ethnic bean-counters – and “women” are also considered an under-represented group in the movie business (which I suppose is true in certain categories like cameramen; oops, camerapeople) – have won the day.
Some from Column A some from Column B? Ah, but it seems that just about everyone wants to do this for the sake of virtue-signaling; they just realize it’s hard to accomplish (emphasis mine):
But some studio sources and independent producers, who spoke off the record because they didn’t want to appear anti-inclusion, say the standards can be byzantine to understand and difficult to gather data for. Multiple studio sources say when they got to the disability/health questions on this year’s submission forms, they largely skipped them.
“When I first looked at it, I’ll be honest, I really freaked out,” says one source. “I felt like I was looking at my taxes. Everybody at the studio looked at each other like, ‘What do we do with this?’ “
The introduction of the RAISE standards is part of Aperture 2025, a broad slate of inclusion policies the Academy passed in 2020, which also included adding mandatory annual unconscious bias training for Academy staff and setting a fixed number of 10 best picture nominees starting in 2021. Aperture 2025 follows on the membership goals the organization set — and met — following the #OscarsSoWhite controversy in 2016. Today, 34 percent of Academy members identify as women, up from 25 percent in 2015, and 19 percent are from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, up from 8 percent in 2015.
Self-identify as women, that is, because I doubt they’re giving them DNA tests (my emphasis):
The Academy says that in the second year of the rollout, it has added resources to help with the process, directing production companies to sites like Free the Work and Staff Me Up, which maintain databases of cast and crewmembers who self-identify as being from underrepresented groups.
The solution is simple for white men in the industry: just self-identify as women. Problem solved in one fell swoop, because now they will be considered twofers, both women and trans. No surgery or hormones necessary, just self-identifying.
Not to mention Elizabeth Warren, who if she ever has a notion to do so can have a stellar new career in film.
Rachel Dolezal, anyone?
I’ve been convinced, at least in my own mind, that my “Frankenstein, Part II” will win the best adapted screenplay category. Now, if there is a subcategory for over 65 White men from the Midwest, I’m a lock.
I couldn’t even win the best screenplay for Nebraska writers at the Omaha Film Festival. Mine was too commercial. And good. I saw some of the winners at a table read. Horrible.
The quality of cinema has indeed been in decline for some years (with the odd exception from time to time, such as “Crisis”), and the “racial bean-counters” (the new commissars of DEI tyranny) are firmly in control everywhere. How long this madness will endure none can predict; recommended viewing related to this insanity is Heather Mac Donald’s interview a few weeks ago on C-SPAN, while recommended reading is VDH’s superb (albeit dispiriting) “The Impending Thermidor Reaction in Jacobin America”.
My reaction?
May their armpits be infested with the fleas of a thousand camels.
Leftists like to twist themselves into a pretzel, I have long ago stopped caring for the Oscar’s or any other awards.
Dreyfuss has kind of become an interesting old school liberal in recent times.
I watched ‘The Goodbye Girl’ a couple weeks ago for the first time in years, for which Dreyfuss won Best Actor, and it is pretty fantastic to this day.
‘The Goodbye Girl’ also had this great song from David Gates in it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN84g-qVwkk
I haven’t seen any Hollywood movie since John Wick 2. So I don’t care. I doubt there have even been enough movies this year to hold an award show. But that could just be because I care so little I don’t know what movies have come out other than ones I’ve seen Yellowflash 2 on youtube roast as woke (D&D, Captain Marvel 2) or praise as potentially non-woke (Mario Brothers cartoon with Chris Pratt).
The absurdity is that between Gays and women, they are likely to hit most of their targets just from those two demographics. Daytime TV, for example, seems to have gay guys playing half the straight guy roles, and a large number of the Creatives are apparently Gay. Movies throw in women in violent Guy flicks. And tend to be a majority of actors in Romantic flicks.
I used to work as a stagehand and I still belong to Facebook groups of people who work on the theater and film industry in the same or similar capacity. It’s the production workers who will really get screwed, specifically white males: grips and carpenters and electricians, Foley artists, sfx, etc…
Because if to do want to make a WWII film, you can have all the male soldiers if everyone else working behind the scenes of a woman.
