I had one more thought on last night’s smarmy Oscars.
If anyone needed proof that momentarily escaping today’s rising fascism through absurdist humor – by Gutfeld, Colbert, Miller, South Park/Simpsons/Seinfeld, Stern, Stewart and Seth MacFarlane among other comedians – is impossible, last night’s show offered plenty of evidence.
We saw that when the state busts in to take over an industry – whether motion pictures in Hollywood or health care, whether the takeover is imposed by someone wearing boots, bangs, pearls, a helmet or a Homeland Security badge, cynics of all types – left, right, and the worst, libertarians – can be counted on to smirk, sneer and tell jokes.
As weaselly libertarian host Seth MacFarlane, who traffics in vulgar jokes voiced over a teddy bear and a song that mocks female beauty as it targets beautiful actresses for humiliation, demonstrated last night with his silence in the midst of what amounts to a turning point toward a government-sponsored Academy Awards, today’s cluster of squinty, dark-haired malcontents in whom most Americans find humor will be found sniveling and cowering, never voicing a word of opposition. When everything is a joke, the threat of art dictated by the state cannot be taken seriously.