Mister Tee wrote: The biggest problem I have with all this is that it was specifically AIMED at bringing down an Oscar contender (talk about low stakes). The tweet was evidently uncovered and then sent viral by somebody at Awards Watch who objected to the movie's politics and set out to "take it down". People over there at the site are hooting and hollering "We won!", thinking they've single-handedly taken away an award from somebody. Some are shouting, Now on to Bohemian Rhapsody and Vice! Anything they don't like should be subject to villainization. This has the overlay of Madame De Farge at her knitting. ... I hate living in these times.
Same here. But I must add that when I pointed out that this was also one of the risks of the MeToo hysteria (not the principles, of course - the way they were generically and grossly expressed by the movement and by some on this board, and the way they could be wrongly used to defame someone) nobody admitted that I was right. And I mean, it's not like most people here don't know America (and its witch-hunting propensity) better than I do. But most were silent.
It's true that our judgement, for example, of a novel (of the artistic level of a novel) shouldn't be influenced by its writer's private life or political vuews or anything else which isn't in the novel itself. And the same must be applied to movies - even more so, actually, as a movie is a collaborative effort and the private opinions of just one of its makers definitely shouldn't influence our assessment of the movie in itself.
Yet, it's our duty to check if - in the novel, in the movie - those private opinions can be traced, either implicit or explicit. And if this is the case, that CAN influence (at least partly) our judgement, because a work of art must also be considered based on the message that it conveys. It's not the ONLY aspect we must consider of course - and it pales for instance whem, like in Leni Riefenstahl's documentaries, the formal and historical values are so overwhelming - but it's an important aspect nonetheless, one that we can't ignore. A work of art is also responsible of the ideology which it supports, like it or not.
Also - opinions, even private opinions, ARE facts. And in my life, while I would never end a friendship based on accusations, even nasty ones, unless they are really believable or, even better, proved, I would end a friendship based on opinions that I find unacceptable. But I'm afraid that in America it doesn't work this way.
(By the way, Mister Tee. I have bad news - not for you, but for your "not reactionary" friend. Yes, the one who "voted for Hillary and hates Trump". He IS a reactionary. Because if we believe absurd fake news, if we are convinced that we really saw them or that they really happened - it's because we WANT to believe them. Deep inside, we do. Next time you see him, for example at a musical, tell him so. Immediately. Directly. It's better to be honest with friends, always. I always act like this. You may lose his friendship, but remember - it will be a reactionary's friendship).
There are many reasons why like Mister Tee, I hate living in these times when it comes to the Oscars (and the Oscars, of course, mirror today's America). For example the fact that lately each year there MUST be at least one black actor - or actress - among the four winners - deservedly or not deservedly. In the recent Mary, Queen of Scots not only there are several black actors - and yes, in England and Scotland in those times there WERE black people, but not many - but some of these play roles of ambassadors, etc - high positions which a black man back then couldn't even dream of getting to. If we can't respect history in order to be "politically correct", we won't respect (and understand, and solve) today's problems, too. We will in a movie, or in an award show, but never for real.
There was a time when I thought that Trump was the "other side" of movies like, say, The Blind Side. Now I have realized that he's not the other side. He's the same side. Because idiocy - even well-meaning idiocy - is always idiotic, and a country or a culture that support idiocy (and this applies to a certain way of looking at the MeToo movement or of praising it, too) will end up making idiotic choices.