The Jean Hersholt Award.
If you're an Oscar watcher, already buying the popcorn for the
February 25th ceremonies, you know what this is. In the words of
the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Hersholt Award
"is given to an individual in the motion picture industry whose
humanitarian efforts have brought credit to the industry." In other
words, this is one of the few awards given out by the Academy that
does not honor the recipient for his or her artistic achievements.
It chooses among the Hollywood elite who have used their success in
motion pictures for various humanitarian causes.
The award includes among its honorees Elizabeth Taylor (her work
on AIDS), the late Audrey Hepburn (the United Nations), Gregory
Peck (a variety of charities and causes) and even Charlton Heston
in his pre-conservative incarnation as spokesman for the National
Rifle Association (for support for Civil Rights, among other
things.)
But there's a name missing from this list, and the fact that it
is missing highlights the reason so many conservatives dismiss not
only the Oscar but a number of other prominent awards. The missing
name, of course, is Ronald Reagan.
Over the course of a forty-year career in almost sixty films,
Reagan served not only as president of the Screen Actors Guild but
as a master of ceremonies of the Oscars themselves. Yet the only
actor to serve as president of the United States, the man
historians now credit with winning the Cold War and freeing
millions from bondage, the man who just the other day was rated as
second only to Abraham Lincoln in terms of presidential greatness
-- for this actor there was not a snow ball's chance in hell of
being honored by his peers.
Clearly, the reason had to be Reagan's conservatism. Does anyone
seriously think that a former President Robert Redford or former
President George Clooney would be unrecognized by the Motion
Picture Academy? Of course not. This very year no less than Al Gore
-- Al Gore!- is up for a golden statue for his global warming
documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.
The real inconvenient truth about a number of these high profile
awards is that if you are a political conservative you can simply
forget about applying. The amusing part of all this is that the
same-old-same-old results of ignoring conservatives or blatantly
choosing winners based on their liberalism winds up demeaning the
award itself, degrading its value to the point that fewer and fewer
people even pretend to care.
Who today has the same kind of respect for the Oscars, the
Grammys, or even the Nobel Peace Prize, all of which once seemed to
have a dazzling glow? Let's be real. The reason Reagan was ignored
by the Oscars is the same reason the Dixie Chicks won a Grammy and
Jimmy Carter got the Nobel Peace Prize. Carter -- and both Bill and
Hillary Clinton -- even got a Grammy for reading an audio version
of a book!
It has nothing to do with the stated purpose of the awards in
question. The question of who wins these things is settled ahead of
time by the recipient's politics. Does anyone really believe that
if an ex-Vice President Dick Cheney made a film about the
inconvenient untruths of global warming doctrine he'd ever see the
inside of the Kodak Theater as an Oscar nominee?
It's too bad. Millions of Americans love movies and music. Why,
I know for a fact there are conservatives out there who even
cherish peace! Really! They simply disagree on how to achieve
it.
Surprisingly, there is one of the younger "awards" that has
actually stepped up to the plate on this issue. No less than the
John F. Kennedy Library's "Profile in Courage Award" took a step
back from the brink of liberal predictability by giving the late
President Gerald Ford its award for his courage in pardoning JFK's
old debating partner Richard Nixon. The move was particularly
stunning when one considered the vocal opposition to the pardon
from Senator Ted Kennedy. The choice of Ford did the obvious -- it
gave the Profiles in Courage Award an increase in credibility with
observers who had come to believe that it was nothing more than
more of the liberal same.
But the Kennedy award is the exception in the awards business,
not the rule. The fact of life in the awards business is that
conservatives should not bother to apply. Which is why the latest
choice to receive this or that award will be greeted by many
conservatives with a yawn. What could be more boring then liberals
applauding liberals?
So go ahead and tune in to the Oscars on Sunday night. Pop the
corn, settle in and pick a liberal to win. You'll be right. And to
say the least, one more liberal getting the Jean Hersholt Award
will hardly bring "credit to the industry" beyond notice that
diversity is not a Hollywood thing.
Pay no attention to the men and women running the Academy Awards
behind their gilded curtains. Al Gore may be able to beat Ronald
Reagan at the Oscars, but I have no doubt Reagan would have
preferred winning the Cold War over winning an Oscar any day of the
week.
He was, after all, a humanitarian.
Jeffrey Lord is the author of The Borking
Rebellion. A former Reagan White House political director, he
is now a writer in Pennsylvania.
topics:
Hillary Clinton, Business, Global Warming, Hollywood, Movies, United Nations, NATO, Conservatism
