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Ugly sexism at the Oscars...
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There was a moment during the Oscars where Seth MacFarlane made some crack about not being able to understand what Selma Hayek says, but liking to look at her... And it suddenly dawned that the evening had been one long stupid drumbeat of racist and sexist jokes.
Here is part of what Margaret Lyons wrote in her article in New York Magazine:
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Seth MacFarlane made a whole bunch of sexist, reductive jokes at the Oscars last night. It's frustrating enough to know that 77 percent of Academy voters are male. Or to watch 30 men and 9 women collect awards last night. But MacFarlane's boob song, the needless sexualization of a little girl, and the relentless commentary about how women look reinforced, over and over, that women somehow don't belong. They matter only insofar as they are beautiful or naked, or preferably both. This wasn't an awards ceremony so much as a black-tie celebration of the straight white male gaze.
MacFarlane's opening musical number, "We Saw Your Boobs," might as well have been a siren blaring, "This isn't for you." Come on, everyone likes boobs, right? No. The answer is no. They're not something I hate, and heck, I have a pair to call my own, and yet my takeaway from The Accused was not "Finally, I've seen Jodie Foster's breasts." My lasting memory of Boys Don't Cry is not "Hey, free breasts!" At least there was that super timely and relevant reference to Kate Winslet's many nude scenes.
http://www.vulture.com/2013/02/why-seth-macfarlanes-misogyny-matters.html
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omg, the opening segment was a portend of the entire lame, crap show. I called a friend early on and said, "feel like i'm being water-boarded. Sheer torture." Jr. High level humor...but junior high from the friggin' 50s. And while my friend wasn't reacting quite the same, she was questioning "the taste level." But the remark about Salma Hayek seemed mild in comparison to most of the other crapola. Seth McF. even made some remark like--the show wasn't "gay" enuf. What I can't understand is for an industry that over the last few decades prides itself on trying to be oh-so-politically correct, how any of them tolerated this shit at all. "Who are you wearing?"..."Andrew Dice Clay."
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I considered doing another somewhat shorter blog entry on Seth's latest glaring reactionary mess-up as a False Progressive. However I later thought it would simply be beating a dead horse (I think I pretty much nailed it during the first such go-around). This kind of atrocious behavior is to be expected from his political persuasion.
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Mother of GOD, that was possibly the worst Academy Awards I've ever seen. The man's jokes were one disaster after another (from the sexist opening, uh, "song" to the hamfisted antisemitic Ted skit), and it's a wonder that nobody he insulted didn't deck him right then and there. Depressing, torturous shit.
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I thought the worst moment was when Ben Affleck (Howard Zinn fan, sometimes progressive) said about "best film" "Argo" (announced by Michelle Obama):
"Really this award is about Tony Mendez," said Affleck, referring to the CIA agent who during the Hostage Crisis of 1979-81 smuggled 6 U.S. citizens out of Iran and wrote the memoir on which the film is based. (He was present and had already appeared on the stage.)
"He's an American hero. He represents the clandestine services as well as the foreign service that is making sacrifices on behalf of Americans everyday. Our troops overseas, I want to thank them very much."
That "liberal Hollywood" would so validate the CIA's history in Iran and its torture operations (in "Zero Dark Thirty") is pretty disgusting.3 Like
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