I’m Sorry, But You’re Not Really “Boycotting” the Academy Awards

Posted on January 23rd, 2016 by Adam-Troy Castro

Look. I’m not going to argue with you about the relative paucity of minority representation at the Academy Awards. It’s a historical problem, going back to the event’s founding, and it needs to be addressed, even if I have little idea how the organization as a whole can easily address a problem based on a majority vote: maybe they can introduce a jury pick, but even that has problems.

Still, that’s another discussion.

Today we’re going to talk about how a good number of you, promising to boycott the Academy Awards, seem to have precious little comprehension of what a boycott is or how one works.

Actual examples from my Facebook feed, paraphrased to protect those responsible:

“I’m boycotting the Academy Awards! I never watch the show anyway, it’s boring.”

“I’m boycotting the Academy Awards! I don’t care about the awards, and I last saw the show in 1970. But this year I have a reason to boycott them.”

“I’m boycotting the Academy Awards! Besides, I’ll be traveling that day…”

In none of these cases is the writer actually participating in a boycott. In all three cases, they are targeting a show THAT THEY WERE NOT GOING TO WATCH ANYWAY and presenting this year’s refusal to watch, which doesn’t involve a conscious or actual change in behavior, as an act of conscious will.

I have seen similar previous iterations of this; people with no interest in a given musician getting mad at something that musician has said, and declaring that they won’t buy the album now, even though – they add, as if it will be taken as additional damage – they weren’t going to anyway, because in their view that musician sucks.

Or taking exception to an actor and boycotting a movie they take pains to specify they weren’t going to see, or taking exception to an author and boycotting a book for which they were never ever included in the readership.

Somehow, they think adding the phrase, “Besides, I always hated your stuff, anyway!” underlines the boycott and makes their declaration more powerful, not less.

I can’t make it any clearer than this. You know what made the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which made Rosa Parks famous, a Boycott? People stopped doing something that they would have done otherwise. People whose coins would normally have gone to bus fare now stayed in their pockets, hurting the bus company. Nobody said, “I’m boycotting the buses! I walk, anyway.”

That would not have been a boycott.

“I’m not going to do something I wasn’t going to do anyway, and consider that concrete political action,” is not a boycott either. It’s just empty posturing, the illusion of taking a stand.

Tags: Academy Awards, Politics, Race | Category Commentary, Life Wisdom, Movies, Politics, Sneaky Metaphors

Is “13 Hours” a movie…or a canary?

Posted on January 20th, 2016 by Adam-Troy Castro

13 HOURS: THE SECRET SOLDIERS OF BENGHAZI is not a historic flop on the level of INCHON or BATTLEFIELD EARTH, but it is a box office disappointment, and unless things turn around (as they’ve been known to; see DIE HARD), it might not even make back its investment.

Some people are saying that people just don’t want to see war movies.

To which I say, AMERICAN SNIPER.

Whatever you think of that movie, and I will understand you saying you hated it, people went to see it in mobs.

A couple of years earlier, THE HURT LOCKER won Best Picture.

So people do see military films.

They certainly see action movies, and movies with lots of explosions, and movies with competent men who know how to shoot.

So what does it say to you that this slam-bang movie made by a guy whose (frequently but not always awful) films tend to be hits, was largely ignored at the box office?

Well, for one, it’s a January release, and January movies do tend to be bombs unless they began their nationwide roll-out in December; people are still catching up with the big movies of the prior year. January is traditionally the dumping ground of movies that the studios expect to lose money.

So that’s a historical reason. It’s always a good idea to avoid movies officially released in January.

Maybe that’s the whole reason.

But aside from that.

What does it say to you that a hit-maker like Michael Bay could not make a Benghazi film a blockbuster, and indeed couldn’t attract audiences except those whose *desired* movie-going experience was to sit there being told something they already believed so they could feed their angry resentment, even with Fox happily treating the release of the movie as a prompt for serious discussion? That it largely only went to the pre-sold, people who thought that seeing it would be supporting Donald Trump?

Can it be that people are tired of hearing the word “Benghazi?”

That they’ve reached the point where they resent it?

That they can watch the trailer and know exactly the movie-going experience they’re gonna get, and *don’t want it*?

What does that say to you?

At packed early screenings of this movie, angry men were quoted as saying that they would kill Hillary Clinton if they could. Well, that’s upsetting, especially since Hillary Clinton is not even mentioned in the movie. These types went to exercise their Hillary-hate by proxy, to scratch the itch that consumes their toxic little hearts.

But the movie…is not being supported to the degree it needs, to cross the finish line. In a few months many more people will see it on home video of one sort or another…but it doesn’t look like it will be one of those movies fated to enter the zeitgeist, and though home video has performed that miracle for flops before (see THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION), my prediction is that it’s not in the cards. Not for this movie. Not even with name recognition, the imprint of Michael Bay, and the fervent recommendations of the Republican field, including a couple like Trump who have held rallies connected to special screenings. This will be a historical footnote, and a very minor one. An attempt to create an explosion that resulted in an almost inaudible pop.

This movie will not be AMERICAN SNIPER. It will not be PASSION OF THE CHRIST. It will not be a movie that changes the discussion. It will be just a dopey movie that came and went. Even with attendance sold as a patriotic act, it will go.

