“Keep an open mind; but not so open your brains fall out.”
No one is quite sure who first said that but, hoo-boy, it’s the perfect admonition these days. Consider what the Hollywood elite plan to do to the Oscars. To get consideration for “Best Picture,” the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will mandate minimum standards for diversity and equity. By 2024, those movies that don’t have enough black, gay and disabled actors in them will be, well, blacklisted.
It’s another step into woke hell for the creative arts. No longer will the art of a movie be judged on what is actually “best,” but by what movies qualify to be considered “best” based on artificial criteria not key to the art form.
It is like marking down DaVinci’s Mona Lisa because of its frame. Or, rating the television mini-series “Yellowstone” not on the quality of the content, but by the TV it’s played on.
It’s insane. It will work like this: Starting in 2024, producers will be required to submit a summation of the race, gender, sexual orientation, and disability status of members of their movie’s cast, crew and production vendors. If a particular movie does not have enough specially designated people working on the set, then that movie will not be eligible for Oscar consideration.
The new standards would have blacklisted “Nomadland,” the Best Picture in 2021, because it featured an all-white cast, even though it was directed by Asian filmmaker Chloé Zhao.
Among this year’s Best Picture nominees, the movies “Power of the Dog”, “Licorice Pizza”, and “Belfast” would probably have been dinged.
This year’s winner was “CODA,” an English remake of a French flick about a child of deaf adults. That’s a perfect winner for the Academy because it lacked originality and the storyline put the flick’s subject matter over the diversity bar.
I’d love to see the Mill Valley Film Festival delve into this. How about a workshop with some creative types called: “Invasion Of The Brain Snatchers.”
STOP WHINING
The Novato City Council bumped the pay for Police Department staff for a very good reason: Cops were leaving because they can get paid more elsewhere in the region. Whether a 1.5% pay bump is enough to stem the tide is a separate question. But there is no question something had to be done. Novato goes to the expense of training cops and the minute they get up to speed, they can – and too many do – jump to other cities for a double-digit pay increase.
I get why other public employee unions are not happy with the pay raise not applying to other departments. But let me articulate what Council members politically can’t say:
Stop whining.
This was a targeted police thing. It needed to be done and probably will need to be done again to solve the problem. It’s not fiscally smart for Novato to be a feeder market for other cities in the region.
ONE MORE THING
– FYI: You pee on a jellyfish sting, not a jelly stain. Again, my apologies to the lady at the I-hop yesterday.
– There is nothing like a little tomato soup to soothe the soul. Even if it is cold. Over ice. With a celery stalk. And vodka.
— We grew up so poor all we had was 500 island dressing.
OK, that’ll do it for today. Until next week, avoid soreheads, laugh a little, always question authority and never fear being properly subversive. It’s the American way.
(Sherman Frederick is the publisher of Marin’s community newspapers — the Novato Advance, San Rafael News-Pointer, Mill Valley Herald, Ross Valley Reporter, Twin City Times and the Sausalito Marin Scope. He is co-founder of Battle Born Media, a news organization dedicated to the preservation of community newspapers. You can reach him by email at shermfrederick@gmail.com.)
Leave a Reply