“ Because if to do want to make a WWII film, you can have all the male soldiers if everyone else working behind the scenes of a woman”
Esp with a lot of extras.
Normally, I’m not in favor of suicide. But in this case I can make an exception, even take a certain degree of delight in it, for surely it is fully deserved. Perhaps never in all of history has a more self-righteous, arrogant group of twits existed and their determination to extinguish themselves is ironically enough rendering humanity a public service.
“Because if to do want to make a WWII film, you can have all the male soldiers”
Paging Martin Dammann, a German artist who published a book in 2018 titled Soldier Studies: Cross-Dressing in the Wehrmacht, filled with photos Dammann collected of WWII German soldiers you could call girly-men (maybe Ahnuld knew what he was talking about when he coined the phrase).
Deutsche Welle (DW) interviewed Dammann when his book was first published, and posted a 3-1/2-minute YouTube video of the interview, with Dammann’s words subtitled in English. He comes across as quite sensible and level-headed about the behavior he documented:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZkzmfUjpwA&ab_channel=DWNews
More about Dammann’s book here:
https://032c.com/magazine/cross-dressing-in-the-wehrmacht-unseen-practices-at-the-german-front
Mel Brooks (still alive at 96) can do a remake of “Springtime for Hitler” with the help of Dammann’s material.
I have seen parts of a couple of Korean ” historical ” dramas set in ancient Korea. The language is in Korean but they have English subtitles. A bit low budget, but ” new” to most English speakers. The first one I watched was set during the Mongol invasion. The second one is before there existed a United Korea. From what I have read there were three major historical kingdoms , and maybe some minor ones, that eventually became ” Korea”.
I do believe that American movie makers , at least in the last few decades, have largely ignored potential great movies set during the conflicts between the Ottomans and the West. Of course, that would be ” racism” and potentially “fatwa” inducing.
“I do believe that American movie makers , at least in the last few decades, have largely ignored potential great movies set during the conflicts between the Ottomans and the West.”
You might be able to persuade some Polish filmmakers to make a movie about King Jan III Sobieski, the hero of the Battle of Vienna in 1683. Sobieski was a university graduate as well as a capable military commander, so there’s a lot of interesting material there.
Dreyfuss has kind of become an interesting old school liberal in recent times.
–Griffin
Yes. They do exist and a hip-hip-hooray for Richard Dreyfuss.
I can’t imagine many old Hollywood hands are happy with today’s thought control. But if you’re not someone with Dreyfuss’s clout and net worth, stepping out of line is not much of an option, unless you’re ready to give it all up anyway.
There are plenty of wannabes more woke or at least willing not to make waves available.
Cannot recall where I read it, possibly Manchester’s “Arms of Krupp” where he detailed the cross dressing in and prior to WW I. One scene, a bunch of senior officers on a train station platform, uniformed in the old Hohenzolern style, pickelstaub helmets, spit-shined stomping boots, soupstrainer mustaches, macho as hell.. And they were all a bunch of screaming queens.
At another time, one senior guy died of a heart attack while dancing for the party attendees. Had a heck of a time getting him into his uniform considering the tutu.
Depending on where you get your history, there are faint echoes of this sort of thing at Prussian/German highest circles.
Neo says, “Not to mention Elizabeth Warren, who if she ever has a notion to do so can have a stellar new career in film.”
huxley– In this context, have you seen the parody of Ethel Merman’s song (“I’m An Indian Too”) from Annie Get Your Gun, starring Ms. Warren? Here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7FyyVwYEds&ab_channel=drefanzor
PA+Cat:
Excellent!
A bit frightening, though, for the CGI which faked Elizabeth Warren into that film scene.
My Oklahoma grandmother claimed to be Cherokee, so I could be born in the Santa Fe Indian Hospital.
It’s an Oklahoma Thing. You wouldn’t understand. 🙂
huxley–
I understand some things about the American Indian past, including the atrocity that wiped out the Conestoga Indians in my home town. The Paxton Boys were a group of Scots-Irish vigilantes who lived in the next county across the Susquehanna River from Lancaster. In 1763 they raided the Lancaster prison, where the then-governor of Pennsylvania had placed the Indians for protective custody. What the Boys did to the Indians makes sickening reading even today. Benjamin Franklin published “A Narrative of the Late Massacres” in 1764 in defense of the Indians. The details of the massacre can be found here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paxton_Boys
It’s a Pennsylvania thing, but I think you can understand.
