See What You’ve Done, Hollywood? You’ve Upset the Virgin Ben!
Ben Shapiro says he’ll be boycotting the Oscars this year. I’m sure Hollywood is distraught.
Why I’m skipping the Oscars this year
Jan 13, 2006
by Ben ShapiroEvery year since I was old enough to stay up late, I’ve watched the Academy Awards.
In other words, he’s been watching the Oscars since last year.
This year, however, I have absolutely zero desire to watch the Oscars. In recent years, lack of quality from Hollywood has turned the Academy Awards into a special-interest-group get-together. If you’re crazy, gay, have a disability or are a member of a minority race, you’ll likely be nominated for an Oscar…
Whereas if you’re crazy, closeted or brain damaged, you’re likely a columnist at Townhall.
…if your film tackles a “deep social issue” (normally an issue dear to the hearts of Hollywood’s liberal glitterati), you’ll have an excellent shot at grabbing a gold statuette.
I had no idea that Gladiator, Chicago or Lord of the Rings were leftist propaganda films, but hey, what do I know?
The combination of declining product quality and rising Hollywood disdain for mainstream America has opened the door to the agenda-film crowd. It began with the 1994 Oscars. “Schindler’s List,” “The Fugitive” and “In the Name of the Father” all received Best Picture nominations; other excellent films of 1993 included “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?” “Searching for Bobby Fischer,” “Shadowlands,” “Fearless” and “In the Line of Fire.”
Still, Hollywood had to take a shot at mainstream America, and they found their vehicle in “Philadelphia,” throwing their honorary liberal activism award to Tom Hanks for his weak performance as a dying AIDS-stricken gay lawyer in “Philadelphia.”
Becuase there’s nothing that offends mainstream America more than sympathetic portrayals of HIV-positive homosexuals.
Unbelievably, Hanks’ cheesy hospital-bed routine beat out Liam Neeson in “Schindler’s List” and Daniel Day Lewis in “In the Name of the Father.” “Philadelphia” is, clinically speaking, a maudlin, ham-handed attempt at social commentary.
“Plus, gays are icky.”
Then, our illustrious decade: With great films scarce and politically mainstream Academy voters even scarcer, 2000 featured the victory of repulsive anti-suburbia and pro-homosexuality hit piece “American Beauty.”
And as all red-blooded Americans know, there are no homosexuals in suburbia.
Of course, it beat out a film lionizing an abortionist (“The Cider House Rules”) and another attacking the tobacco industry (“The Insider”).
Yeesh, what kind of sick monster attacks the tobacco industry?
Most disturbingly, the Academy handed Hilary Swank a Best Actress Oscar for playing a transgendered biological girl murdered by a bunch of hicks.
I love how Ben, a pampered, sheltered homeschooler who claims to speak for the values of America’s heartland, casually refers to people who live in rural areas as “hicks.”
And 2002 was the year of the African-American honorary Oscars, when Denzel Washington took home Best Actor for his decent if overrated performance in “Training Day” and Halle Berry took home Best Actress for her highly touted simulated orgasms in “Monster’s Ball.” In 2003, homosexual agenda films like “The Hours,” “Frida” and “Far From Heaven” grabbed the largest share of nominations. In 2004, Hollywood couldn’t hold off “Lord of the Rings” any longer, but Charlize Theron, playing an ugly lesbian serial killer in “Monster,” won Best Actress.
And of course, Theron’s performance as a lesbian killer is yet another example of how Hollywood plots to portray homosexuals solely in a positive light.
And then there’s this year. “Brokeback Mountain,” the stomach-churning story of two 1963 cowboys who get cozy while bunking down in Wyoming and then carry on their affair over the course of decades, is likely to grab Best Picture honors. The critics love it, mostly because critics love anything that pushes homosexuality as normal behavior.
While Ben hates it because gays are yucky.
The New York Times raves about it, mostly because the Times has always wanted to carry a ridiculous story proclaiming that “there has always lurked a suspicion that the fastidious Eastern dude of Owen Wister’s ‘The Virginian’ harbored stronger than proper feelings for his rough Western compadres, and that the Red River crowd may have gotten up to more than yarning by the campfire whenever Joanne Dru was not around.” Maybe that’s what Pinch Sulzberger thinks about when he watches John Wayne on screen, but the Times should be more careful when speaking for the rest of us.
Yeah, Ben only feels that way about Steve McQueen.
