As for the liberal bias thing. I absolutely agree there’s an enormous amount of leftwing bias in Hollywood, including often at the Oscars. But it’s hardly the case that pro-war or pro-American movies never get nominated. Last year, recall, Argo won best picture (to the dismay of some on the left). It beat out Zero Dark Thirty, which was even more hated by the left but nonetheless received four nominations. The “Hurt Locker,” a more ambivalent war movie but hardly anti-American, won three years before that (it also won best director, a huge snub to her ex-husband, James Cameron, who directed Avatar). ”Saving Private Ryan” was nominated for 11 Oscars and won five including Best Director — not exactly an anti-military or anti-American movie.
There are certainly movies that benefited from being on the left. “Crash” didn’t deserve Best Picture. “American Beauty” is wildly overrated. But if the academy was really so leftwing in its tastes, it’s hard to see “Braveheart,” “Forrest Gump,” or even “Gladiator” beating out their competition.Warren Beatty certainly didn’t deserve an Oscar for “Reds,” a piece of soporific agitprop about American Communist John Reed. I think you can make a case for Oliver Stone getting the Oscar for “Platoon” without the benefit of politics, but not for “Born on the Fourth of July"...That is to say, imagine that you are obsessed with politics but too stupid to say anything interesting about it, and so associate your crackpot ideas with things you do understand, barely, though they have nothing to do with politics -- such as one's choice of football teams, music videos, TV shows, and female body type -- and say things like "great novels are, by nature, conservative" with a straight face.
This is really why we have a "culture war." It's not a categorical imperative; it's a make-work program for unskilled wingnut dilettantes.
UPDATE. Goldberg's previous low-water mark as a kulturkampfer.
UPDATE 2. Commenter Ellis Weiner focuses on Goldberg's murky adverbial phrase "to the dismay of some on the left," which he finds
about as full of meaning and import as a teenager's "like." You can use it anywhere and not be entirely wrong. "Winston tastes good, like a cigarette should--to the dismay of some on the left." "I AM your father, Luke--to the dismay of some on the left." "A specter is haunting Europe--to the," etc.Other commenters come up with their own versions ("Baby, everything is all right, uptight, [and] clean out of sight (to the dismay of some on the left)"). And whetstone reminds us of John Rogers'/Kung Fu Monkey's definitive rebuke to anyone who seeks to anthropomorphize Hollywood as anything but an anteater that eats money instead of ants.
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