Angela Bassett, Jesse Jackson, and others have in recent years labeled the Oscars racist for its paucity of black nominees. Should whites be making the same complaints about Sunday's Grammy Awards or the NFL Pro Bowl? At the Grammys, three black entertainers dominated the night. Ray Charles, Alicia Keys, and Usher took home a combined twelve awards. At the Pro Bowl, whites comprised only two of the eighteen players named to the NFC defense and just two of the twenty-one named to the AFC defense. Not a single white running back or wide receiver made the AFC or NFC squad. So does this make the Pro Bowl or the Grammys racist? If the shoe were on the other foot, Jesse Jackson would certainly answer in the affirmative. But the shoe is not on the other foot, so no one says the Grammys or the Pro Bowl is racist. This is because they aren't. Statistical abnormalities aren't necessarily signs of discrimination--at the Pro Bowl, the Oscars, or the Grammys.

It's worse in the NBA. No whites were selected as All-Star starters. Only three whites (Nash, Nowitzki and Ilgauskas; four if you count Ginobli) made the All-Star teams, and they were all selected as reserves (14 reserves were selected in all).

Dirk has had a better season than KG and is on a contender, the same could be said for Nash compared to McGrady. Only racism could explain their relegation to the bench.

Yes the grammys are racist....against whites. Just like the NBA and the NFL. I guarantee Ray will win best picture of the year and Foxx will win best actor. Hollywood has soft spots for movies about drug addicted alcoholics who have no self control, and its a big bonus if he's black! These are "touchy feely" times we live in now. Our government and our society has to crumble under pressure of the ACLU and the NAACP...if not us whites are facist racists.

"The Motorcycle Diaries" won the Best Picture in the British Oscar-equivalents (I think they're acronymed "BAFTA"). So, I don't know about racism - you can also win for dramatizing the lighthearted early days of a murderous anarchist.

Let's see if I follow your logic James: Ray will win the Oscar for Best Picture because it's a "touchy-feely" film about a drug-addicted alcoholic who's black, and Hollywood has a soft spot for such colorful characters. Yeah, I'm outraged.

Watched "Ray" last night and as much as they tried to humanize this guy, it ended up that he was just an extremely talented a-hole.

But, the film was well done and although it should not get anything for best picture, Jamie Fox was phenomenal as Ray Charles Robinson.

I have no idea why anyone would ever give credence to a worthless God damn piece of shit like Jesse Jackson. This stupid f(_)ck has profitted from the sorrow of African Americans for decades now, and has indisputably proven that the only thing he cares about is his himself. He's a reverend who cheated on his wife. Does anyone give Jimmy Swaggart credence? No. So why should we give a solipsistic windbag like Jackson the time of day? It's sad that he is able to blackmail individuals and companies for cash, simply by crying racist. You wanna know what is really racist? When two Belgians are shot in Rwanda, and the entire UN pulls out, leaving half a million Rwandans to die. That is f(_)cking racist. Are two Belgians worth more than half a million Rwandans? No, but people like Jesse Jackson have no problem with racist (anti-Semitic, pro-European) institutions like the UN. kthxbye

Polemical Muhammad Ali,

Please don't swear on the comments board. Thanks.

--Dan

Sorry about that, Dan. Just delete the post. My emotions get the best of me.

I don't think these things are racist. Silly, yes. Racist, generally no. I don't feel any white guys got cheated out music or sportswise. I don't know of any great black actor performance that was unacknowledged recently. I do think Denzel didn't deserve an Oscar for the poor film Training Day.

On the other hand, if a turkey like Titanic can win, how can you really complain if someone wins because they are or aren't black? This is, after all, a silly award show that nobody should get too lathered about.

Training Day had a cliche unstoppable bad guy ending--but before that Denzel was quite compelling and believable in his entire range of "transformation". (Similar to Penn's "transformation" in Mystic River, IMO).

The crime really was to let a potboiler like Silence of the Lambs sweep the Oscars---wasn't there anything better that year?

We done been disenfranchisemented agin??

Sea King,

Silence of the Lambs is great. Hannibal is ever better.

And while we're on this subject, Chris Rock thinks that any man who watches the Oscars is a homosexual; straight from the horse's mouth.

ARE THE OSCARS GAY TOO?

Chris,

Braveheart was a good movie. Its gore was substantive gore---just like in The Passion of the Christ. It gives visceral impression of sacrafice. In Braveheart, the sacrafice was for freedom. In Passion, for forgiveness of sins. Gibson's oerve says we are soft, more or less.

Silence lacked substance and provided thrills and chills and ritualistic slaughter for entertainment sake, with no discernable larger theme, except that perhaps society's lack of acceptance of Buffalo Bill as a woman trapped in a male body drove him to psychosis.

