By Ben Stein on 3.6.06 @ 2:08AM
Last night at the Oscars, did anyone find anything kind to say about those who are fighting and dying for us?
Now for a few humble thoughts about the Oscars.
I did not see every second of it, but my wife did, and she joins
me in noting that there was not one word of tribute, not one
breath, to our fighting men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan or to
their families or their widows or orphans. There were pitifully
dishonest calls for peace -- as if the people we are fighting were
interested in any peace for us but the peace of the grave. But not
one word for the hundreds of thousands who have served and are
serving, not one prayer or moment of silence for the dead and
maimed.
Basically, the sad truth is that Hollywood does not think of
itself as part of America, and so, to Hollywood, the war to save
freedom from Islamic terrorists is happening to someone else. It
does not concern them except insofar as it offers occasion to mock
or criticize George Bush. They live in dreamland and cannot be
gracious enough to thank the men and women who pay with their lives
for the stars' ability to live in dreamland. This is shameful.
The idea that it is brave to stand up for gays in Hollywood, to
stand up against Joe McCarthy in Hollywood (fifty years after his
death), to say that rich white people are bad, that oil companies
are evil -- this is nonsense. All of these are mainstream ideas in
Hollywood, always have been, always will be. For the people who
made movies denouncing Big Oil, worshiping gays, mocking the rich
to think of themselves as brave -- this is pathetic, childish
narcissism.
The brave guy in Hollywood will be the one who says that this is
a fabulously great country where we treat gays, blacks, and
everyone else as equal. The courageous writer in Hollywood will be
the one who says the oil companies do their best in a very hostile
world to bring us energy cheaply and efficiently and with a minimum
of corruption. The producer who really has guts will be the one who
says that Wall Street, despite its flaws, has done the best job of
democratizing wealth ever in the history of mankind.
No doubt the men and women who came to the Oscars in gowns that
cost more than an Army Sergeant makes in a year, in limousines with
champagne in the back seat, think they are working class heroes to
attack America -- which has made it all possible for them. They are
not. They would be heroes if they said that Moslem extremists are
the worst threat to human decency since Hitler and Stalin. But
someone might yell at them or even attack them with a knife if they
said that, so they never will.
Hollywood is above all about self: self-congratulation,
self-promotion, and above all, self-protection. This is human and
basic, but let's not kid ourselves. There is no greatness there in
the Kodak theater. The greatness is on patrol in Kirkuk. The
greatness lies unable to sleep worrying about her man in Mosul. The
greatness sleeps at Arlington National Cemetery and lies waiting
for death in VA Hospitals. God help us that we have sunk so low as
to confuse foolish and petty boasting with the real courage that
keeps this nation and the many fools in it alive and flourishing on
national TV.
topics:
Islam, Hollywood, Movies, Law, Iraq, Energy, Oil