What does that say to you?

I remember the tempest in a teapot when THE RIGHT STUFF was released. John Glenn was one of the heroes, and the real man happened to be running for President. Some of his opponents cried foul, claiming the movie an unfair advantage. And you can see why. The movie, a good one, was not cynical about Glenn. It was structured to make you love Glenn, at least the astronaut Glenn. But it was no hit. It did not usher Senator Glenn into the Presidency, as some predicted. It ended up being just a movie.

What does that say to you?

Can it be that 13 HOURS is not functioning as a movie, but as a canary?

Folks, there was one way I knew PASSION OF THE CHRIST was a phenomenon: because I go to the movies fairly frequently, and for a couple of months, whenever I did, I saw church groups arriving in buses, and overheard from them the kind of comments made by people who hadn’t been in a movie theatre for years. Comments like, Wow, I didn’t know movie theatres had videogame rooms. Or like references to the posters they saw of third sequels to major hits, “I didn’t even know there was a first one.” Or, “FOUR DOLLARS FOR A POPCORN?!?” Folks who didn’t know what the theatre experience was.

The success of that movie was *organized*, and it involved people for whom going to a movie at all was something other people did. Old ladies went in caravans to see Jesus get flayed for two hours, because their churches ordered them to. But this is what makes a phenomenon. And this movie, seeking a pre-built audience in the demographic of folks who thought the shouted word “Benghazi!” was a coherent political argument, was supposed to have that kind of success. Because that is certainly a LOUD demographic.

But that demographic has not showed up in the expected numbers.

Not a movie, but a canary?

Can that be possible?

Tags: 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, American Sniper, Assholes, Bad Movies, Battlefield Earth, Clint Eastwood, Die Hard, Inchon, John Glenn, Michael Bay, Movies, Passion of the Christ, Politics, The Hurt Locker, The Right Stuff | Category Movies, Politics

One Really Good Reason Not To Sneer at The Academy Awards

Posted on January 19th, 2016 by Adam-Troy Castro

Originally published on Facebook 14 January 2014.

Somebody posted some epic sneer about these Hollywood ego monsters who have nothing better to do than to give themselves awards on a weekly basis, this time of year.

I replied,

“If you want a real answer to that question, one that has more to do with data than any reason for scorn, it is this:

Award shows proliferate because award shows are easy ratings.

There’s a reason why networks like MTV and VH1 and so on establish their own movie award shows: because they see it as a source of commercial income.

The studios, by contrast, see them as a way to promote their films, and so the Oscars, what was once a small industry dinner reported in the trades, that eventually went to radio and then TV, became an overblown spectacle complete with pre-shows, after-shows, a large section of the audience that has not seen the movies but only wants to see the clothing, and so on.

If you want to get on the case of the stars for attending, note that in many cases, those who have a big movie out that year are contractually obligated to attend, and that a number who agree with you that there are far too many such occasions actually negotiate for those they can get out of (I.e., “I will do the Oscars, but only if you let me out of the Golden Globes.”)

The Golden Globes, in particular, are an example of awards really not worth very much in terms of respect (they’re really little more than the scam of a bunch of little-known critics who wanted to get their picture taken with celebrities), that became blown up well out of all proportion because somebody wanted the cash cow of a big show to compete with the Oscars. Nobody has anything good to say about them, really. Many of the famed have to attend, because it’s part of their promotion requirement.

That is, of course, among those who have been attending so many of these things that they would just as soon miss a few. I have heard a number of these folks sigh, in interviews, that they were glad award season was over, and I can absolutely understand the feeling. At a certain point it must become a pain in the ass. Not the least because the system demands that you go, and because you are then derided as an ego monster for going.

The other thing, to me an important thing. is that we’re so busy scorning the famous faces who attend these exercises in self-congratulation, that we don’t stop to question what they might mean to those who are not so celebrated. The part of the show you complain about, because they’re all the categories you don’t care about.

Here’s an intelligent question I wish you would answer.

In the specific case of a short documentary filmmaker or a film editor or a cinematographer or a writer of the musical score or costume designer even a new actor and actress being honored for a break-out role, is that person just as contemptible, for being thrilled at a nomination for a statuette, as you would argue that Meryl Streep or Jack Nicholson or Julia Roberts is? Would you say that of my friend the screenwriter whose single nomination a few years ago was the highlight of his career so far? Are you going to be the person to tell that person s/he’s an ego monster?

It might be just as silly. I agree with you that it probably is. But again, looking at it from some perspective other than that of a major movie stars, I fixate on an interview I saw with a woman who had spent two years of her life making a documentary short subject, who won, and who was still backstage shaking from her big moment at the podium when another winner from that night, Clint Eastwood, who she never would have dared approach, sat down opposite her, gave her a big smile, and said, “Hey, we did it, didn’t we?”

Gee, I really wanna attack THAT WOMAN for being a whorish ego monster who has nothing better to do than attend award ceremonies for her own edification. I really want to attack her for being shallow and egotistical and about nothing but her own image. I really want to tell her that this high point of her professional life is bullshit. Cuz I don’t like moments of validation, myself. I can do without them.”

Tags: Clint Eastwood, Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, Movies | Category Movies