It’s Oscar weekend in Hollywood, and the Real time The live audience was in the mood for some show business insight. Host Bill Maher did not fail.
The Oscars have some changes this year, Maher said. “They ask, ‘Who are you slapping?’
He also mentioned that it’s hard to remember who won what each year. “You win and you lose,” Maher said. He waited a beat. “Like Kamala Harris.”
Maher admits that he roots for one particular actor – Tom Cruise. “I want to see someone get up and say, “I want to thank Xenu.”
All that opening monologue was the warmup to Maher’s closing editorial in his “New Rules” section.
In a segment called “The Scold and the Beautiful,” Maher pondered the origins of award winners telling us their views, or “how it is with people through people with the best .”
Maher recalled that it had been 50 years since Sacheen Littlefeather caused a sensation by accepting the Best Actor award for Marlon Brando. He used the platform to detail how Hollywood mistreats Native Americans.
What Maher finds interesting in the accounts of that moment in 1973 is that Littlefeather was met with boos and jeers from the crowd. A producer said he would be arrested if his message went beyond 60 seconds, and legend has it that actor John Wayne had to be restrained from charging onto the stage. “It was back when storming the stage was not allowed,” he wryly noted.
That was then. But if he made that speech today, he would be embraced by the audience, Maher said. “That’s because of progress,” he said.
He then points out all the ways the world has changed since that moment. He noted that change takes time, and often leaders lag behind in the adjustment. “I don’t know if everything is happening at once everywhere,” he said, referring to the Oscar favorite. “But I know that everything is the last of everything, because that’s what it’s like to be human.”
Liberals are late, he said, “but they tend to keep going until we get there.” He lists films that have brought about greater understanding of issues ranging from AIDS to interracial marriage.
“They were dicks to an Indian in 1973, but a; on the way, Hollywood moved the country.”
He concluded, “So, thank you, Hollywood.”
Earlier, songwriter David Byrne talked about cowriting the Oscar-nominated song “This Is A Life” for the movie “Everything Everywhere All At Once,”
Bryne said the song was “about family reconciliation. I said, ‘That’s what it’s about. We’ve got to put a pin on that.’ He also allowed how he and his former Talking Heads bandmates “got on pretty well.”
Saw the panel discussion this week New York Times newsletter author and contributor to “The Glenn Show” podcast, John McWhorter, working journalist, executive producer, and COO for Eden Productions and Kunhardt Films, Josh Tyrangiel.
Their discussion ranged from Donald Trump’s appeal to the difference between equity and equality.