Also the portrayal of Lector as so capable of discerning human behavior reduces us to an equation of behaviors. It is partly nihilistic as the omniscient Lector really just would chew off your face if he got near you. In fact, I find that Lector's "insight" was a manufactured thematic device to increase the lead's confusion, not to impart any thematic material.

Now we can discuss Lector's contradiction as a learned man of great insight who totally lacks anything but a predatory instinct as part of the vanity of the great or the frailty and unrepentance of man---but the movie hardly lends us that theme.

Perhaps Hopkins deserved the Oscar for it---but I would have much preferred he get it for Remains of the Day which was a much more substantial film than a manipulative thriller.

I say manipulative, because it's easy to see how one character can see into another character's psyche when the author must. The author then imparts this "omniscience" to one of his characters and you get the uncannily knowlegeable character---especially when the read character responds "How could you know that?! How could anyone know that?!" Voila, add a leather mask and a glass cell and you have Lector.

After I watched the film it faded like dust, and I spent the next day trying to justify to myself why I burned in the back of my brain a ritual slaughter as art, if all I was left with was vapors.

I contrast this with the movie Rampage. Where it paints a picture of a ritual murderer using the system to his advantage and ideological purist psychologists who will argue anything before the court because they disagree with jails. I can take blood in a movie, I just can't take its nihilistic glorification as alternative art.

Sea King,

The films for 1991 actually were generally miserable. I agree with your assessment of Silence of the Lambs totally and would add that although Americans (like all peoples) are fascinated with what we find inexplicable, such as psychopath serial murderers, or Howard Dean, this is the ordinary fascination of people for the Brutish. Aristotle would understand this as stemming from the fact that the brutish are more personally frightening then the vicious (think Buffalo Bill vs. Adolf Hitler) but less interesting and dangerous because lacking in reason. One of the fatal flaws of Silence and that whole series of films (Michael Mann's original Manhunter is really the best) is thinking that their is drama in contemplating the deranged. The deranged are by definition incapable of dramatic control/action/intrigue b/c they are ultimately inexplicable b/c irrational. If you want to see a film that is admittedly not the best but does not make the mistake of caring "why" insane psychos kill then see Switchback. The ending of Silence with the hannibal almost cutesy delivered "having an old friend for dinner" line simply underscores the decadence and nihilism of the film.

Oh yeah, as for 1991, the only other films were the likes of Backdraft, Scorsese's crap remake of Cape Fear, Thelma and Louise, Addams Family . . . I would say my vote would have gone for Drop Dead Fred :) but seriously a weak year in Hollywood.

Wait a second, I just rmembered that The Fisher King by Terry Gilliam came out in 91, that is a good film as well.

Fisher King is an awesome film---a perplexingly gritty/heroic fable. Jeff Bridges has never turned in a better performance (and that is saying something because Fab Baker Boys is one of my favorite movies) and despite Williams nearly single-handedly ruining Baron Munchasen the 6 minutes he was on the screen, Gilliam reined him in well for this movie.

Williams, ideology aside, is am impressive actor when kept on a leash.

Cape Fear was bad. Bad Scorsese--it doesn't happen often. But that one was pure fluff. It's still production-wise and performance-wise a good movie. Marty is just too talented in that arena. It just totally misses the mark on being about anything more than it is about.

Not even Last Temptation failed as badly. Thematically, it doesn't carry any larger message than Peck-Mitchum version, except to bring modern libido into it, such as Juliette Lewis sucking on DeNiro's thumb.

Sea King,

I knew it was you commenting oh my love for Hannibal Lector even before I scrolled down to the end of the comment. No offense, but you over ana*yze everything!

I like these movies (especially Hannibal), because of a few factors.

1)Hannibal's artistic quality and cinematography are spectacular. They created an opera and wrote an a whole aria precisely for the movie (and did it fantastically). As an opera lover, this is spoke volumes for the writer and director. Also, the scenes in Rome and D.C. are so well filmed, at the perfect parts of the day to really let the viewer feel like he's right there. It really captures the mood, and gives a vivid portrayal.
2)Although you are absolutely disgusted with Hannibal, his character intrigues you and makes you look at the darker side of humanity, with a delightful comic relief that keeps things almost light hearted.
3)His penchant for culture and his appreciation for the finer things in life displays almost an irony (lack of a better word) for the whole scenerio.
4)The stories are beautifully crafted and thrilling, keeps the viewer guessing, and are not at all predictable (at least to me).

All of these things make me judge it to be quality work. You can debate all these other qualties and parts of Habbibal's humanity, but when it comes down to it, Film and Theater are merely an acceleration of life. If you keep it in the context, not take it too seriously, then you won't run into all these problems.

Chris - I can't be sure that I disagree, since I'm not sure what "an acceleration of life" means, precisely. ;) In any case, there's one thing life has that even great cinema does not - it's real. In a theater you get only those straitened portions of life another chooses to show. Then you walk out of the theater and everything others hid from you comes rushing back out.

