Louis B. Mayer, the legendary head of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, started the Academy Awards. According to Mayer, “the best way to handle moviemakers was to hang medals all over them.” Mayer said by giving “them cups and awards” he could get them to “kill themselves” producing what he wanted. Mayer’s insightful understanding of Tinsel Town reminds me of a question once posed to a Hollywood film critic: “What do all movie stars have in common?” The critic replied, “The dazed look in their eyes when the conversation turns from them to something else.”

Believing itself to be the center of the universe and the absolute obsession of every human on planet earth, Hollywood has deceived itself into believing that it can change the world into whatever it wants the world to be with nothing more than a few feet of film. Long gone are the days when the goal of the motion picture industry was to entertain. Today, it seeks to indoctrinate. As one liberal Democrat recently quipped, “The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is the only branch of government we control.”

All of the nominees for this year’s best picture Oscar had two things in common—small budgets and low box office. Still, despite their unpopularity with the public, Hollywood insisted that they were the absolute best in cinematic achievement. Why? It obviously had nothing to do with their entertainment value. It must have been, therefore, their usefulness as propaganda in persuading the public to come over to Hollywood’s point of view.

One of the movies was about gay cowboys and another about a homosexual author with questionable journalistic ethics to boot. Of course, in both movies homosexuals were portrayed sympathetically. Another nominated film, suggested that Jewish avengers who hunted down the Palestinian murderers of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics were responsible for creating a “cycle of violence.” There was even a film nominated for best foreign language film that sympathetically portrayed a Muslim suicide bomber who blew up a bus in Haifa in 2003 killing 17 innocent people, 9 of which were schoolchildren.

“Good Night, and Good Luck,” a movie co-written and directed by George Clooney, was also nominated for best picture of the year. The movie demonizes the late Senator Joseph McCarthy, while lionizing the late CBS anchorman Edward R. Murrow. Apparently, it doesn’t matter to Clooney that history has proven McCarthy right and Murrow wrong. There really were communist spies who had infiltrated our government, such as Alger Hiss. Yet, Clooney couldn’t make a movie based on the facts, so he revised history and made a movie that he personally fabricated to serve his political ends. That is, after all, what good moviemaking is all about these days.

As a reward for his dedication to the left-wing lunatic fringe, Clooney was this year’s most honored nominee. He even took home the Oscar for best supporting actor. The moral to “Looney’s,” I mean Clooney’s, story is: If you want to be showered with Academy Award nominations and end up taking home an Oscar for your mantel, you better make sure you’re of the right, I mean left,  political persuasion.

Well, its time to bid this year’s Academy Awards adieu, but at least we can leave with this year’s winning show tune playing in our heads. Let’s see, what was this year’s winning song? Oh yea, “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp.” On second thought, maybe we don’t want that playing in our heads.

Don Walton