And The Oscar Goes To
By Keith Boykin, in politics
Monday, March 24 2003, 3:17AM
Last year was the year of the blacks at the Academy Awards. This year was supposed to be the year of the woman. Instead it was the year of the war.
Since I missed the first 19 hours of the Oscar ceremony as I rode a train from Philadelphia, I decided to write my own list in keeping with the times of war. Here now are my selections for the Academy Awards.
Best Animation: Michael Moore animated the crowd last night with his acceptance speech at the Academy Awards for his film Bowling for Columbine. Moore said, "We like nonfiction and we live in fictitious times. We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons. Whether it's the fiction of duct tape or fiction of orange alerts we are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you. And any time you got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up. Thank you very much."
Best Screenplay: Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, for his prescient memo to then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney in the final year of the first Bush administration. After the fall of the Soviet Union a decade ago, Wolfowitz called for the United States to act as a “colossus astride the world, imposing its will and keeping world peace through military and economic power." He got his wish, for now.
Best Cinematography: Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, for giving us compelling visual images of rifle-toting, camouflage-wearing foot soldiers in the bus stations, train stations, subways and airports throughout America.
Best Visual Effects: Saddam Hussein. Even The Matrix couldn't stage the disappearing act that Hussein pulled off after the bombs began falling in Baghdad. Now you see him, now you don't. Then you see him again.
Best Makeup: Dick Cheney, who after a working vacation at an "undisclosed location," was so heavily disguised when he emerged that no one could recognize the unrepentant belligerent reactionary underneath.
Best Film Editing: This is a serious one. CNN deserves this award for its cautious (but believe it or not courageous) decision to air edited excerpts of the interviews of American soldiers captured by the Iraqis. Everyone in the world has already seen the video except in America, where the pro-war media don't dare to show the real cost of war.
Best Supporting Actress: Condoleeza Rice. A sistahgirl finally wins a big award when she plays second fiddle to a dumb white guy. Or was that last year's storyline?
Best Supporting Actor: Tony Blair. Love him or hate him, Tony Blair has supported the American war effort diligently. No other world leader has suffered as much as Blair has for supporting this outrageous conflict, but Blair deserves credit for seriously trying to defend his decision to his people. Meanwhile, in the land of the free and the home of the brave, our president hides information from Congress and avoids any serious media questions.
Best Director: For the first time in Academy history, one nominee wins a unanimous vote. George Bush wins best director for carefully using powerful celluloid images of planes crashing into the World Trade Center to manipulate the viewer into a war cry two years later against an unrelated, two-bit dictator halfway across the world. Now that's directing!
Best Picture: Chicago, of course. It's a story about the media's love affair with lovable murderers.
Best Actress: Funny thing, there were no women nominated in this category. Condoleeza Rice aside, this is very much a man's war. The men behind this war — Bush, Blair, Hussein, Powell, Cheney, Rumsfeld — bear the ultimate responsibility. When will men learn not to settle their differences with their dicks and fists?
Best Actor: Colin Powell, for his convincing performance as a peaceful diplomat. Powell was eligible because his performance took place in the last weeks of 2002, before he began shooting for his new role this year as a pro-war hawk.
I guess it is the year of the blacks after all.