In other words, a film is someone else's vision. In life you choose your own vision, and that view changes all the time: there are always things you never considered before, new events, new people, ideas and arguments that suddenly make sense, old notions that suddenly ring false.

Also, you can take it or leave it with entertainment - pay to see it, or reject it out of hand. Life does not wait for permission.

You see what I mean? I can write a book which purports to tell you what life is all about; it may even be an excellent book, and true as far as it goes. But then I put my book down, and move to the next. I go out and get coffee at the diner. I let in the cat, and walk the dog. Life can be lived in full, but understood only in part.

Nightfly,

An "acceleration of life" is a phrase often quoted by artists for their work. Be it Visual, Musical, Opera, and even film. What I interpret this to mean is that it takes life, and adds an element to it (one, or many) that normally wouldn't occur in everyday situations (i.e. a man sauteeing another man's brain for supper, or more simplistically, a man and a woman singing a beautiful aria together about their love). These things usually do not happen, and the theater or film screen is a medium to display this.

Now, when you talk about another person's vision, you then hit some areas the might further explain my phrase. My vision of life and another person's vision are different, depending on what motitates an individual, what they are passionate about, and so forth.

To put it another way, if one happens to be a nympho, then his vision of life consists of finding sexual gratification every day in new and exciting ways. His (or her) acceleration of life might be a 24/7 orgasm; a never ending scene of sexual gratification.

An Opera aficianado's vision might be witnessing new and exciting opera all around the world, hearing artist's brilliance all the time, and enjoying life through the medium of sound and theatrical scenes.

Many things that are displayed on these mediums represent ideals of one person or another. They also could represent weird situations that one thinks up. This is the creative vision that encompasses the artist's mind, the "acceleration of life", if you will.

Chris,

I don't overana-lyze everything. :D I just think that the "Best Picture" needs to be more than a cinematic dream--or nightmare for that matter.

Although, I found much to pick at Cider House Rules, but at least it invoked themes bigger than it was. Preachy as it was, I still find it a better Best Picture than SotL.

Now I loved Rat Race, and I'm not about to put much ana-lysis into it---nor am I suggesting it should have ever been best picture.

The Incredibles is interesting, though. It's rather anti-egalitarian, be all that you can be, ode to excellence....

Chris - I write in my spare time, but this blog is the only place anyone's heard of me; I'm not important enough to use the phrase "acceleration of life" in reference to my own ouvre. ;) But I do understand what it means, now, and thank you for elaborating.

Sea King - The Incredibles absolutely ruled. Great soundtrack, too.

Sea King,

I am confused by your last post. You say that Cider House Rules is a better best picture than Silence of the Lambs. But they were of two completely different years (which I know you know) and moreover Cider House Rules did not win best picture in 1999, American Beauty did.

Do you just mean a film like Cider House should be the kind of film that should win best picture?

Btw, in 1999 the best picture in my estimation was clearly David Lynch's "The Straight Story," that movie was fantastic. An extremely close second was "Magnolia," and I mean extremely close. American Beauty was complete garbage as is Cider House but whatever.

What was this post about again?

Nightfly: I try and write for a living...hasn't exactly worked out to my liking yet, but i'm getting there. My knowledge of fine arts comes from others, and it's a flare i've developed over the years. It's also a nice conversation starter, or, if you want someone to think you are an elitist, talk about opera or classical music. It's funny how many people say they like the stuff, but when you ask them what they like, they are clueless.

Sea King: I much prefer John Irving's novels to the movies based on his novels (Garp, Cider, Prayer for Owen Meaney were ok movies, the books are much better)....even though Irving is a flaming liberal.

James: I loved American Beauty, but I also love Silence of the Lambs, and other sick films like "The Clockwork Orange"...I guess I just have a sick, dirty mind.

I think you are all ignorant, obviously none of you have experianced racism, which is still a big problem in this country. racism is now is more subtle, not the let's go and kill a black person obvious. consider this out of the 50 or so presidents we've had NONE of them are other than white. so i think that if mostly blacks dominate the Grammy's or the NFL Pro Bowl it's fair and balanced because of how long they've been opressed. consider this, if you are so enraqged over the Grammy's, can you imagine how blacks feel?

I think you are all ignorant, obviously none of you have experianced racism, which is still a big problem in this country. racism is now is more subtle, not the let's go and kill a black person obvious. consider this out of the 50 or so presidents we've had NONE of them are other than white. so i think that if mostly blacks dominate the Grammy's or the NFL Pro Bowl it's fair and balanced because of how long they've been opressed. consider this, if you are so enraqged over the Grammy's, can you imagine how blacks feel?

Chris Rock yelled...."BROOKLYN....YO" at the end of the oscars. Other than puff daddy and Jay Z(What the f*ck were they doing there) and Beyonce'(Why did she sing like every f*cking song"...Noone found that cool or funny.....Black people will never understand how the oscars were an event of classy behavior, NOT ghetto fab.