Now that Oscar season has come and gone, it’s hard to believe that we’re still talking about some of the same issues in the 2008 presidential election as we were before the winning films were even released.
Of course, it’s probably a good thing that we spend far more time deciding who will lead our country for the next four years than we do deciding what the year’s best movie is. Even so, in a process during which everything from Rudy Giulianni’s love life to Barack Obama’s middle name has been endlessly discussed, it becomes apparent that a little brevity can sometimes add a lot of clarity.
The main thing that separates the Academy Awards from presidential politics, however, is the Academy’s dedication to judging a film or director based on the work at hand, not pretentious and often irrelevant judgments about a person’s “values,” nor any other aspect of a filmmaker or actor’s personal life.
Sure, there are some politics involved - popular Hollywood players like George Clooney and Martin Scorsese will always be smiled upon by the Academy. But when a giggling Ann Coulter appears on the Fox News Channel refusing to call Barack Obama by anything other than his middle ...
