Jimmy, Oscar and Donald

Commentary

The Academy Awards’ strange bedfellows

Last night’s Academy Awards broadcast was one of the best in recent memory. Hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, with best actor/actress nominees presented with heartfelt introductions by former Oscar winners, it was, for a change, a worthwhile three hours – particularly in a year with so many outstanding films and performances.

Towards the end of the broadcast, Kimmel, in what might have been initially taken as yet another comedic bit, said this:

“Doing this show is not about me. And I appreciate you having me. It’s really about you and Emma (Stone) and all these great actors and actresses and filmmakers. But I was told we have, like, an extra minute, and I’m really proud of something. I was wondering if I could share it with you. I just got a review.”

iPhone in hand, Kimmel read, “Has there EVER been a WORSE HOST than Jimmy Kimmel at The Oscars. His opening was that of a less than average person trying too hard to be something which he is not, and never can be. Get rid of Kimmel and perhaps replace him with another washed up, but cheap, ABC ‘talent,’ George Slopanopoulos. He would make everybody on stage look bigger, stronger, and more glamorous. Also, a really bad politically correct show tonight, and for years – Disjointed, boring, and very unfair. Why don’t they just give the Oscars to those that deserve them. Maybe that way their audience and TV ratings will come back from the depths. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

I, thought, like many of you must have, there goes Kimmel again, making up what he was passing off as a joke about Donald Trump, paid off by with, “See if you can guess which former president just posted that on Truth Social? Thank you, President Trump. Thank you for watching. Isn’t it past your jail time?”

But after a quick Google search, I realized it wasn’t a joke. The former, and for the hopes of a significant portion of the electorate, future president of the United States, actually posted it on his ironically mis-named social media site, Truth Social.

Regardless of Trump’s rant, it was a night in which serious films – films dealing with important aspects of history, morality and human behavior – were showcased.

• “Oppenheimer,” the Best Picture, a deserving winner but a wrenching film detailing the development of a weapon of mass destruction that has impacted world affairs ever since.
• “20 Days in Mariupol,” winner of Best Documentary, a devastatingly graphic film about Russia’s initial, unprovoked, illegal invasion of Ukraine and its indiscriminate targeting of civilians in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol. A Russian atrocity which continues to this day.
• “Zone of Interest,” winner of Best Foreign Language Film, focusing on how Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and his wife Hedwig strove to build a dream life for their family in a home next to the concentration camp Hoss oversaw with ruthless, deadly efficiency. The documentary was described by Steven Spielberg as a film that [is] “doing a lot of good work in raising awareness, especially about the banality of evil.” Or, as journalist and cultural critic David Klion wrote in a Times essay, “…the film also accomplishes something more relevant to the present, forcing viewers to confront difficult questions about our own proximity to atrocity, and succeeding as a bracing reminder of how art can alert and sensitize us to the historical moment we inhabit.”
• “Killers of the Flower Moon,” Martin Scorsese’s best picture nominee depicting the “Reign of Terror” — a period that included the slaughter of dozens, possibly hundreds, of the Osage Nation’s citizens by non-Native people. As The New York Times reviewer opined, the film provided audiences with “unexpected lessons about empathy, the soul of the American public and how a reckoning with American colonialism must begin.”
• “Rustin,” a film documenting the life and times of Bayard Rustin, one of the Civil Right’s movement’s most important, but forgotten heroes, the man who organized the historic 1963 March on Washington.

This night, frankly, was a rarity for an Oscar broadcast. It was a night in which truly important films were honored – a night in which we watched nuclear power used in war for the first (and hopefully, only) time; a night in which Russian war crimes were graphically exposed; a night in which a Holocaust film juxtaposed banality and atrocity; a night in which two films documented American racism and prejudice. But on this night in which movies that dealt with the past forced us to deal with our own present, Donald Trump, the former president of the United States, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, could only do one thing. Play the role of an unhinged television critic.

Let me ask you Trump supporters. Has there ever been a WORSE TV CRITIC than Donald Trump? At least his job performance as TV critic is consistent with his performance as president: In the Sienna College Research Institute’s 2022 ranking of U.S. presidents #45 (Trump) ranked forty-third, ahead of only James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson. Based on some of his recent campaign promises, if Trump does win the 2024 election, my guess is that he will pass at least one, if not both, of those two incompetent predecessors.

That is if, based on those campaign promises, there will be any need for presidential rankings as the United States as we’ve known it will cease to exist with a second Trump presidency!