ACADEMY AWARDS SENDS WRONG MESSAGE ON VIOLENCE

 Embarrassing Tinsel Town Stupidly Sends The Wrong Message on Violence

“Instead of an Oscar, this person should have been arrested and charged with assault, and when convicted, required to perform community service to the youth of our inner cities particularly expounding on why such violent acts are to be avoided. “

The Oscar Awards ceremony this year was a paradigm of our modern declining, divided, violent and dysfunctional society.  In its typical  mindless “tinsel town way” the Academy in an attempt to cast itself as “relevant” abandoned awarding its coveted Oscars  based on actual artistry, creativity, execution, uniqueness, excellence, and technical expertise and instead shifted to precepts based on the modern watchwords of:  inclusivity, diversity and wokism .  As a result, this year’s  Academy Awards ceremony began as a dull, boring and predictable event, attracting one of the lowest level of TV viewers in its history.  

That was until ——part way through the ceremony—-Hollywood morphed from “tinsel town” into “Saturday night in West Garfield, Chicago” when the staid  event, exploded  into ugly physical and verbal violence.  

The innocent victim, a well-known comedian, was presenting the winner of a documentary film and had just finished a “one liner”which included a reference to the hair style (or lack of it) of a well known actress sitting in the front row.   The not too funny joke elicited a ripple of audience laughter.  But not with the male partner of the front row woman  This man angrily left his seat and marched up onto the stage,  where without comment, he assaulted the presenter with a “round house” strike to his face.  The violent man returned to his seat from where he continued to verbally assault the comedian-presenter with loud, rude, and coarse obscenities which could be heard throughout the theater. When asked to leave he refused.

The “perp” who should have been arrested for assault, remained secure and unruffled in his seat waiting for the prestigious “Best Actor” award.  In due “tinsel town” fashion as the ceremonies proceeded, the individual who had  just shocked and embarrassed himself,  his colleagues, and the Academy, rather than being handcuffed and marched out of the venue with a raincoat over his head,  was instead honored and presented with the Academy’s most prestigious award —one avidly sought after, often unsuccessfully, by hundreds highly talented actors.  

Unbelievably this  person, inexplicably in tears, accepted the magnificent encomium , but without apology to his victim, his colleagues, the TV audience, and those around the world,  or the organization which he so grievously embarrassed. 

This public display of violence, and the seeming acceptance of such behavior, could not have occurred at a worse time for the nation.   Hollywood, the entertainment industry, and the Academy all embarrassed themselves by sending an absolutely wrong message to the TV audience and the nation at the worst possible time.   

Violence in our nation is rampant. Similar senseless, emotional and violent acts often leading to homicide are  the daily scourge of our inner cities. In Chicago alone,  such violent behaviors resulted in 800 homicides in 2021, a level not attained in the previous quarter of a century.  So far this year (2022) Chicago has racked up another 200 homicides up to the present. The Windy City is not alone.  Deadly  physical  violence in our nation’s inner cites and urban schools is surging out of control all across the country.  There were 20,000 homicides in the USA so far in 2022.   These ugly, socially destructive, deadly behaviors almost all begin with violent speech and physical aggression, just as was witnessed on the Hollywood stage.  

But where are the thinking adults?  In this sad event seen by millions across the nation, the Academy, the attendees and organizers  all tacitly accepted violence and assault, and then even more egregiously, they actually honored the  perpetrator only a short time later, when he was “honored” with the Academy’s highest award.  What kind of message does that send?

How could  tinsel town have sent any more harmful and damaging message to our nation’s youth?  How many copycat assaults will this encourage?  How many on stage comedians will suffer assault?  On a personal level is this not similar behavior to the thuggish acts of certain brutal foreign leaders in Eastern Europe?  Yet we all so readily decry their behavior, but sit by and accept similar kinds of behavior in our midst seeming without complaint then in fact reward it. 

Instead of an Oscar, this person should have been arrested and charged with assault, and when convicted, required to perform community service to the youth of our inner cities particularly expounding on why such violent acts are to be avoided.  That would be an appropriate punishment and perhaps in some small way undo some of the harm the act itself caused.