Armond White writes for National Review Online about a lesson to be learned from the latest Academy Awards ceremony.
Everyone ought to know that the Academy Awards stopped being about “excellence” many years ago. But now, after Paul Thomas Anderson’s political farce One Battle After Another was awarded Best Picture, the fact that the Oscars are totally politicized cannot be denied. The real tragedy is that the Oscars attest to a cultural change from aesthetics to politics. Few are able to tell the difference.
Anderson’s film is insultingly timely, succinctly described by podcaster Alec Lace as the story of “a raid on an immigration detention facility, highlighting oppressive border control, systemic racism, and the role of Latino labor.” Anderson confused argumentation with entertainment, and the Academy concurred. (Lace also described it as “a leftist’s wet dream.”) That’s been the problem with Oscar winners ever since 12 Years a Slave, Birdman, Spotlight, Moonlight, The Shape of Water, Green Book, Parasite, Nomadland, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Oppenheimer, and Anora.
This sea change from art to social issues began with the second Obama term, when filmmaking leftists flexed their sense of empowerment. Virtue-signaling replaced honesty about race, sex, and morality — topics that preoccupied the “hope and change” activist movement. Now taste is supplanted by the shameless public display of narcissists.
One Battle — given the acronym OBA(M)A by internet wags — is not a satire of “both sides” extremists. It clearly endorses the violent actions of leftist revolutionaries (Leonardo DiCaprio, Benicio del Toro, Teyana Taylor, and Chase Infiniti) over the self-destructive behavior of a white-supremacist cult (personified by Sean Penn). Both sides share a secretive sexual attraction and connection teased by Anderson, perhaps more for personal reasons than narrative clarity. It’s the farcical treatment of American racial tensions that thrills Hollywood liberals and liberal reviewers who regard the film’s dishonesty as bold truth.
