I won't be watching the Oscars this year.
As hard as it is for a movie buff like myself, I will be undertaking a personal and insconsequential boycott. No one will care that I'm not watching the show. I won't make news or even cause a blip in the Nielsen ratings. Personal statements are what they are, personal. But they are worth making anyway.
I am a movie buff. I have been since childhood when I grew to love the movies. So much so that I chose as my high school summer job to be a theater usher just so I could get in free to movies. I'm the guy hanging out in the theater to watch the end credits and who does pretty well in game "Six degrees of Kevin Bacon". A movie buff. A fan. And a periennial Oscar watcher. Except for this year. I've been snubbed by Oscar, and I'm not taking it lightly.
Okay, I don't want to be overly dramatic here. I haven't personally been snubbed. But my movie choice for best picture, "The Passion of the Christ", was. As was it's courageous director, Mel Gibson.
I don't normally care if my personal taste for movies is not vindicated by awards. People have different tastes. I certainly have different tastes than most Academy voters. No surprise there.
But the Passion was more than just a movie. It was a cutural event, and was in fact ground zero of the cultural divide in America around Easter season. It was the Red State/Blue State divide of entertainment and culture. And we learned two things from the clash:
1. Hollywood despised the movie. Universally, they despised it. Why? Was it because it was a bad movie? No, clearly not. Gibson is one of the best in the director's role and he brought every ounce of his professionalism to this task. It was, from a filmmaking perspective alone, a great film. I defy you to watch the scene where Mary Magdalene avoids the stoning and tell me that this is not great movie making. And I'll refer you to film critic Roger Ebert's excellent professional review of the movie here.
2. It was a significant event, beyond the mere entertainment of a motion picture to a large segment of middle America, as evidenced by it's box office take which overwhelmed all projections. If I'm not mistaken, the "Passion of the Christ" out earned the box office take of all 5 best picture nominees combined. Combined. That means something.
(By the way, I know you won't believe me on this, but I knew when I saw the box office numbers for the Passion that George Bush would win reelection in November. I knew that the same hidden majority that Hollywood underestimated would also be underestimated by the political elites and would show up in force for the election. I knew it.)
I was reading an article in USA Today this week on an airline and was amused by their article on the Oscars. The writers noted that the combined box office total of the 5 nominees was down 41% from the average of totals from the last ten years. The writers then conjectured why that might be. Maybe, they posited, America just had "tearjerker" fatigue. Maybe. And maybe the writers of the USA Today have no clue as to what they are talking about. Maybe the incredibly obvious is true and Hollywood continues to produce and to honor films that are out of sync with the values of middle America. You think?
By snubbing the Passion in it's nominations for best picture, best actor, and best director Hollywood has made a clear statement to those of us who cared about that movie. The statement is that our values are different. We don't care about what you care about. We don't value what you value. That's fine. Make that statement. You're entitled. But I don't have to support you or your product with my money. I hope your proud of your statement, and your 41% pay cut that is a clear result.
So, here we are. The big event is less than 24 hours away. Hollywood is tuning up it's tuxes and dresses and statues. And for the first time in my 44 year old memory, I won't be watching. I'll probably be watching my newly purchased DVD version of "The Passion of the Christ".
Oscar snubbed me. I'm snubbing him back.
Saturday, February 26, 2005
Monday, February 07, 2005
Inconsolable Sadness
There are no easy answers in life. I know that. Believe me, I do. Even though I write strongly opinionated articles here on this blog, like the recent post on the issue of abortion on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, I know that. And ocassionally we all get brought up short by life's circumstances in a way that reminds us that there are no easy answers. As I was reminded this weekend.
I saw the face of inconsolable sadness. Twice. And it was a lot to bear.
I saw sadness on a mother's face. Deep, lingering, all-consuming sadness that I tried my best to ease. I had arranged to meet with the birth-mother of my youngest adopted son. The circumstances of his adoption are not important - other than to note that he came to our home, and by default not to her home, at birth. I've known that as fact for some years now. I saw that as reality two days ago. And I was deeply moved by her story, in her own tearful words, of the grieving that she went through -is still going through - in returning home from the hospital to the room that she had set up for him, without him. I saw the years of sadness on her face, and heard them in her voice.
I had risked meeting with her, against the advice of others, to answer the questions that I knew she would have after all these years. Simple questions. Basic questions. Was he happy? Was he healthy? What does he look like? What is his day like? I could answer those questions, and provide her pictures and stories, and assure her that yes he is a happy, healthy, and handsome young man. I could also offer her hope for a path for a future reunion. I think it was the right decision to meet her, and I think I offered her hope, and I know that I shared in her sadness, though I couldn't erase it. The only thing sadder that I can imagine is the alternative, that he hadn't been born. But he was born, and God provides, and there's hope for the future. God bless her and comfort her.
