The Academy Award Speech We Should Have Heard (And Why We Won't - Dennis Prager Alert)

Townhall.com ^ | 03/07/06 | Dennis Prager

[goldstategop]

Here's a speech we would like to hear from an Academy Award winner:

I thank you for this wonderful award. Receiving an Academy Award gives the recipient an almost unique opportunity to speak to hundreds of millions people around the world, so I would like take this once-in-a-lifetime moment to say this:

First, I want to thank my country, the United States of America. Every one of us here has this country to thank for enabling us to live lives of unprecedented freedom and unimaginable affluence. Too many of us forget that no other country in history has offered such opportunities to people in our profession or in any other profession, for that matter.

Second, I want to thank the men and women of the armed forces of the United States. While we bask in freedom and spend a good part of our lives going from party to party and award show to award show, tens of thousands of my fellow Americans are confronting a menace to our world as great as that fought by previous generations fighting Nazism and communism.

At the same time, I also want to apologize to these troops for my profession not having made even one motion picture about any of the heroic American fighters in Afghanistan and Iraq. This country is fighting a war, Hollywood. You may think this war is unwise, waged under mistaken, or even false, pretenses. And as an actor in Hollywood, you are overwhelmingly likely to hate this commander in chief. But even the men and women of Hollywood must recognize that America is fighting the worst people of our time, people who hurt every group Hollywood claims to care about -- minorities, women, gays -- people who engage in the sins Hollywood most professes to oppose -- intolerance and violence -- far more than anyone else on the planet.

In another era, when what many have labeled "the greatest generation" fought the German Nazis and the Japanese fascists, Hollywood made movie after movie depicting that great war and our great warriors. And Hollywood showed freedom's enemies as the cruel and vicious people they were. We have not produced one film yet depicting this war in positive terms or one depicting this generation's enemies of freedom as the cruel and vicious people they are.

In fact, the only nominated film about people who slaughter children at discos, blow up weddings, and bomb pizzerias and buses filled with men, women and children is one that attempts to show these murderers in God's name as complex human beings. Just imagine how the Academy would have reacted 60 years ago to a film depicting Nazi murderers as complex human beings. We have descended far.

We in Hollywood walk around thinking we are very important. That is why this year's nominated films for best picture are largely pictures with messages, pictures that relatively few people actually see. But although Hollywood was always concerned with politics, we have let ourselves be taken over by those for whom their message is more significant than the primary purposes of film -- to illuminate life and to entertain. Yes, entertain.

You know, entertainment is actually a noble pursuit. Life is difficult for almost every human being on earth. And if we can offer people an elevated way to divert their attention for a couple of hours from their troubled child, their marital tensions, their ill parent, their financial woes, we have rendered the world a greater service than by making another message-film against racism in America, the least racist country in the world.

My fellow actors, we walk around feeling that we are very important. But we do so only because we confuse fame with significance. We do have more fame than any other human beings in history. Far more people have heard of any actor here tonight than of any of the discoverers of any medication saving billions of lives, of any teacher of the disabled, of any nurse tending the aged, of almost any national leader.

But the truth is that, as noble a calling as acting can be, all we do is make-believe: We portray other people, and we speak words written by other people. Everyone knows our names, but almost no one knows us. All they know are the characters we play.

Thank you again. I hope I haven't ruined your evening.

[goldstategop]

The speech we didn't hear at the Oscars - and why we won't. It would be wonderful to have an actor offer thanks to his country, to take a moment to thank our brave troops fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq and to underscore the need to make films that celebrate the valor of those fighting to preserve the freedoms we enjoy from this generation's enemies who seek to destroy them. And we didn't hear an actor remind us they engage in the art of make-believe, which is what acting signifies: to entertain us and take us away from life's cares - something more important than any message a movie could ever hope to embody.

And we won't hear it because Hollywood is filled with self-satisfied narcissists who think its about them and their egos and they forget fame carries with an obligation as well as a privilege. It would be nice to hear some humility from the famous but because of who they've become, I don't expect them to ever give that noble a speech on an Oscar evening.

(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")

[BigSkyFreeper]

In a perfect world it's much easier to thank your director, co-stars, mom, and grandma and get the hell off the stage.

I don't care about all that other garbage and why I haven't watched award shows in ages.

[Lunatic Fringe]

I think the orchestra would have drowned you out after 2 minutes.

[durasell]

You don't hear that speech because it doesn't relate to the moment or the reason they are on stage. The winners have received an honor from peers and in the custom of receiving something, they are thanking the people responsible for giving them the honor.

[MJY1288]

Unfortunately, The left has encouraged our enemies with their sympathetic stand with those who stand against all of us, and everything WE belive in.

If the left had it's way tonight, The left would consider themselves as real leaders with John Stewart as their chance ?.......

[jazusamo]

Had Gary Sinise won an Oscar he would have said something very similar to that. Sadly, he's the only one I can think of.

[durasell]

Had Gary Sinise won an Oscar he would have said something very similar to that. Sadly, he's the only one I can think of.



A riot would have broken out in the auditorium if Gary Sinise won, since he wasn't in any of the nominated movies...

[writer33]

There was an awards ceremony? When did this happen?

:-)

[durasell]

Last night. A bunch of film clips. Some music. Bad stand-up. Same ole, same ole...

[hole_n_one]

The winners have received an honor from peers and in the custom of receiving something, they are thanking the people responsible for giving them the honor.

Yeah, right........

[jazusamo]

A mere technicality. :)

[BigSkyFreeper]

There's absolutely no reason why these award shows couldn't be one or even 1.5 hours long instead of 3+ hours long. It's patently absurd to turn an award show into a DNC convention.

[durasell]

Oh, Brando, Brando...they don't make'em like that anymore...

[BigSkyFreeper]

Had Gary Sinise won an Oscar he would have said something very similar to that. Sadly, he's the only one I can think of.

First of all, he has to be nominated, and secondly, since he wasn't in anything that was up for nomination, he'd be wasting his time and everyone elses.

[goldstategop]

They can't take a moment to express thanks to this wonderful country and those who serve it nobly - now there's a true waste of national talent. No wonder people loathe Hollywood.

(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")

[goldstategop]

Etiquette is so outdated my friend and thoughtlessness has become a cultural fashion. This from the jet set crowd and they wonder why people don't think much of them. Every time I hear a starlet make an unthinking comment, I feel like smashing them in the mouth. They convey an obnoxious arrogance bordering on the offensive.

(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")

[jazusamo]

Again, a mere technicality. :)

[durasell]

The awards and the ceremony is pretty meaningless in and of themselves. However, if a movie wins, then everyone involved gets a middling to huge pay raise on their next project. The idea for a lot of these people is to get up there, say something semi-memorable and/or gracious, sit back down and have your agent begin negotiations for the next project.

If some actor gets up there and says something controversial, then his pay could drop significantly.

[goldstategop]

I feel that an expression of courtesy and reverence is part of high station. It used to be that the famous set an example of good taste and noble conduct for the rest of us because it was an obligation. You also understood that your fame was a privilege to be a national ambassador to people less privileged than you were. A pity no one thinks like that any more. True, famous people were always set apart from every one else but then once upon a time they expected nothing but the best from themselves and that's part of the reason people esteemed them.

(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")