Aside from pimping for GLAAD, the Oscars will provide a platform for other leftist talking points. “Good Night, and Good Luck,” George Clooney’s blatant attempt to bash the Bush administration through the mouth of Edward R. Murrow, and “Munich,” Steven Spielberg’s attempt to equate Arab terrorism with Israeli self-defense, will likely garner nominations. And to top it off, Comedy Central partisan hack Jon Stewart (who is less and less funny each day) hosts this self-congratulatory leftist feting.
I won’t be watching. Neither will most Americans.
And to those 43 million “Americans” that will watch them, I say “Shame!”
That picture of V-Ben always reminds me of the shot of Delta Burke during the opening credits on one season of Designing Women. She’s got this grin on her face, and her hand is up in her hair to give the impression she’s just been surprised by the camera. On her, it was kind of whimsical, if obviously staged.
…on V-Ben, it’s sooo queer.
Ben honestly looks like the kind of guy who sits around in slippers on Friday nights watching Golden Girls re-runs.
Are you kidding me? Those ugly old women of loose morals? Bunch of depends wearing skanks if you ask me!
I prefer the wholesome purity of religious themed cartoons.
Sorry, Timmah, I’m not buyin’ it. Everyone knows the real Ben isn’t that funny.
It’s obvious Ben didn’t actually bother to SEE any of the movie’s he’s trashing. “Homoseuxual agenda films”? Apparently any movie that actually depicts a gay character at all must qualify, because you have to really stretch to label pictures like “The Hours”, “Far From Heaven” and “Frida” that way. (Of course it helps if you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about) Saying they got “the lion’s share of nominations” isn’t even accurate, unless you add up their total nominations. “The Hours” got 9 nominations, putting it behind “Chicago”(13 nominations) and “Gangs Of New York”(10 nominations). In forth place is “The Pianist”(7 nominations). “Frida” got 6 nominations, tying it with “Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” and “Far From Heaven” got four nominations, tying with “Adaptaion”. As for the rest of Ben’s observations, what Brad said. Oh, and, maybe he woulda enjoyed “Boys Don’t Cry” more if only it had portrayed Peter Sarsgaard’s character more sympathetically.
Sorry, Timmah, I’m not buyin’ it. Everyone knows the real Ben isn’t that funny.
Sure he is, just unintentionaly. Like all right wing “humor” that involves homophobia and barely repressed racism.
I had no idea that Gladiator, […] or Lord of the Rings were leftist propaganda films, but hey, what do I know?
Not much, or so it would seem. What else could a cantabrigian make of films that feature handsome, muscular guys shoving long, straight things into other men?
Heck, the secret is out. Ben is Jackie Harvey (the Onion).
I find his comment about “Monster” telling.
Is he upset because Hollywood didn’t provide him with an *attractive* piece of ass to watch while feeling morally superior to their Gay Agenda?
And for Chrissakes, so he didn’t like “Philadelphia” and doesn’t think it should have deserved the Oscar. Big deal. I didn’t like it either, I thought it was a downer. Personally, I preferred “Jurassic park” to any of the ones he mentioned, just because it had big dinosaurs eating people.
Bitching about Oscar winners is tradition, just like complaining about your best friend’s new girlfriend.
Trying to fit the Oscars into a “Gay Agenda” Culture War context is like saying that you’re not *actually* objecting to Betty’s refusal to let your best friend get drunk with you every night, you just seriously believe she’s an axe-murderer.
In other, non shapiro related news, check out the hilarious comment thread from our bizarro site “And rightly so!”
That’s soooo raven!
Apparently any movie that actually depicts a gay character at all must qualify
You got it. The Homosexual Agenda is actually just pretty much acknowledging that homosexuals exist, as far as I can tell.
Most disturbingly, the Academy handed Hilary Swank a Best Actress Oscar for playing a transgendered biological girl murdered by a bunch of hicks.
I like how this is the “most disturbing” thing of all. I guess VBen is all for murdering transgendered people. Or something.
God, what a colossal assclown this kid is.
He talks about “Halle Berry’s simulated orgasms” like they’re a bad thing. Yeah, keep telling us you’re not gay….
Come on Ben, you know what you need to do to win the fight in the marketplace of ideas. Get together a film crew and make your own masterpiece of conservative social values.
Oh wait. They already did that.
Did VBen actually see any movie at a theater in 2005? It doesn’t sound like it.
So, instead, of Hanks, Ben would have voted for Daniel Day-Lewis in the role of a man unjustly imprisoned without trial as part of a “war on terror” who is beaten and tortured for crimes he didn;t commit because he couldn;t avail himself of the legal system.
Or did he think it was a comedy?
I like the way he thinks as well as looks. I totally agree with Ben. I think he is very handsome. The very thought of a man being a virgin I find very sexy. The lucky woman that marries him will be delighted and titillated to know she was his only love physically. Now that’s a gift for a real woman. 🙂
Marie
The Conservative Woman
He’s all yours, MJ.