And I saw sadness in a little boy's face. My other son's sweet and troubled face.
He suffers in silence, still - as a preteen - deeply affected by the circumstances of his birth and the months of neglect and malnourishment that occurred before he came to us. Not visibly affected, but affected nonetheless.
We were having special time with Dad, playing on the playground on an unexpectedly beautiful day. In the midst of the frenetic activity of the playground I saw him. Alone, separated, sitting hunched over on a strut underneath the structure - distraught. He was frustrated in his attempts to succeed on the standard playground equipment and was grieving that his talents were not the ones that he coveted - standard talents of playground baseball and basketball and such. His talents, while considerable, are not the ones that a little boy craves.
We had a good talk, he and I, and I had the opportunity to explain that God blesses each of us with different talents and that God has blessed him with an intellect and with creativity that will shine some day and that God can use some day to help others. It wasn't enough, but it was hope and his countenance brightened somewhat.
In one of God's little miraculous coincidences, that hope was confirmed the next morning. I teach Bible Memory class on Sundays for my son's class. The verse for this week, which was selected months before on a random schedule by a publishing company somewhere far removed, was 1 Peter 4:10, which reads:
As a last straw, I discovered during a talk with this son over dinner during "Dad time" that he has been experiencing almost daily harrassment from a bully, a privileged and athletic kid, for years from which he has suffered in silence. Incomprehensible and uncalled for abuse. I was enraged. How can that be, that a child would pick a weaker child to victimize daily for sport? It was all I could do this morning to not climb on the bus and take that punk out. I want to protect my son, which I did by intervening with the school authorities today, but I can't do it retroactively and my heart aches for the pain he has already suffered.
There are no easy answers. Sometimes there's only sadness. And God's hope.
I saw the face of inconsolable sadness. Twice. And it was a lot to bear.
I saw sadness on a mother's face. Deep, lingering, all-consuming sadness that I tried my best to ease. I had arranged to meet with the birth-mother of my youngest adopted son. The circumstances of his adoption are not important - other than to note that he came to our home, and by default not to her home, at birth. I've known that as fact for some years now. I saw that as reality two days ago. And I was deeply moved by her story, in her own tearful words, of the grieving that she went through -is still going through - in returning home from the hospital to the room that she had set up for him, without him. I saw the years of sadness on her face, and heard them in her voice.
I had risked meeting with her, against the advice of others, to answer the questions that I knew she would have after all these years. Simple questions. Basic questions. Was he happy? Was he healthy? What does he look like? What is his day like? I could answer those questions, and provide her pictures and stories, and assure her that yes he is a happy, healthy, and handsome young man. I could also offer her hope for a path for a future reunion. I think it was the right decision to meet her, and I think I offered her hope, and I know that I shared in her sadness, though I couldn't erase it. The only thing sadder that I can imagine is the alternative, that he hadn't been born. But he was born, and God provides, and there's hope for the future. God bless her and comfort her.
And I saw sadness in a little boy's face. My other son's sweet and troubled face.
He suffers in silence, still - as a preteen - deeply affected by the circumstances of his birth and the months of neglect and malnourishment that occurred before he came to us. Not visibly affected, but affected nonetheless.
We were having special time with Dad, playing on the playground on an unexpectedly beautiful day. In the midst of the frenetic activity of the playground I saw him. Alone, separated, sitting hunched over on a strut underneath the structure - distraught. He was frustrated in his attempts to succeed on the standard playground equipment and was grieving that his talents were not the ones that he coveted - standard talents of playground baseball and basketball and such. His talents, while considerable, are not the ones that a little boy craves.
We had a good talk, he and I, and I had the opportunity to explain that God blesses each of us with different talents and that God has blessed him with an intellect and with creativity that will shine some day and that God can use some day to help others. It wasn't enough, but it was hope and his countenance brightened somewhat.
In one of God's little miraculous coincidences, that hope was confirmed the next morning. I teach Bible Memory class on Sundays for my son's class. The verse for this week, which was selected months before on a random schedule by a publishing company somewhere far removed, was 1 Peter 4:10, which reads:
Everyone should use the gifts he has received to serve others.
As a last straw, I discovered during a talk with this son over dinner during "Dad time" that he has been experiencing almost daily harrassment from a bully, a privileged and athletic kid, for years from which he has suffered in silence. Incomprehensible and uncalled for abuse. I was enraged. How can that be, that a child would pick a weaker child to victimize daily for sport? It was all I could do this morning to not climb on the bus and take that punk out. I want to protect my son, which I did by intervening with the school authorities today, but I can't do it retroactively and my heart aches for the pain he has already suffered.
There are no easy answers. Sometimes there's only sadness. And God's hope.
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