With Oscars, Hollywood Leads America to an International Vision

Posted on February 28, 2007
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Oscar Statuette As the U.S. continues to “go it alone” in the world with regard not only to neocon-style hegemony but also regarding environmental treaties, war crimes treaties, weapons bans, land mines, and transmitting any other number of insults to critics and allies alike, there is a large moneyed faction of “ordinary americans” seeking to take up the slack in foreign diplomacy.

The people I speak of are ordinary only in the sense that they have no official roles, for the most part, in our governing bodies. They vote at the ballot box and with their checkbooks, just like the rest of us.

Many of those folks could be seen on stage and in the audience at The Oscars Sunday night. The awards show was billed as the “most diverse” in The Oscars’ history, but they were not (only) talking about American diversity — Latino Americans, African Americans, Jewish Americans and Gay Americans — these and many other diverse Americans were full participants, and treated as if it had always been so (it has not). Instead, the host, Lesbian Ellen DeGeneres, when she brought up the topic, was talking about creating an international night of celebration.

It was great seeing and agreeing with such great folks as Ellen, Leonardo DiCaprio, Will Smith, Melissa Etheridge, George Clooney, Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, Forrest Whitacre, Cate Blanchette and Kate Winslet.

The theme seemed to come out of a convergence of some truly great international filmmaking and performances — any few of which, might have made it into the show naturally, and a conscious effort on the part of the organizers and participants to include international visions and voices.

It’s always been a somewhat reasonable, if short-sighted, argument that the show is an American awards show produced in America, primarily for an American audience. The second part of that argument was that an American focus must be maintained to keep the American audience. For this year, at least, all that was tossed aside. We can hope it is the beginning of a trend of American entertainment being inclusive of many astounding contributions from abroad.

Nathan Gardels and Mike Medavoy writing for Huffingtonpost.com see a larger movement in the international film industry, they’re clearly on to something, but I don’t see it as bad for Hollywood, though perhaps challenging:

But it is Babel’s Gonzalez Inarritu who has best captured what’s happening. “The world is changing,” he says. “The film community is now a global film community. Its not anymore about cultural barriers or language barriers. Its emotion and humanity. We are using the power of cinema to cross borders. We are understanding that now there’s a connection that needs to happen.”

I really don’t believe that parochialism is a distinctly American trait. It is true that we’ve made it an issue around the world, in part by our success, but lately, to a much larger extent because of our lack of consideration of others’ contributions from around the globe. Worse, by far, has been the aggression and arrogance we’ve allowed our leaders to project.

Clearly Iraq should not have happened. The language of “the war on terror” does nothing to make us safer or more well-thought-of (and safety and the perception of the U.S. in the world do seem to be linked). We should be leading the way on green energy technologies, not denying global warming at the highest levels and withdrawing from Kyoto.

The U.S. has unique qualities that should enable us to be one of the strongest advocates for peace and cooperation. Our multiculturalism provides a variety of perspectives if we have the ability to learn from them. We have boisterous religious expressions and debates with very little civic strife resulting. Our constitutional freedoms now joined by technology are beginning to allow everyone of us to directly participate in the debate on issues that affect our lives.

Our friends in Hollywood are able to do something more. The work product of the film industry, likely competes rather effectively with the work product of our government for the hearts and minds of people around the world. The images from our government have been for the most part not well received whether we were seeking to provide aid or to increase our own power. When we project so much aggression, our efforts to benefit others are received cynically, expecting cynicism in turn.

Hollywood is not without it’s issues in the international market. We’ve seen the film industry grow to become, as a whole, vastly more sensitive to other cultures. Viewing an old Tarzan movie (I’m sure there are worse examples) is all that’s needed to imagine how bad it could get. Some fault American films for promoting an image of American decadence around the world. I imagine if that issue could be addressed it would be done in the distribution channels, as the overall industry’s subject matter is diverse enough not to promote a single set of values.

Even I might fault our films for overemphasis on violence and spectacle and too little emphasis on story and character development. Even if producers believe that violence and sex is all people want, I’d challenge them to study the successes (and there are many) where violence and sex were not depicted, or where the story may derive from such strong drives and emotions but the audience sees only the buildup or the human consequences. Let the actors do the drama. Fireballs beget only bigger fireballs.

In defense of Hollywood, their product can live virtually forever. A politician or political movement from 30 years ago is very old news — annals of history stuff. A 30-year old film can continue to have a vast audience. As a human political movement, Hollywood can only be reasonably judged, as other politicians are judged, based on a short time span.

Clearly the people who spoke to America and to the world on Sunday night believe in a global community. A world where there is broad cooperation on issues that affect us all, like global warming, especially, but also human rights, AIDS and other diseases, American hegemony, and sectarian violence.

In the case of the Iraq war and global warming, the world can’t wait for our government to change. While we have a good idea, there’s no assurance it will change. Even if it does change, I don’t believe the majority of us are willing any longer to let government “leaders” set the agenda and determine our priorities. It was perfectly fine and perfectly “American” for actors, singers, directors and comedians to stand up and say on a national platform what they value and what are their priorities. The most stunning aspect was the stark contrast between their visions and those of the present administration’s.