And the winner is...........Liberal America

This week saw the annual cattle call of back slapping and dress up that is the Oscars and what a strange year it was for dear old Oscar. In an America currently at its most divided politically, The Academy members used this year’s awards to push the liberal agenda in no uncertain terms and in so doing sent a powerful message to President Bush, America and the rest of the world. In, surely the most, political awards in its history The Academy nominated 5 films for best picture all of which had liberal themes.

Brokeback Mountain” (Focus Features)
A River Road Entertainment Production
Diana Ossana and James Schamus, Producers

“Capote” (UA/Sony Pictures Classics)
An A-Line Pictures/Cooper’s Town/ Infinity Media Production
Caroline Baron, William Vince and Michael Ohoven, Producers

“Crash” (Lions Gate)
A Bob Yari/DEJ/Blackfriar’s Bridge/ Harris Company/ApolloProscreen GmbH & Co./Bull’s Eye Entertainment Production
Paul Haggis and Cathy Schulman, Producers



“Good Night and Good Luck.” (Warner Independent Pictures)
A Good Night Good Luck LLC Production
Grant Heslov, Producer

“Munich” (Universal and DreamWorks)
A Universal Pictures/DreamWorks Pictures Production
Kathleen Kennedy, Steven Spielberg and Barry Mendel, Producers

With further nominations, for George Clooney in “Syriana” (Warner Bros.) as best supporting actor and Felicity Huffman in “Transamerica” (The Weinstein Company and IFC Films) best actress and Rachel Weisz in “The Constant Gardener” (Focus Features) as best supporting actress the liberal theme continued.

To push the point home even further all of the 5 nominated films grosses combined failed to equal that of 2005 best grossing picture (Revenge of the Sith) last years blockbusters King Kong, Harry Potter, Revenge of the Sith and War of the Worlds only managed a handful of nominations between them and all of these in the relatively low profile categories of sound or technical effects.

As if the nominations weren’t proof enough of the Academy’s liberal credentials they chose left wing political comedian Jon Stewart to host and offered us clip fests promoting the history of liberal film themes whilst George Clooney reminded us that the Academy first presented a black actor with an Oscar in 1940 (Hattie McDaniel for Gone with the wind) long before blacks were even allowed to sit at the front of busses in The US.

Hollywood has always been a pretty liberal kind of town with the few notable exceptions being Charlton (my cold dead hand) Heston, and B movie action heroes turned politicians Arnie and Ronnie but politics has always been one of the few things that Hollywood didn’t discuss (the others being religion and race) So, with probably the worlds largest annual television audience, it was admirable that The Academy should chose this years Oscars to send a powerful message around the world, that on the subjects of Race Religion and Bigotry President Bush’s policies do not represent the views of all Americans.