PA+Cat:
It’s a pretty sad story on both sides. I’m not sure of your point.
Mine was simply that Elizabeth Warren didn’t invent the White Oklahoman Claiming Native American Ancestry dodge.
My grandmother put it over so I could be born in an Indian Hospital. (Santa Fe General was full-up.)
Those so inclined could say my very birth was an instance of White Supremacy.
huxley–
My point is simply that a person from a state that no longer has a significant Indian population can feel deep regret about the reasons for that situation. I certainly don’t blame your grandmother for making the most of the Indian Health Service! BTW, when I checked, I found out that the Nashville Area of the IHS is responsible for assisting patients in 24 different states– including the entire East Coast. I guess that’s Tennessee Supremacy.
As far as White Supremacy goes, you’ve probably noticed that the MSM journos are eager to classify the Texas mall shooter (Mauricio Garcia, as Hispanic as they come) as a white supremacist:
https://nypost.com/2023/05/08/texas-mall-shooter-appeared-to-time-attack-for-max-carnage/
“mandatory annual unconscious bias training ”
Is this administered under anesthesia?
If Hollywood wants to have a ratings coup on Oscar night, they should have Dylan Mulvaney emcee.
‘The Goodbye Girl’ also had this great song from David Gates in it.
==
A sentiment from a different age.
==
And watch it. Allusions to Quinn Cummings set Neo off.
==
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbcfndJtqgY
Hollywood thinks that putting women, actors of color, and LGBTQ characters into movies will let them get away with recycling the same old plots. It’s similar in other Anglo-Saxon countries and in European television (movies on the continent lagging a little behind the pack).
Nothing against non-traditional casting in itself, but it seems so forced and heavy handed that it makes a lot of marginal productions hard to get through. Whether it’s in entertainment or business or politics, talk about “inclusivity” making things “look like America [or like modern Britain]” often results in productions that look rather unlike the real country.
Re: Hollywood Inclusion Diktats
Well, well, could not have happened to a nicer group of people. So now they can experience – in addition to spouting off on social media and in addition to donating big $$$$ to leftist politicians – first hand the consequences of supporting/encouraging the leftist agenda.
Is it possible that Meathead (the commie son in ” All In the Family,” ), Rob Reiner had a hand in writing the new DEI rules??
My guess is that those who wrote these new Stalinist diktats are those who no longer – or never did – have any chance whatsoever of being nominated for an Oscar.
After all, you can’t expect a lefty to impose diktats that will actually affect them.
}}} Today, 34 percent of Academy members identify as women
True, but there are exactly the same percentage who have XX chromosomes as before.
You know, if it helps me get work in Hollywood, I’ll identify as a cornflake.
}}} Now, if there is a subcategory for over 65 White men from the Midwest, I’m a lock.
Easy peasy. Just check the box below when you find it on your application:
=========================================================
[ ] I hereby declare that, at this precise moment, I self-identify as a woman.
=========================================================
TBH, the Oscars peaked in the 1990s, which was by far their best year. For the 6 major awards, the winners each and every year were often the obvious choice, and, if not, they were usually a reasonable choice for that award.
The best year was 1998, when Pretty much everything in those top 6 won the exact best/right award for what it had managed.
It’s been all downhill since then.
As to movies, well, certainly some types do quite well. Usually ones which don’t surrender to woke sh**.
Guardians of the Galaxy 3 is a fun romp, with some nice serious/dramatic moments in it. A bit uneven as a result, but it does do quite well, and does not surrender at all to wokeness, unlike many recent Marvel products.
Y’all may find this piece, by screenwriter Robert J. Averech, from 2008, when Bush was still around, of interest.
He recounts how it feels to be a right-leaning person in Hollywood.
How To Get So Dead In This Town
https://web.archive.org/web/20210226190252/http://www.seraphicpress.com/how-to-get-so-dead-in-this-town/