Oscar proof that success doesn’t equal class

For the first time in years, I actually watched some of the Motion Picture Academy Award program the other night. My wife was watching it, so I obliged to sit with her for a little while before retreating to the rest of the Sunday newspaper.
That didn’t take very long, unfortunately.
As soon as actress Melissa Leo dropped the f-bomb on live broadcast television, I decided that I had had enough. Ms. Leo reminded me just exactly why I stopped watching and caring about the Oscar Awards so many years ago.
Foremost, I don’t like the cultural elitism or the stench of hypocrisy that are so much a part of Hollywood, America’s cesspool of degenerate counterculture. Why Americans tend to put gold rings in the snouts of swine and place them up on pedestals to be worshipped is beyond me. But we do this routinely with movie stars and entertainment celebrities.
No doubt Ms. Leo has a loyal fan base. Her every word, her every action is watched, listened to and scrutinized. She can and does have a profound impact on impressionable youths and young people who perhaps idolize her or will put her up on a pedestal now that she has an Oscar.
What sort of lesson is she providing a youth or a young person when she blurts out offensive language on national television for millions of viewers to hear?
Perhaps the lesson is, don’t give a s--- about what may offend someone else. Just say or do whatever you feel like saying or doing; regardless of how it affects others around you.
Great lesson, Ms. Leo.
You ought to be profoundly thankful that ABC TV caught your guffaw before it could be clearly and unmistakably heard; although I imagine that viewers who read lips had little doubt about what you said.
It is nice that Ms. Leo apologized afterward for her foul-mouthed gaffe. However, what she said and how she said it is so indicative to me of the degeneracy that permeates the media and entertainment industries. She spoke the profanity so casually as if it was just natural for her to say.
Yet, she had this to say afterward: “There’s a great deal of the English language that is in my vernacular. I really don’t mean to offend, and probably a very inappropriate place to use that particular word.”
Ms. Leo has a shaky grasp of the obvious.
Prime-time, national broadcast television an inappropriate place? You think?
An event where the pinnacle of achievement in the motion picture industry is recognized an inappropriate place? Double think.
Oscar night is like the Super Bowl for Hollywood. It is the big stage, the big show, the big dance. Ms. Leo’s profanity slip is the equivalent of Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction several years ago during a Super Bowl halftime show.
Sure, it was a mistake, but the choreography with Justin Timberlake was not. He did not unintentionally grasp Jackson’s chest as he had awkwardly claimed afterward. Footage of the incident shows quite clearly that the grab was an intentional part of the act. The only thing that went wrong was that Jackson’s breast wasn’t actually supposed to be exposed.
Otherwise, the show was a highly sexual performance from the lyrics to the choreography, and completely inappropriate even without the wardrobe malfunction. The performance of both entertainers was rather indicative of the degenerate entertainment culture of which they are both products.
Likewise, Ms. Leo’s profane gaffe may have been a mistake, but it is also indicative of the degenerate counterculture from which she has risen to stardom and in which she is so deeply entrenched.
The fact that she has a much broader repertoire of vernacular than the f-bomb, but she let it slip out so casually tells me that there were few words that she would have rather used at that time and at that moment. She just didn’t care who would hear it or how it might offend others. She evidently lacks the self-control incumbent upon a professional to exhibit and exercise in public; if not for herself to save face, then for the sake of saving face for her colleagues and her profession. She has a duty to represent herself to her fans with a certain amount of dignity that is respectful of them. She has a duty to represent her profession with a certain amount of dignity that reflects well on her colleagues and on her trade.
I am just sick and tired of hearing celebrities step up on their soap boxes and preach about how we all ought to live, what we ought to say, or how we ought to be tolerant and embrace the differences among us when their lives are often contrary to those things for which they advocate. Whether it’s going green for the sake of saving the environment, or being tolerant and accepting, or not offending others, entertainment celebrities have an uncanny propensity for not practicing what they preach.
I wonder just how much “diversity” exists in Beverly Hills or Malibu, where so many of the pretty people live in sheltered affluence conveniently away from the harsh realities that the rest of us have to live in. Is there much income disparity between celebrity neighbors? How many of them have been foreclosed on? How many homeless or low income people do they come in contact with each and every day between leaving their beachfront houses or private estates for the club, health spa, studios and ritzy restaurants? How much social ambiguity are they exposed to in their daily lives? How the heck can they rightfully preach tolerance, acceptance and understanding when their very lives are so mundanely uniformed, structured and scheduled?
They don’t have to worry about paying bills or taxes. They hire people to manage their finances for them. They don’t have to worry about child-rearing. They hire people to do that for them, too. They don’t have to worry about running a household. They hire more people to do that for them. They take everyday expenses for granted, because they don’t generally have to worry about staying on a household budget.
The very least that Ms. Leo or any other star or starlet can do to be respectful of the rest of us who will never experience the kind of luxurious lifestyle they are privileged to live is to use a little decorum around us and our children. Appropriate speech is not that hard to master. It really is a matter of having presence of mind and cognizance of one’s surroundings.
As a father of three, the very last thing I should have to worry about is what somebody says on primetime broadcast television. With everything else that I must attend to in my daily life, it is an added burden to me that I must explain to my children that saying the “f” word isn’t appropriate even if celebrities use it so casually all of the time.