The Information Center – The Oscars: Yawns, Eye Rolls and a Continuing Free Fall

It’s interesting what makes some people happy and brings satisfaction to them. For myself, I’m pretty easy to please, but I have to say, watching the free fall in ratings for the glitzy awards shows brings a big wide smile. And writing columns about it as I often do, especially after the latest ratings disaster just adds frosting to a tasty cake. And so, after the numbers that came out from Sunday’s Oscars found that, as bad as the decline in viewership has been the past few years, this year saw the event even lose an astounding 20% more fans. At this rate in another year or so, the Oscars will be on a podcast shown at 3am, if at all.

Preferring to watch the paint dry on a bedroom ceiling, no one in the family watched the show. But, we did catch some of the so called ‘highlights’ the next day. And yup, ever predictable, it was another preach and scold session where the ‘celebrities’ lectured the diminished audience about their brand of politics. And while those groupies and wannabes in the live audience, much like trained seals waiting for a fish, clapped on cue at every leftwing rant uttered from the stage, what remains of the TV viewing audience just rolled their eyes, yawned and in many cases changed channels on their TVs.

MC Jimmy Kimmel, what can you say about him? The guy hasn’t been funny in a couple of years now. Because while he spouts his nonsense with a smile on his face, you see the hate in his eyes and hear it in his voice. He’s so bitter, nasty and petty he can’t even hide his contempt for the American public. His comedy has completely turned to sarcasm and that act has gotten old.

But here’s this year’s irony. The trendy topic for the Hollywood types for this season’s Oscars is Gun Control. THEY don’t think Americans should have Second Amendment rights. They are fiercely opposed to firearms in the hands of private American citizens for the protection of their families? Apparently, the celebs think their lives are much more important than ours because, at their insistence, last Sunday’s event was surrounded by 500 armed Los Angeles police officers in addition to the ‘stars’ own personal armed security. Wouldn’t it be nice if America’s school children were as protected as the celebrities at the Oscars? Do we see an inconsistency here? As they took turns condemning gun violence in America, the money and royalties THEY collect from movies they make and star in glorifying massacres and mayhem just rolls in. A good guess would be that if you put it to these actors and actresses to promise never to be in another movie where people get shot, they’d flatly refuse. Hey, they wore their orange lapel pins and ribbons on stage, so they’ve done their part.

Many have asked since last Sunday’s show if the push from the stage for gun control wasn’t in part to create a distraction, so they wouldn’t have to talk too much about the sexual abuse scandals that run wild through Hollywood. You know, the ones they’ve all known about and enabled for years but hoped the public would never learn about? Think about it. How can they in good conscience tell the rest of us how to live our lives if all these elitists on stage are running around groping and raping each other? They would much rather talk about our guns.

But probably the most telling part of the night, the segment which speaks volumes about the kind of people the Hollywood types are, was when British born actor Gary Oldman, God Bless him, came to the podium to accept his award for his portrayal of Winston Churchill. While the trained seals in the audience would wildly applaud every dig and barb at Heartland America that was thrown out from the pampered malcontents on stage, the reception Gary Oldman got for what he said was quite different. When the humbled actor praised this country and told of how grateful he was for all the gifts and opportunities America had blessed himself and his family with, he received a stony, cold silence from the crowd. They clearly didn’t want to hear anything good said about the United States of America.

So, here’s the final question for this week: They sit and fume in the audience if anyone gives praise to America. They make it obvious that they lack American pride. But as much as so many of them have threatened to leave the country and move to Canada or Europe, they just won’t go. Why? They sit and scowl and trash our nation at every opportunity but know damn well that their bad attitudes wouldn’t be tolerated any place else.