Timmah- did you know they made a “That’s So Raven” video game?
OMG! This is like a dream come true…we get Marie and Raven back THE SAME DAY!
Wow, and after that tearful farewell speech, I though Raven had left us for good…
One gets turned on by death eaters and inanimate objects, the other gets turned on by (likely gay) virgins.
God Bless the American women of the Reich…uh, Right.
What is a biological girl anyway?
Ben watches the Oscars every year? And he’s a virgin?
I only know two other men on the planet over the age of fifteen who can say that. And they’re both gay.
I’m a girl, and I’m even a moderately girly girl at that. And I don’t watch the Oscars every year.
I’m just sayin’.
Hell, I am gay, and I usually don’t give a rat’s ass about the Oscars. I used to watch them back in the day, but they’re so goddamned bloated, and of late, the hosts suck. And let us not mention the festering “musical numbers.” ::shudder:: It’s so much easier to snag the results online, avoiding all the other crap and lousy acceptance speeches.
Just love Ben’s pissing-and-moaning about “gay agenda” movies. ‘Cos they’re all so, you know, uplifting! Philadelphia! Tom Hanks dies of AIDS. Woo! That’s a real crowd-pleaser. Perhaps Ben just thought they didn’t kill him fast enough. ‘Cause, he didn’t want him to suffer. Yeah. Monster! ‘Cos, if VBen frequents a really trashy-looking whore, he wants to be sure she’s not intent on murdering him. And that she brings along Christina Ricci… to spice things up a bit. Ooh, and Brokeback Mountain! Not to go into specifics, for those of you who haven’t seen it, but it ain’t exactly a happy fairy tale. My life sucks, but I wouldn’t want to trade places with either “gay cowboy,” considering the way their characters end up. Nuh-uh.
You know, I wish somebody would make a completely unrealistic gay movie, in which being gay was just a faboo bowl o’ cherries, sloppin’ over with all kinds of fun sex and stuff, that basically said, “Yeah, being gay is a million times better than being one of you sad-sack breeders!” Sure, nobody would want to see it–gays, because they’d say “WTF is this? What reality is this supposed to represent?!?” And straights, ‘cos they really only sleep at night by having us suffer. But, it would cause VBen’s head to explode like a depth charge (as well as most of the rest of the wingnutosphere), so it’d be worth the $20 million it’d take to produce.
I’d see it, Marq, just for the sex.
And as someone who’s been with more than a few virgins, I can say it’s not sexy.
Occasionally, it is not awkward, messy, and hotly embarrassing all at the same time, but sexy? No.
Am I the only one who thinks VBen is skipping the Oscars this year for the same reason I might actually watch them–his gigantic crush on Jon Stewart?
btw, good catch on the Delta Burke thing, Marq.
I’m not asking why you remember that.
You have to kind of admire Ben’s stunning ability to put 2 and 2 together and get 27. Was Hanks’ Philadelphia performance the best acting of the year? IMO, not by a long shot, but Oscar has always had a soft spot for terminal illness. Did Theron deserve an Oscar for Monster? Having seen some of her other performances, it’s hard to believe she did, but Oscar can never resist rewarding a glamorous woman for her “courageousness” in appearing in a film in less than full glamour mode. Did Denzel deserve to be only the second black man to win Best Actor for Training Day? Of course not. There have been plenty of performances since Poitier’s Lilies of the Field that deserved that honor. What about Forest Whitaker’s masterful performance in Bird? It wasn’t even nominated. Could it be because Conservative Hollywood found the role of a black, drug addicted philanderer unworthy of notice?
What happened in 1998, when Jack Nicholson won for his unexceptional performance as a sympathetic male chauvinist. Jude Law, in Wilde, was far superior, as was Stephen Fry in the same film, but as usual, Oscar went for the straight white man. PS Hoffman, was flawless in Flawless, but Oscar snubbed his gender-bending character, rewarding instead, Spacey’s, straight, suburban family man.
How did Jamie Foxx beat out Don Cheadle last year? Does Oscar prefer American characters to Africans? How did Swanks’ mediocre southern girl win over Moreno’s drug carrying Hispanic? Did Sean Penn beat out Johnny Depp the year before because the latter’s pirate was too fey? Why did Adrien Brody beat out Michael Caine? Is it because Oscar prefers films set during America’s “last great war” to those that remind us of the debacle of Vietnam?
Let us hope the Right’s stranglehold on Hollywood will someday be broken. Until then I have no choice but to boycott the show. (That’ll teach them!)
