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When the meta and the self-conscious merge

You get this line from Oscars host Ellen DeGeneres (who I always thought was one of the best female stand-ups) at last night’s Oscars, which I didn’t watch — ironically and precisely for the very reason that is hinted about in the joke:

“Possibility No. 1: 12 Years a Slave wins best picture. Possibility No. 2: You’re all racists. And now, welcome our first white presenter, Anne Hathaway.”

Luckily, no one in the academy is racist.  Though despite granting both major male actor awards to the AIDS movie, they are, as it turns out, wretchedly homophobic.

Sometimes I find my life so recursive that I fear one morning I’ll wake up if not a giant cockroach, then at least completely inside out.

22 Replies to “When the meta and the self-conscious merge”

  1. bgbear says:

    They could save a lot of time and effort if the academy just vote on what topic is “most important” for the year, assign a studio, producers, writers, director, make the film, and just give it an Oscar.

  2. sdferr says:

    Heck, since I don’t pay the Hollywooders much mind any longer bgbear, I’d sorta been going along assuming that’s what they’ve already been doing for lo these many years now.

  3. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Actors have been winning oscars for playing AIDS victims as long as AIDS has been around.

    Actors have been winning oscars for playing slaves for as long as the academy has been around, come to think of it.

  4. Ernst Schreiber says:

    The only bit of the show I caught was a painful one where Ellen was trying to get a selfie with Meryl Streep so it could become the top retweet, or some damn thing before a whole bunch of other people* got in on the photo. It would have been funny if Ellen had asked Meryl to take the group photo,** but sadly, it was just more of that “look at me!” self-referential self-congratulation that Peggy Noonan was lamenting as proof-positive of our decadent elite.

    *I think Kevin Spacey had to crawl and jump over three or four people to get into that photo.

    **which she did, but since that wasn’t the joke, she didn’t insist on it.

  5. McGehee says:

    As long as Ellen’s new retweet record butthurts the Obamarrhoids, I’m for it.

  6. mojo says:

    It’s all in your mind, Gregor…

  7. Blitz says:

    That movie wasn’t even historically accurate. All they had to do was READ THE DAMNED BOOK. No, they decided to dramatize the thing,playing into the issue of the day( WAS racism when the movie was made,now gay shit )

    Of course it was going to win, it was built that way. Fuck Hollywood.

  8. dicentra says:

    Speaking of metahipsterism, a critique of Whole Foods clientele:

    They stand in the middle of the aisles, blocking passage of any other cart, staring intently at the selection asking themselves that critical question: which one of these olive oils makes me seem coolest and most socially conscious, while also making the raw vegetable salad I’m preparing for the monthly condo board meeting seem most rustic and artisanal?… Outside the four walls of a Whole Foods, you might recognize these people as Gawker commenters or Twitter shamers.

  9. Libby says:

    You used to be able to count on Hollywood to make at least one McCarthyism-themed movie a year. Guess they forgot how to speak truth to power, what with all that butt-kissing of power they’ve been engaged in.

  10. Libby says:

    Dicentra, would those be the ones with “COEXIST” stickers on their Volvo or Prius?

  11. BigBangHunter says:

    – I think the line is “wake up with my face sewn to the living room carpet” but that would be carping.

  12. mojo says:

    Beats waking up in a bathtub full of ice in a cheap motel with a kidney missing…

  13. dicentra says:

    All they had to do was READ THE DAMNED BOOK.

    I have no idea what you’re referring to, and I’m so proud of myself for not knowing!

  14. ProfShade says:

    “In some respects your education has done you harm…”

  15. McGehee says:

    BBH & mojo, I hope never to have sufficient experience to compare the two.

    You’d be surprised how easy it can be to get a full beard tangled up in shag carpeting, by the way.

  16. I think it’s a scientific fact that if you wake up in a tub of ice with a kidney missing you had a good time.

    At least that’s what I told myself.

    All three times. (sorry mom)

  17. sdferr says:

    ClownDisaster plays the minstrel fool: *** And if Congress thinks that what I’ve done is inappropriate or wrong in some fashion, they’re free to make that case. But there’s not an action that I take that you don’t have some folks in Congress who say that I’m usurping my authority. Some of those folks think I usurp my authority by having the gall to win the presidency. And I don’t think that’s a secret. But ultimately, I’m not concerned about their opinions — very few of them, by the way, are lawyers, much less constitutional lawyers. ***

  18. palaeomerus says:

    “Sometimes I find my life so recursive that I fear one morning I’ll wake up if not a giant cockroach, then at least completely inside out. ”

    Such a topology where the inner and outser surface become continuous and indistinguishable should be henceforth known as Jefferact. Who the hell was Tess anyway? Who cares. She had her 15 minutes.

  19. McGehee says:

    Nice, sdferr — the child of Question Authority bases his case on appeals to his own authority. He’s so recursive he’s an inside-out cockroach who morphed into an outside-in roachcock.

  20. sdferr says:

    Here’s another inside-outer-outside-inner: PA says Netanyahu’s AIPAC speech amounts to declaration of end of peace talks

    *** Fatah central committee member Nabil Shaath said Netanyahu’s comments “contravene all the rules of the peace negotiations agreed with the Americans”.

    Shaath said that Palestinians “totally reject” Israel’s demand of Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, as well as Netanyahu’s objection to refusing Palestinian refugees. ***

    So, the demand to be recognized as a Jewish state as a precondition for peace talks to establish a peace between warring parties is a declaration that no peace can be obtained, because no Jewish state can possibly exist.

  21. Squid says:

    But there’s not an action that I take that you don’t have some folks in Congress who say that I’m usurping my authority.

    One does not usurp what is rightfully one’s own. The complaint is that Jugears is usurping the authority of Congress, of the several states, and of each of us individually. He is abusing his own authority, in order to usurp everybody else’s.

    You’d think The Smartest Guy In The Room would understand basic usage and vocabulary…

  22. Pablo says:

    Nice, sdferr — the child of Question Authority bases his case on appeals to his own authority.

    In this case it was an appeal to his own stupidity.

    “But ultimately, I’m not concerned about their opinions — very few of them, by the way, are lawyers, much less constitutional lawyers.”

    Of the 535 of them, 173 are lawyers. Good Christ, the man is an idiot.

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