BEN SHAPIRO: THE TARNISHED GLOBES
http://frontpagemag.com/2013/ben-shapiro/the-tarnished-globes/print/
When red state Americans get together, it’s typically to sing patriotic songs (Tea Party) or praise God (church) or exercise Second Amendment rights (gun shows).
When Hollywood gets together, it’s to congratulate itself.
The big kickoff event every year for Hollywood’s annual self-celebration is the Golden Globes. And each and every year, the Golden Globes ceremony features liberal moments that make the rest of the country cringe.
This year, those moments were plentiful. First, there was ex-President Bill Clinton, who showed up to deliver a painful speech about the film Lincoln:
A tough fight to push a bill through a bitterly divided House of Representatives. Winning it required the president to make a lot of unsavory deals that had nothing to do with the big issue. I wouldn’t know anything about that.
See, because Clinton is like Lincoln! An assertion that is less than surprising, since the media have already announced repeatedly that President Obama is just like Lincoln.
But Clinton’s was hardly the only vomit-inducing incident of the evening. Lena Dunham, creator of the unwatchable mess Girls (every episode is another traverse into the extraordinary world of awkward sex), won a Golden Globe; she made a nuisance of herself during the election cycle by claiming that voting for Barack Obama for the first time was like losing your virginity.
And the anti-Gov. Sarah Palin hit piece Game Change cleaned up, too. Julianne Moore, who played Palin as a quasi-psychotic wreck of a human being, then used her speech to smack Gov. Palin and flatter journalist/hack Katie Couric for savaging Palin. When the film itself won a Golden Globe, producer Jay Roach said about Moore, “now with you and Tina Fey, we have three of the most incredible impersonations of Sarah Palin … counting Sarah Palin.” In a Hollywood that won’t dare to tell a joke about Barack Obama – one of the most mockable presidents in American history – it’s never too late to single out a vice presidential candidate for criticism. Even five years later.
Jodie Foster added her bizarre imprint to the festivities, too. After winning the Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award, she gave a speech in which she sort of, but not quite, but kind of, but not really came out of the closet as a lesbian. She said she was going to announce something deep and dark … that she was single. Cue awkward laughter. Then she continued: “I already did my coming out in the stone age.” But she added, “Now, apparently, I’m told that every celebrity is expected to honor the details of their private life with a press conference …. If you had been a public figure from the time that you were a toddler … then you too might value privacy above all else. Privacy.”
Surely, actors and actresses deserve privacy. But it’s certainly odd to make the case for privacy while making uncomfortable jokes about closeted sexuality.
But it’s not the liberal moments that drive Americans up a wall with regard to the Golden Globes. Overall, it’s the arrogance. The 1 percent who complain about maldistribution of wealth and show up to events like the Golden Globes flaunting their tony dresses and even more expensively acquired body parts. They receive gift bags that would feed a small family for a week. They guzzle champagne, ogle each other, and then head off to after-parties that cost tens of thousands of dollars.
But they say the real problem in America is the job creators who simply don’t pay enough taxes.
Americans know what top-level Hollywood is – a land of dreams and unreality, Tinseltown. But they object when those in Tinseltown try to invade the rest of America and place their imprint on it. Hollywood is like Glinda’s bubble in The Wizard of Oz – beautiful and pink, carrying its inhabitants away from the cruel realities of the social and economic policies they push..
Unfortunately, Hollywood and its values – or lack thereof – have infected the body politic. Most Americans don’t notice when they’re in the movie theater, eating popcorn. But when the lights go up on the Hollywood behind the screen – when red state Americans see the true self-centeredness of the Sunset Blvd. Brigade – they’re alienated. They should be. Hollywood dislikes them even more than they dislike Hollywood.
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