Inconvenient Truth, Happy Feet Make Academy Awards 'Green' Night

For the third year in a row I was at home studying and not watching the Academy Awards presentation on ABC. From what I have read online it was a complete bore. Sure, like any awards presentation it had its moments, but Ellen DeGeneris was reportedly flat. The end result was a 42 share in the ratings which would make this year’s presentation the third lowest rated ceremony in television history.

First, the Academy’s choice in hosts over the past years has reeked of desperation. I mean, last year you had Jon Stewart of The Daily Show and the year before that you had Chris Rock. People see this and rather then tuning in as the Academy would expect are instead turned off by this. The second reason, something of which applies prominently to this year’s presentation, is that the Academy Awards have become too politicized. I am studying for a major in political science/history at Marquette University, I am active in the College Republicans on campus, I run this site, I write editorials for the Marquette Tribune … I deal with political discussion on a daily basis. I don’t want to come home, sit down, turn on the television and hear some actor/actress being paid ten million dollars (or, in some cases, much more) per picture spout out his/her mouth about their opinion on national politics as if they knew what they were talking about. If a person like me who is use to being heavily involved in political discussion doesn’t want to be preached at during the Oscars, what are the chances the average Joe with no real standing (left or right) opinion toward national politics is going to want to do the same?

Last night’s Oscar telecast was dubbed ‘Green’ Night at the Academy Awards as the main political issue hanging over the ceremony like a dark rain cloud was the myth of ‘global warming’. Don’t believe me? What won for Best Animated Film? Not Disney/Pixar’s Cars which by all means should have won (it was the first winner of Best Animated Feature Annie Award not to win at the Academy Awards) but rather Happy Feet, a motion-capture performance animated feature with a global warming message. Conservative critics like Michael Medved, Neil Cavuto, and Glenn Beck have chastised the producers of Happy Feet for using children to promote a liberal agenda. I have not seen the film so I can not comment personally. This would not surprise me however as Hollywood has done this sort of thing before. Remember Hoot? Then there’s ‘rock-star’ Al Gore’s Inconvenient ‘Lies’ which won not one, but two Academy Awards last night – one for Best Original Song (Melissa Etheridge’s ‘I Need to Wake Up’) and one for Best Documentary, which was as far from a surprise as you could possibly be. Hot Air has videos of the awards ceremony last evening.

But check this out. Via The Drudge Report, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, “an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan research organization committed to achieving a freer, more prosperous Tennessee through free market policy solutions”, issued today this press release condemning former-Vice President Al Gore’s hypocrisy in regards to energy conservation. This is nothing new, of course. Conservatives have known about this for some time. It just goes to show you once again that when liberals say, ‘Do as I say’ they actually mean ‘Do as I say (Not as I do)’.

It wasn’t all gloom and doom though. Personally, I was satisfied. The movie I wanted to win for Best Picture (The Departed) won – though to be honest I would have been just as happy if Little Miss Sunshine won. And FINALLY Martin Scorsese won an Oscar for Best Director. That it took him five tries just to receive one in his extensive career is evidence to the fact that the Academy is so out of touch with the real movie-going public.