Hooray for Hollywood?

Fingers crossed, the woke fever dream in Tinseltown may be abating.

So, after binging most of the Oscar-nominated films last week, the wife and I capped it off last night by watching the 2024 Academy Awards.

To our delight and surprise, almost all the Oscars were awarded to the people/films/performances that we thought most worthy. Even better, all the films (save the unwatchable Killers of the Flower Moon) nominated for best picture we judged worthy of consideration as well.

There were several categories (best actress and best live action and animated shorts, most notably) where the Academy could have done the “woke” thing and awarded the Oscar to appease some identarian injustice or to trumpet some left-wing political cause.

But it just… didn’t happen.

They seemed to actually judge based on merit. We were shocked and very very pleased.

So, does this mean that “wokeism” is over in Hollywood? Well, probably not. Very rarely do these social contagions dissipate immediately. There were still some annoying lapel buttons and speeches that were political, but compared to previous years, it was noticeably subdued.

But I’m going to tentatively hope that the woke wave may have crested. Maybe that industry is starting to snap out of it a little.

Also, ya know… maybe not. But I love movies, so I choose to be optimistic.

So, kudos to all the worthy Oscar-winners from last night. Congratulations!

Also, thank you to all the people that make movies and tell stories. Our species understands ourselves (and the world) in narratives. Indeed, our entire mental structure is based on narrative.

I’ll defend that bold claim later, but for now I just want to give thanks to the storytellers, and to appreciate that last night and that oft-hated awards show, they seem to have mostly gotten it right.

Naturally,

Adam

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