Hey- I’m not gay and I watch at least some of it every year.
Of course, I watch it because my dad and brothers and I have a pool going as to who will win the biggest awards… so yes, I do scream profanity at the TV during the Oscars more than I do during Football games… which I now realize is probably an obscenely weird habit.
The very thought of a man being a virgin I find very sexy. The lucky woman that marries him will be delighted and titillated to know she was his only love physically. Now that’s a gift for a real woman. 🙂
Yeah I’m sure she’ll be just as thrilled when she finds out he doesen’t know what hole to put it in and blows his load after 10 milliseconds.
“Frida” was a Homoagenda movie?
Silly me, all this time I thought it was part of the evil Mexicocommunist agenda.
It was a three-fer.
Hi Marq,
You have me at a loss! Regarding being gay in the U.S., you say you wish someone would make a movie where, “being gay is a million times better than being one of you sad-sack breeders!” implying that it is not.
Well, I get my impression of what it must be like to be gay from episodes of “Will and Grace”, and everything about that lifestyle looks great to me. I thought there were somewhat-neurotic-but-overall-well-adjusted gay guys like Will, who lead happy, fulfilling lives, and humorous somewhat-flashy effeminate gay guys like Jack who lead happy fulfilling lives. Everyone seems to like them, there are no homophobes, and their biggest worry is when they both like the same guy, who typically likes both of them. Occasionally, a humorous mixup causes them to come on to a man who is not gay, but he is good natured about it, and they all end up friends. You mean this portrayal is not completely accurate?
*snicker*
Points to Major Woody.
I wonder why the wingnuts don’t declare Three’s Company to be an early part of the Gay Agenda.
Because “Soap” was airing the same time, and that show upset them way more-it came under fire BEFORE it even aired (sound familiar?)-that was WAY back in 1977. I was in junior high school at the time. At first the local station would only air it after 11, so I used to sneak out of bed on Friday nights to watch it because it was a “forbidden” show. When it finally began airing in prime time, I found out that, not only did my parents watch the show too, but they didn’t care if I watched it. ‘Cause they were, y’know, SANE.
Yes, but you’re *gay*, Bill! So, see, you’ve proved the wingnuts right!
It doesn’t occur to them that kids who think they might be, I dunno, gayish, might be interested in shows about gay people, does it.
Obviously, there’s no such thing as a kid who on his or her own thinks he or she is queer, just as there’s no such thing as a kid who thinks he or she is straight, yes?
It’s all cultural, and if we never even told them about gays or sex, they’d stay straight and virgins forever!
Dumbasses.
My experiences with early portrayals of gay people, on sitcoms like “Soap” or the he’s-not-really-gay John Ritter character on Three’s Company, or, even, Monty Python’s Flying Circus were, to say the least, horrifying. I kept thinking, “Is that what I’m expected to become as I grow up?!?” I also vaguely remember an episode of Marcus Welby, M.D. in which a Boy Scout leader was, evidently, raping one of the scouts, whose mother becomes suspicious when she discovers bloodstains on his underwear! ::shudder:: So, by comparison, Will & Grace is a fucking masterpiece.
Oh, for any of you wanting to see a thing of beauty, Wolcott sheep-dips Medved for being a whiny-ass titty-baby over the Golden Globes. Evidently, they were just too ghey for Mikey. “He won’t eat it. He hates everything! hey, Mikey!”
Someone over at Tbogg’s suggested feeding wingnuts to Wolcott one at a time.
I could seriously get behind that.
As usual, Wolcott’s essay was a thing of beauty.
One man and one woman equals a marriage
Marie Jon’
January 21, 2006
All across America, a strange act against society is taking place. Activist judges are misinterpreting laws concerning marriage. Americans need to rise in righteous indignation and have a real dialog on the issue of gay marriage — state by state if necessary. We, as a people, must act, and act fast.
Are you willing to give way to far-left progressive judges? If you think that turning a blind eye on gay marriage issue is prudent, a word to the wise: Watch out. For besides gay marriage, the conversation may one day soon shift to polygamy, and who knows what else.
Full Article Link
http://renewamerica.us/columns/jon/060121
Founded By MJ
http://www.theconservativewoman.org/
Yeah, Marie, because the only thing stopping polygamists is anti-gay discrimination. I wasn’t aware they were so concerned with the rights of gays-most religeous faiths that support polygamy are notoriously homophobic.
Oh, and since homosexuals ARE part of society, granting them the same rights as hetereosexuals cannot be an “act against society”.
What any of that has to do with a comments thread on movies is anybody’s guess.