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Oscar says something new about Hollywood

By James P. Pinkerton

    LOS ANGELES: The big winners at the Academy Awards were libertarians, militarists and multiculturalists, and the enemies of political correctness. This may not seem like the old Hollywood, but it is the new US, changing culturally, demographically and politically.

    "Gladiator" proved yet again that love of spectacle drowns out liberal sentiment, presenters and narrators mouthed clichŽs, which are, of course, true, about the "glory" of ancient Rome.Evidently Dead White European Males have made a comeback; indeed, Russell Crowe plays a Roman general who settles matters with the sword.

    "Gladiator" presumes there is nothing wrong with the Roman Empire that new leadership at the top could not cure.As David Boaz of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington observes, "The underlying theme is republicanism, a Roman idea that inspired the American Founders."

    If "Gladiator" was a militarist-libertarian synthesis, "Traffic", is a mix of pacifism and libertarianism, a call for a cease-fire in the drug war, which has killed thousands and imprisoned millions in the US alone.

    The opinion elites have embraced the film; the headline above a news story in The Washington Post declared, "In Senate Debate on Drugs, "Traffic" Moves Minds." The film portrays the anti-drug effort as "a well-intentioned flop," the reporter noted, adding hopefully that the film's message had "not gone unheeded on Capitol Hill."

    It was Hollywood's turn to heed, and applaud, its own libertarian message. Actor Ben Affleck introduced a clip from the film, noting that "Traffic" depicted "the seedy, complex and dangerous world of drugs." No mention of the word "illegal."

    It was a sign of the globalized times that "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" won four Oscars, including best foreign-language film. As one of those Oscar winners, cinematographer Peter Pau, said on Sunday that the award was "a great honour to my family, the people of Hong Kong and to Chinese people all over the world."

    For the first time in years, the presenter patter was free of anti-Republican jokes. The choice of Steve Martin as master of ceremonies guaranteed a different tone.

    Martin has always been apolitical; his humour has traditionally been less about headlines and more about the permanent human condition.

    George W. Bush did not get many votes out of Hollywood last year, and he will not get many next time, either. But the Oscar show was an early indicator that the preciously PC ideology of show biz is changing under pressure from history, demography and, yes, reality.

-Dawn/LAT-WP News Service (c) Newsday.

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